Universities regenerate their local areas by employing residents, bringing in students, developing research that benefits the public, and supporting local business. This boosts local economies everywhere, but it really matters in the post-industrial towns and cities of the north of England, where austerity cuts have fallen hardest and one in four people earn below the living wage.

While some areas like south Yorkshire and Merseyside are witnessing rapid jobs growth, others feel left behind. In March, the government unveiled a £1.6bn fund to support neglected areas in the north of England and Midlands. But despite warm words about spreading prosperity around the country, inequality between UK regions persists.

The role of universities in revitalising these places was the subject of a roundtable, sponsored by HSBC, held in Manchester last week and attended by senior academic leaders, funders and policy-makers.

There was consensus that universities can benefit their local areas. Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, cited Scarborough as evidence. Prior to Coventry University opening a “visionary and impactful” campus in the town, there were limited opportunities for local people unless they were able to go elsewhere, which excluded carers and single mothers, he said.

The participants agreed that universities don’t just benefit their local areas. Sarah Longlands, director of the IPPR North thinktank, said they can regenerate deprived towns by offering degrees in local further education colleges, as Uclan and Lancaster universities do in Blackburn.

Manchester was highlighted as an example of a city with a strong relationship with its universities. Murison noted that it’s unusual to see all four local institutions “play such a strong role”, in which they all work “not in competition but in collaboration”.

Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester city council, said there had been a “very significant change in culture at universities over the past decade.” He added: “Manchester Metropolitan and the University of Manchester had a fortress mentality; if they could have built walls around themselves and isolated themselves from each other and the rest of the city they would have done so.” Hostility from the local community made it hard to get anything done, he said. “Universities were contributing to Manchester being a worse place. Now they’re contributing to it being a better place.”

Kevin Hylton, head of the diversity, equity and inclusion research centre at Leeds Beckett University, said his institution is making an effort to spend locally as part of Leeds city council’s “responsible recruitment strategy”. This addresses the fact that “a lot of universities spend time looking overseas, going to China and wherever, not Whitehaven or Barnsley.”

The graduate brain drain

One of the challenges in redeveloping northern towns is the graduate brain drain to the south. Liz Barnes, the vice-chancellor and chief executive of Staffordshire University, said her university mostly recruits students from the area, but they rarely stay after graduation. “The jobs aren’t there,” she said, although she noted the university is working with the city council to attract more digital businesses.

Annette Bramley, Henri Murison and Kevin Hylton. Photograph: Bernadette Delaney

Paul Miller, a professor at the University of Huddersfield, stressed that close dialogue between universities and local businesses is essential to make sure graduates have the skills they need to work locally. But he warned: “Small businesses don’t have absorptive capacity and that eventually could lead to brain drain, so how do we scale up these businesses?”

Rebecca Chandy, head of Liverpool Hope Business School, said that a supply of graduate talent would help businesses grow. But she acknowledged that dialogue can be difficult in areas with predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than the big corporates that understand how universities work.

Ben Andrews, a managing director at HSBC, added that the lack of good infrastructure connecting towns across the north of England contributes to the graduate brain drain, as there is less flexibility to live in one town and work in another.

John Mothersole, chief executive of Sheffield city council, agreed: “We’re seeing graduates leaving because they’re concerned about mid-career opportunities.”

But he warned that slowing the brain drain isn’t the sole responsibility of universities. “If a place is not a place where people want to be, then that problem can’t be fixed by the university.”

Mothersole said direct government funding would help, but only if it came without strings attached. “You need a government attitude that doesn’t predetermine how you’re going to do things at a local level,” he said. “Allow places to design solutions that are right for places, with the powers, support and resources from the government.”

The University of Manchester’s deputy vice-chancellor, Luke Georghiou, cited support for graphene research in the city as an example of direct government funding working for the regions. George Osborne asked for a “Crick of the North” to rival London’s specialism in health research, to which Manchester responded with an advanced materials concept that tapped into industrial strategy priorities.

The Northern Powerhouse

The government’s northern powerhouse project was seen as a good idea in theory, but a missed opportunity in practice. “The government’s commitment is there, but it hasn’t yet been delivered upon,” said Murison. “The idea it’s just a hobby horse project for chucking in initiatives across the government rather than a serious attempt to rebalance the economy is a real fear to me.”

Murison decried the government’s attitude towards the northern powerhouse for being about making “everyone feeling included”, when actually northern industrial research clusters like energy in Hull and manufacturing in Lancaster “don’t need special pleading”. “What they need is for excellence to be rewarded,” he said.

Liz Barnes, John Mothersole, Sarah Longlands and Luke Georghiou. Photograph: Bernadette Delaney

He warned that the biggest danger of the government’s plan to increase the proportion of GDP spent on R&D is that the UK will fail to commercialise any of its research. “We could spend loads of government money on R&D and it could all go to companies outside the UK,” he said. “We need to be doing R&D in the north that can help rebalance the country.”

Annette Bramley, director of the N8 Research Partnership, suggested that the government’s plans to develop 240,000 new researchers could be focused in the north. “It would make a massive difference,” she said.

Dave Furlong, equity fund manager at Maven Capital Partners, worried about what will happen when regional development funding from the EU dries up after Brexit. “These funds are important and play a key role in trying to unlock the potential that exists,” he said.

But Longlands pointed out the benefits of the northern powerhouse agenda. “It’s given the north an identity and way of being talked about, which has empowered a grassroots movement to take the argument to London and have a bit more control of our own destiny,” she said.

Barnes advised against focusing on developing the north as a purely economic project. Universities contribute more than just support for business and high graduate salaries, she said. “The government is obsessed with how much they earn, but we want to talk about the rounded person who comes out of university.”

Universities should be an “intellectual hub” in their city, she suggested. She cited Staffordshire’s Meet the Professor lecture series, which is on campus but open to the general public. “You get people from all walks of life, including people who live on the street,” she said.

This combines with the volunteering work that students do, such as law clinics, and access to campus infrastructure, like cycle paths and parks, to make an important contribution to community life. “Our ambition is that local people refer to us as ‘our university’ - not just the students, but everybody in our area,” she said.

Richard Leese, Rebecca Chandy, Ben Andrews, Annette Bramley, Henri Murison, Kevin Hylton, Rachel Hall, Paul Miller, Liz Barnes, John Mothersole, Sarah Langlands and Luke Georghiou. Photograph: Bernadette Delaney

At the table

Rachel Hall (chair), Universities editor, The Guardian

Liz Barnes, Staffordshire University, vice-chancellor and chief executive

Henri Murison, Northern Powerhouse Partnership, director

Annette Bramley, N8 Research Partnership, director

Ben Andrews, managing director and UK head of leveraged finance, HSBC

Kevin Hylton, Leeds Beckett University, head of the diversity, equity and inclusion research centre



Paul Miller, University of Huddersfield, professor of educational leadership and management

John Mothersole, Sheffield city council, chief executive

Luke Georghiou, University of Manchester, deputy president and deputy vice-chancellor

Richard Leese, Manchester city council, leader

Dave Furlong, Maven Capital Partners, NPIF equity fund manager in the north west

Rebecca Chandy, Liverpool Hope Business School, head

Sarah Longlands, IPPR North, director