From her perspective as University of Cumbria Vice-Chancellor and Co-Chair of Cumbria LEP’s People, Employment and Skills Strategy group, Professor Julie Mennell writes on the significant role that modern universities are playing in addressing place and skills needs.
As a Vice Chancellor and Co-Chair of Cumbria LEP’s People, Employment and Skills Strategy group, I know first-hand what a significant role our universities fulfil, direct and through collaborative working, in addressing place and skills needs.
In 2007 the University of Cumbria was established in one of the largest, most sparsely populated and rural parts of the UK, with a small population size (half a million), declining working age population, low HE participation rates, and five thousand 18-year-olds. In an operating context further challenged by its dispersed and poly-centric employment, skills and sectors’ landscape, cold spots of higher-level skills and labour supply, health inequalities, travel and affordable housing constraints.
It was always going to be tough to establish a sustainable and successful university in Cumbria. Indeed, this challenge was exacerbated further following the removal of the student number cap, teacher training policy changes, the student fee introduction (and subsequent freezing), and the removal of the student maintenance grant and NHS bursary for nursing and midwifery students.
