As we edge ever closer to the next General Election, it cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that politicians from both major parties are starting to ‘talk tertiary’ in a bid to fix Britain’s growing skills shortages and ensure people receive appropriate education and training to unlock meaningful careers within key sectors and industries. There is clearly merit in developing comprehensive, industry-ready training pathways through further and higher education, as per the model currently being employed by the LSBU Group in south London, but without careful policy management, the tertiary model risks neglecting the part of the knowledge economy in which we are already excelling – namely research and innovation.
As CEO of London Higher, I am conscious that our organisation has the privilege of representing a rich diversity of members not even shared by Universities UK (UUK). These include small, specialist, postgraduate-only higher education institutions, such as The Institute for Cancer Research and the Royal College of Art, as well are large, multi-faculty, research-intensive universities such as UCL, Queen Mary or King’s College London – all of which produce world-leading research in their relevant disciplines and help maintain the UK’s global competitiveness when it comes to trailblazing innovations and scientific or creativity-driven success. It is therefore in all our interests that we move forwards with a policy framework for skills in England that keeps sight of all the interconnected components of our national knowledge economy and enables the UK’s excellent research-performing institutions to continue to thrive.
Of course, there is no easy way to make sense of the complexity of the world around us, which also makes governing a challenge. The repeated tweaks and additions to Whitehall departments over the years clearly reflect changing government priorities in response to some of these complexities, as well as legal and constitutional responsibilities. When it comes to the activities of higher education institutions, the UK Government only has the power to legislate over the educational activities of providers in England, given powers over education are devolved to the relevant administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Yet, Westminster retains responsibility for science, research and innovation UK-wide. This mismatch of powers has to a large degree, contributed to the current Whitehall departmental alignment, which sees the non-research elements of England’s universities and higher education institutions fall under the jurisdiction of the Department for Education (DfE) and the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) ruling over UK-wide research strategy and its implementation.
