By Gill Evans, Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge.
A National Infrastructure Report, Partnering for Prosperity, proposes ‘a new deal for the Cambridge-Milton-Keynes-Oxford Arc’. With Oxford and Cambridge as its ‘book-ends’, the ‘ARC’ includes Cranfield University, the University of Buckingham, Buckinghamshire New University, and the Open University, all clustered in or near Milton Keynes.[1] Similar desiderata are explored in a recent Report of the Higher Education Policy Institute on the future of the ‘Oxford to Cambridge Arc’ in the context of the regional working together of the other local universities.
Though recognising that this area has ‘a highly skilled labour force, cutting edge research facilities and technology clusters’ Partnering for Prosperity concentrates chiefly on the housing that may be made available. The closure of a direct railway line a generation ago is to be reconsidered. A ‘new deal’ calls for the ‘proposed East West Rail and Expressway schemes’ to be ‘built as quickly as possible to unlock land for new homes and provide a better service for those who already live across the arc’. This ‘infrastructure’ review barely mentions the local universities, though they have been exploring partnerships among them through the Oxford-Cambridge ARC Universities Group, with a focus on the region as a ‘global knowledge-intensive and fast-growing economic hub, creating high-tech superclusters set to drive future UK and international development’.
All this chimes with a geographically wider policy proposal. Universities UK’s publication of Opportunity, Growth and Partnership: a blueprint for change from the UK’s Universities seeks to ‘maximise the contribution of UK universities to economic growth and widening opportunity for all’. The authors of its chapters variously seek ‘new group structures akin to the University of London federated model’; ‘collaboration between regional providers’ to ‘reduce duplication’ and ‘unproductive local competition’; it would like to see ‘collaborative tertiary education’, ‘generating local growth’ through ‘partnership’. Partnership with business is also strongly recommended, for both financial and research-related reasons. In the case of funding for research, it is suggested that ‘businesses should fund 100 per cent of industry-sponsored research’ and ‘funders should review requirements that universities match-fund projects, lowering the amount they are expected to contribute to below 20 per cent’.
‘Place-based’ strategies have been found to have many benefits, stimulating:
economic growth by co-locating and leveraging the physical assets of universities, research institutions, high-tech companies, advanced civic infrastructure and thriving ecosystems of entrepreneurs, businesses, and investors.
The Warwick Manufacturing Group in the 1990s and the Birmingham Innovation Quarter are mentioned as examples. Lincoln University is stated to be ‘working with further education and the NHS to help address local healthcare workforce needs’.
Both Universities UK and HEPI stress the importance of the local universities involving themselves in the general welfare of a region, including Local Growth Plans and any Regional Innovation Fund. Opportunity, Growth and Partnership encourages universities to make themselves a single point of contact for higher education providers in partnerships formed for such purposes.
The considerable variation of type and character among the universities in the ARC
Local regional benefits are not necessarily the first priority of the local providers. Oxford and Cambridge are in a category of their own. They have democratic governing bodies of many thousands. Other providers of higher education now need either a royal charter or the permission of the Office for Students to lay claim to either, but these two simply awarded themselves both ‘university title’ and degree-awarding powers at the beginning of the thirteenth century and continue to frame their internal legislation for themselves, subject to Privy Council approval which has never been withheld. With democratic governing bodies of several thousands Oxford and Cambridge sit lightly to the requirement under the Education and Research Act of 1992 to have a governing body with a maximum of 24 members. The Committee of University Chairs does not include Oxford or Cambridge among its 142 members because their governing bodies have no Chairs.
Oxford and Cambridge enter into ‘partnerships’ in only very limited ways. Buckingham University lists Oxford and Cambridge among its ‘collaborators’ but that does not seem to be noted as mutual by either of the ancient universities. Even the mutual recognition of Oxford and Cambridge is limited, though in certain circumstances they will incorporate one another’s graduates (and for historical reasons those of Trinity College, Dublin) as their own, under Oxford’s Statute X, 5. (1) and Cambridge’s Statute B, II, 2.
Oxford’s India-Oxford Initiative seeks ‘to develop and sustain equitable partnerships between the University and institutions and individuals in India’. Cambridge has a Strategy Office, acting subject to a Protocol which includes a reminder that legal liability will lie with the University if a ‘University body, grouping or individual’ enters into an ‘agreement’. However these are arrangements of a limited scope.
The remainder of the higher education providers in the ARC are varied in other ways but more closely local to the ARC in their operation. The University of Buckingham, a not-for-profit private University, was created as a pioneering experiment, gaining a royal charter in 1983 and controversially offering two-year degrees. A Dyslexia Research and Education Hub was opened at Buckingham in September 2024. It now has a High Wycombe campus within the ARC and but also a Crewe campus. Buckinghamshire New University, a public university which gained university status in 2007 has campuses at High Wycombe, Aylesbury, Uxbridge, Great Missenden. The Open University, a public research university established in 1969, though having its headquarters in Milton Keynes, works mainly digitally with its students. It lists many partnerships.
A provider of higher education may see itself as a member of a group in ways remote from the region. It may belong to one in the spirit of joining a ‘club’ of ‘equals’. GuildHE describes itself as ‘ the advocate of choice for smaller and specialist higher education institutions’. There are also ‘associations’. For example, the Open University belongs to the European University Association, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and Universities UK.
‘Knowledge transfer’, business and commercial partnerships
In 2017 a Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) was added to the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) and the REF (Research excellence Framework). Its purpose was ‘to assess’ not only ‘an institution’s research’ but also ‘how that was applied and used by others’ in ways ‘valuable to both the economy and society’. Business Schools proved to be valuable earners, not least because they helped to attract international students, who could be charged high fees. This threw local interests far wider. A survey of Deans at a conference of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) suggsted that ‘parent universities’ finances were to some extent reliant on business schools’ ability to recruit international postgraduates, and on average 60 per cent of the net income generated by business schools was creamed off by their parent institutions’.
‘Knowledge transfer’ partnerships may be formed, commonly ‘linking a business with the University’ in areas matching ‘business needs’ sometimes but not always local. These have been favoured in the ARC. Buckinghamshire New University, for example, explains enticingly that such arrangements are of benefit to businesses:
A KTP starts with the business’s vision to innovate and diversify its products or services, or develop new and improved ways of working. By collaborating with the university through a KTP, your business will access expert knowledge from our academic team.
It adds that funding through Innovate UK enables the business to recruit a highly-skilled individual who is dedicated to delivering a specific, strategic innovation project for the business. The general value of such partnerships was assessed in an Evaluation Report in 2023.
Controversy over the expansion of Oxford and Cambridge across the ARC
In 2017 Oxford University took out Bonds worth £750 million. In 2018 the University of Cambridge took out Bonds worth £600 million to help fund their expansion beyond the city limits. Both had in mind expansion further into the ARC.
Oxford University added a Science Park on the outskirts of the city at Begbroke as ‘a place to carry out cutting-edge research, to collaborate with industry and to develop innovative ideas into new products and technologies’. However, this did not prove uncontroversial. The University had bought the site, including green belt land. The District Council had permitted its development because of the University’s ‘unmet need’. The relevant parish councils complained that they had not been consulted about the creation of the necessary footpaths. ‘Affordable housing’ development followed, but that too has been subject to criticism.
Nevertheless his movement outwards across the ARC continues to expand. In September 2024 planning permission was granted for ‘the development of a 170-acre innovation district’ around the Science Park.
Cambridge has found its similar expansion beyond the city limits repeatedly challenged. The first Report on the North-West Cambridge project appeared in 2000, the second in 2004, and another in March 2005 on ‘emerging spatial options’. A series of enabling followed Reports in 2011-14.
The West and North West Cambridge Estates Syndicate was ‘authorized’ in 2011 ‘where relevant to exercise in the name of the University the powers of the University’ for the purposes of disposal or allocation of its land. [2] There was some mission drift.
The Reporter of 24 October 2012 said that while the University intended ‘to maintain over the long term its freehold interests in much of the site’, ‘for commercial and other reasons it is proposed to dispose of freehold interests for private housing, with some commercial disposals by long leaseholds’. There was mention of ‘700 units for sale on a market basis by residential developers under land sale agreements’.
In July 2015, ‘the Finance Committee was formally notified that the cost of Phase 1 had increased significantly’. Price Waterhouse Cooper was engaged to conduct an independent review. The findings of the Property Board’s own ensuing financial review were discussed at its meeting on 11 January 2022. It is admitted that:
the cash-flow generated by the development will be insufficient on its own to consistently meet the annual coupon obligations and the scheduled contribution to the bond repayment reserve (both in respect of the 2012 bond) until the 2046–47 financial year.
Cambridge has continued to work on a Masterplan for its North West Cambridge Development, despite concerns about the quality of the housing and lack of available amenities.[3] In Eddington, Knights Park houses are now for sale freehold. On 29 August this year, The Times carried an article claiming that Cambridge was about to see the ‘first houses built for rental’. Present Made, a family rental division of Apache Capital’, had ‘bought land’ from the University, 150 hectares to build 373 houses, a ’communal pavilion, a gym, playgrounds and co-working space’ worth £160m.
A high level of external funding has been available for the Cambridge Biomedical campus. In November 2024, the campus was ‘set to receive £500 million in investment from US firm Prologis’.
Conclusion
HEPI’s recent publications include a call for ‘a holistic tertiary approach to post-18 education and training that: breaks down the policy silos around these sectors’ in a ‘tertiary education system’ bringing together ‘further and higher education, apprenticeships and adult learning’. It is argued that ‘skills’ would benefit by conjoining ‘place-based’ collaboration with collaborative ‘provision’ of further and higher and apprentice-based education. This is likely to fit well with meeting local needs.
[1] Buckingham University’s Vice-Chancellor was suspended in late 2024, at the instigation of its Council, which was said to disapprove of ‘various interventions he had made’, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/02/buckingham-university-james- -free-speech/
[2] Established by Grace 2 of 19 May 2011 and see Report of the Council on the governance arrangements for the North West Cambridge project and for the development of West Cambridge (Reporter, 16 March, 2011)
[3] Council Minute 967, 15 July 2024