Rethinking the ‘third mission’: UK universities and regional engagement in challenging times

Abstract

Drawing on the experiences and statements of two universities, this article sets out to relate current trends and discourses of engagement of UK higher education (HE) institutions with their regional environment in the context of major policy shifts in HE and in regional governance. The ‘third mission’ is considered as an aspect of what universities do in place and in relation to other place-based agencies. In this process of exploration, we attempt to identify adjustment behaviours and discourses in contrasting regional contexts and to relate them to the unequal power of universities and to their structural embeddedness in a local socio-economic and policy fabric.

Keywords:

• universities
• regional engagement
• embeddedness
• third mission
• marketization

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of other members of the research team (Michael Amoah, Alice Bennion, John Brennan and Ruth Williams) in helping us to develop our ideas, although we take full responsibility for the arguments presented here.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Yann Lebeau is Senior Lecturer in Educational Research and Associate Dean of Postgraduate Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of East Anglia (UK). His research interests lie in the sociology of HE communities and where HE and social change intersect.

Allan Cochrane is Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Urban Studies at the Open University (UK). His research interests lie at the junction of geography, social and public policy. He is particularly interested in understanding and exploring the ways in which the spaces of public policy are made up in practice, in ways that reflect relations of power within and beyond the state.

Notes

1. Higher Education and Regional Transformation: Social and Cultural Perspectives (the HEART Project). This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/EO17894/1]. The project involved four regional case studies in England and Scotland, based primarily on individual and group interviews with members of staff at each university and with local ‘stakeholders’ (representatives of key partner agencies and organizations such as city councils, local schools, colleges and universities, as well as community, business and regional development organizations).

2. The regions, institutions and individuals have been given fictitious names in order to maintain the anonymity of our research participants and also to reflect the use of case studies in our research as ‘instrumental’ illustrations, rather than ‘intrinsic’ insights into particular contexts.

3. In the UK, an HE-BCI survey is run annually since 1999 by the Higher Education Statistics Agency HESA). The survey has informed funding allocation for third stream activities of universities through the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) since 2006 (HEFCE 2011b).

4. Northville 2020, the Strategic Plan for Northville University (2012, accessed from University website in May 2014); Towards NU (2015) The Strategic Plan (2005) Advancing the 2015 Agenda. The Strategic Plan of NU (2009 edition).

5. Lochside University (2007), Strategic Plan 2007–11; Lochside University (2011), Strategic Plan 2011–15; Lochside University (2012), Outcome Agreement Academic Year 2012/13.