The civic university and the future of higher education in Europe

John Goddard OBEEmeritus Professor of Regional Development Studies

Formerly Deputy Vice Chancellor

EU Context : Consultation themes around the modernisation of HE

• “Enhancing ‘relevance’ to society of learning and teaching”• “Helping HEIs become strong regional innovators”• “Ensuring education and research activities are mutually

reinforcing”Policy Implications• Linking domains of different DGs : Education and Culture,

Cities and Regions and Research and Innovation (and their national equivalents)

Dutch context

• Ministry of Education, Culture and Science : The Value of Knowledge : Strategic Agenda for Higher Education and Research 2015-2025

• “ This strategic agenda addresses a fundamental question. It asks what significance changes in the world and in our society hold for day to day life in our institutes of higher education. This question is of relevance because universities and universities of applied science do not operate in a vacuum, but rather in open connection with their surroundings”

The drivers behind civic engagement

• The impact of the post 2008 economic crisis on public finances

• Public funding for higher education is under scrutiny, compelling universities to demonstrate their value and contribution to society and the economy nationally and locally

• Politicians representing particular places are asking the question especially in less prosperous areas are asking : ‘ we have a university in our community but what is it doing for us?’

• The refugee and migration crisis has exacerbated the challenge : what contributions are universities making to the assimilation process in their communities?

The H.E. response

• In response, some university leaders are rethinking their university’s responsibilities to society : engaging in learning beyond the campus walls; participating in discovery which is useful beyond the academic community; and service that directly benefits the public.

• Higher education policy makers are also coming out of their silos within national governments and working with other agencies with specific, direct and sometimes conflicting expectations of “what universities are for “ (e.g. contributions to: innovation, skills, the arts, cities and regions)

• All of this requires institutional transformation from the inside and new ways of steering ‘at a distance’ university systems composed of autonomous universities with different profiles

• The ‘Civic University’ as a model to capture the mutually beneficial engagement between the community, region or wider world and the university.

Deepening levels of engagement and complexity(after Hazelkorn)

• Volunteering• Outreach/extension• Service learning• Knowledge and Technology Transfer (linear)• Knowledge exchange ( co-production)• Holistic civic engagement embracing teaching and research

and requiring active institution leadership and management

The potential: The University and the Knowledge Society

• “The university is the institution in society most capable of linking the requirements of industry, technology and market forces with demands of citizenship. Given the enormous dependence of these forces on university based experts the university is in fact in a position of strength not weakness”

• “The great significance of the university is that it can be the most important site of connectivity in the Knowledge society… (and)… a key institution for formation of cultural and technological citizenship … (and)… for reviving the decline of the public sphere”.

Gerard Delanty (2002)

The reality

• “We treat our opportunities to do research not as a public trust but as a reward for success in past studies”

• “Rewards for research are deeply tied up with the production of academic hierarchy and the relative standing of institutions” BUT

• “Public support for universities is based on the effort to educate citizens in general, to share knowledge, to distribute it as widely as possible in accord with publically articulated purposes”

Calhoun , “The University and the Public Good” Thesis 11 (2006)

Public value

“ Use of the adjective ‘public’ not only implies fundamental questions about accountability but also poses additional queries about to whom we as social scientists should feel accountable…Public social science has both a research and teaching agenda and involves a commitment to promote the public good through civic engagement”

John Brewer : The Public Value of the Social Sciences (2013)

University Governance, Management and Performance Models

Some management and performance models for engagement

• The entrepreneurial university model with a strengthened steering core, enhanced development periphery, a diversified funding base and stimulated academic heartland (Burton Clark 1998)

• The triple helix model of universities, business and government with semi-autonomous centres that interface with the external environment supported by specialist internal units (e.g technology transfer offices) and external intermediaries (e.g technology and innovation centres) (Etzkowitz et. al . 2000)

• Performance Metrics – business income, patents, licenses and spin outs• Each of these models underplays the role of teaching and learning, the

arts and humanities, place based communities and civil society. This requires a new model of the civic university

• BUT the performance metrics for civic engagement remain challenging • All this matters because the way innovation takes place is changing

TEACHING RESEARCH

The non-civic university

‘THIRD MISSION’ ACTIVITIES

Quality

assura

nce

Citations

Funding targetsTHE ‘CORE’

THE ‘PERIPHERY’

Hard Boundary between enabling

and non enabling environments

No boundary spannersFocus on supply side,

transactional interventionsIneffective or non existent

partnershipLack of a shared understanding

about the challengesEntrepreneurs ‘locked out’ of

regional planning

The regional dimension: EU GuideConnecting Universities to Regional Growth

PUBLIC SECTOR

Lack of coherence between national and regional/local policies

Lack of political leadership

Lack of a shared voice and vision at the regional/local level

PRIVATE SECTOR

No coordination or representative voice with which to engage

Motivated by narrow self interest and short term goals

Dominated by firms with low demand or absorptive capacity

for innovationHIGHER EDUCATION SECTOR

Seen as ‘in’ the region but not ‘of’ the region

Policies and practices discourage engagement

Focus on rewards for academic research and

teaching

The Civic University

Enhancement

TEACHING RESEARCH

TRANSFORMATIVE, RESPONSIVE,

DEMAND-LED ACTION

ENGAGEMENT

Socio-economic impact

Widening participation, community work

Soft

Boundary

THE ACADEMY

SOCIETY

Generating intellectual and human capital assets for the

region

HIGHER EDUCATION SECTOR

Developing coherent policies that link territorial

development to innovation and higher education

PUBLIC SECTOR

Investing in people and ideas that will create growth

PRIVATE SECTOR

Evidence based policies that

support ‘smart’ innovation and growth

Analysis of evidence and intelligencefor planning

Building the

infrastructure

for growth

Skills development, commercialisation of research

The triple helix ‘connected’ region

• Universities must “ act as strategic institutions pulling together all their know-how to create bigger economic and social impacts. Smart specialisation calls on universities to do more”.

Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn

• “The key to universities becoming strategic institutions is to take a holistic view of their activities, rather than treating them in isolation. By integrating research, teaching and external engagement, the knowledge created can have a much greater impact”

• “University management as well as academic staff need to become pro-active and move beyond mono-disciplinary and mono functional actions. However, EU and national incentive structures also need to change because they are overly biased towards research output and can hinder universities in playing this strategic role”

Robert Jan Smits, Director General for Research and Innovation

• http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/universities

Conclusion of the EU conference on mobilising universities for Smart Specialisation(2014)

Cities require holistic engagement from universities as ‘anchor institutions’

Universities as urban ‘anchor’ institutions

• ‘Anchor institutions’ are large locally embedded institutions, typically non-governmental public sector, cultural or other civic institutions that are of significant importance to the economy and the wider community life of the cities in which they are based.

• They generate positive externalities and relationships that can support or ‘anchor’ wider economic activity in the locality

• ‘Anchor institutions do not have a democratic mandate and their primary missions do not involve regeneration or local economic development. Nonetheless their scale, local rootedness and community links are such that they can play a key role in local development and economic growth representing the ‘sticky capital’ around which economic growth strategies can be built’ (Work Foundation)

• Institutions that are of the city not just in the city

What does anchoring imply for universities?

• Relationships with other institutions that inhabit the city

• Normative questions about the need for academic practise to be of relevance to the place in which practitioners live and work as citizens

• Exploration of a more broadly conceived territorial development process than just economic growth and competitiveness

• Interrelated physical, social and cultural dimensions

The changing nature of innovation and the civic university

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BUT the triple helix is not enough as the way we innovate is changing

Elberfelder Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedrich Bayer & Co

Open innovation

Social innovation

Innovation in servicesUser innovation

Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ

Open Innovation

• “Open Innovation 2.0 (OI2) is a new paradigm based on a Quadruple Helix Model where government, industry, academia and civil participants work together to co-create the future and drive structural changes far beyond the scope of what any one organization or person could do alone. This model encompasses also user-oriented innovation models to take full advantage of ideas' cross-fertilisation leading to experimentation and prototyping in real world setting”

• European Commission .

Social innovation as processes and outcomes

• “Social innovations are innovations that are social in both their ends and their means…new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively than alternatives) and create new social relationships or collaborations.

• The process of social interactions between individuals undertaken to reach certain outcomes is participative, involves a number of actors and stakeholders who have a vested interest in solving a social problem, and empowers the beneficiaries. It is in itself an outcome as it produces social capital” (Board of European Policy Advisors, BEPA, 2010: 9-10)

The quadruple helix

• “Quadruple Helix (QH), with its emphasis on broad cooperation in innovation, represents a shift towards systemic, open and user-centric innovation policy. An era of linear, top-down, expert driven development, production and services is giving way to different forms and levels of coproduction with consumers, customers and citizens.” (Arnkil, et al, 2010)

• “The shift towards social innovation also implies that the dynamics of ICT-innovation has changed. Innovation has shifted downstream and is becoming increasingly distributed; new stakeholder groups are joining the party, and combinatorial innovation is becoming an important source for rapid growth and commercial success. Continuous learning, exploration, co-creation, experimentation, collaborative demand articulation, and user contexts are becoming critical sources of knowledge for all actors in R&D & Innovation” (ISTAG 2010)

The triple helix + users model (Arnkill et.al)

The citizen centred quadruple helix model (Arnkill et.al)

Research: responding to societal challenges

SmartSpec

EU focus on ‘societal challenge’ (SC)

Why focus on societal challenges?

• Global policy buy-in to ‘challenge’ approach – OECD, WEF, etc.

• €30bn Horizon 2020 themes many with an implicit or explicit urban dimension

• Regional and urban smart specialisation strategies can be a powerful instrument to tackle (societal) challenges (CEC, 2013)

EU Grand Challenges

• Health, demographic change and wellbeing

• Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research, and the bio-economy

• Secure, clean and efficient energy• Smart, green and integrated transport• Inclusive, innovative and secure

societies• Climate action, resource efficiency and

raw materials

Betting on 'technology acceptance' by way of good

marketing only, is no longer a valid option

Diversity in Research and

Innovation is a must for achieving greater creativity and promoting

better results Early and continuous iterative

engagement of society in Research and Innovation is key to

innovation adequacy and acceptability 29

H2020 Cross cutting theme: Science With and For Society

Responsible Research and Innovation?

RRI is a process where all societal actors (researchers, citizens, policy makers, business) work together during the whole R&I process in order to align R&I outcomes to the values, needs and expectations of European society

30

need not always be

harmonious

A guiding vision for RRI

• “In tomorrow’s Europe, science institutions and scientists engage with society, while citizens and civil society organisations engage with science; thereby contributing to a European society which is smart, sustainable and inclusive”

• Horizon 2020 Advisory Group

SWAFFS Advisory Group

• “While the European Research Area has been somewhat successful in creating spaces for European science, it is now time to become more pro-active, and not just in relation to the Grand Challenges.

• There is a need for a new narrative drawing on a broad-based innovation strategy encompassing both technological and non-technological innovation at all levels of European society, and with a stronger focus on the citizen and responsible and sustainable business - a quadruple helix and place-based approach to science, research and innovation.

• This goes further than the procedural challenge how each part of Horizon 2020 can engage citizens and civil society in its activities.”

The Rome Declaration 2014 and the civic university

• “We call on public and private Research and Innovation Performing Organisations to:

• Implement institutional changes that foster Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) by:

• Reviewing their own procedures and practices in order to identify possible RRI barriers and opportunities at organisation level;

• Creating experimental spaces to engage civil society actors in the research process as sources of knowledge and partners in innovation;

• Developing and implementing strategies and guidelines for the acknowledgment and promotion of RRI;

• Adapting curricula and developing training to foster awareness, know-how, expertise and competence of RRI;

• Including RRI criteria in the evaluation and assessment of research staff “

What do academics do?

The Practise: How engaged is the academy? UK Innovation Research Centre Survey of 22,000 UK academics -

External interaction and commercialisation activity (% of respondents)

http://www.cbr.cam.ac.uk/pdf/AcademicSurveyReport.pdf

A case study

Newcastle University

Mission : A world class civic university

“ The combination of being globally competitive and regionally rooted underpins our vision for the future. We see ourselves not only as doing high quality academic work … but also choosing to work in areas responsive to large scale societal needs and demands, particularly those manifested in our own city and region”

Chris Brink, Vice-Chancellor

Newcastle University- mission

• ‘Paying attention to not just what it is good at but what it is good for

• Delivering benefits not just to individuals and organisations but society as a whole

• Putting academic knowledge creativity and expertise to work to come forward with innovations and solutions that will make a difference

• Combining academic excellence on the supply side with a range of regional and global challenges on the demand side

• Operating on a national scale but also recognising the extent to which location in the City of Newcastle forms the unique identity of the institution’

Societal challenge themes

• Ageing

• Sustainability

• Social Renewal

Newcastle initiative on changing age

• Brings together basic, clinical, social and computer scientists and engineers to address:

• How and why we age• The treatment of associated disease and

disability• The support of through-life health, wellbeing and

independence• Research, training, public engagement,

commercialisation

Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability

• To bring people together from throughout the University AND the wider community to develop sustainable responses to the great challenge of our age: ensuring everyone has access to a fair share of the world’s resources in perpetuity

• Urban living; low carbon energy and transport; food security; water management; clean manufacturing

Living Labs: the academic perspective

• “The notion of treating our city and its region as a seedbed for sustainability initiatives is a potent one… the vision is of academics out in the community, working with local groups and businesses on practical initiatives to solve problems and promote sustainable development and growth’

• “This necessitates that we proceed in a very open manner, seeking to overcome barriers to thought, action and engagement; barriers between researchers and citizens, between the urban and the rural, between the social and natural sciences, between teaching research and enterprise”

Director of NiRES

Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal

• The Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal as a

hub for research and teaching which is focused on asking the big questions facing our society

• How individuals, communities and organisations adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing and challenging environment

People, Place and Community:Universities and the leadership of place (Hambleton)

Political Leadership

Community Leadership

Managerial Leadership

Intellectual Leadership

Overview of Newcastle city Futures• Applying national Foresight methodology locally• Lead Expert Group drawn from the three partners and includes

representatives from Northumbria University• Stakeholder Group – a wide range of interests from private and

public sector, academia and the third sector (Quadruple helix)• Using 7 methods to achieve a comprehensive picture:

Baseline evidence – the current picture Newcastle City region research and literature database Stakeholder Workshops Delphi Survey of key actors Newcastle City Futures Exhibition – an Urban Room Scenario building

City future themes

1. Relationships between an ageing society, housing needs, and the use of digital technology in an age friendly city

2. Relationships between transport and highway design, digital technology and public health benefits in a sustainable city

3. Relationships between enhancing local democracy and engagement, visualisation of the urban realm, and cultural and creative arts to generate public interest in a creative city .

.

Place Based Leadership

Development

Knowledge

Networks

Skills

Impact

Civic leadership development programme (Leadership Foundation in H.E)

Place Context National Context International Context

Place Commitment Boundary spanners Partnership workers Qualities (influencing, networking, resilience, etc.)Relationship Builders

Secondments Exchanges Immersion events Research projects Joint Projects

Case Studies Good Practice Guides New Ways of Operating

An international learning network

The leadership and management of civic universities

The participants

• University College London and Newcastle (UK)• Amsterdam & Groningen (Netherlands)• Aalto (Helsinki) & Tampere (Finland)• Trinity College Dublin & Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland)• Testing a conceptual model through baseline data collection, online survey

of academic staff, senior management workshops and collective roundtable• Findings to be published by Edward Elgar in book to supersede Burton

Clark’s Leading and Managing the Entrepreneurial University: Organisational pathways to institutional transformation which underpins the triple helix model of university/business and government

• Contributing to a dialogue around future models of European Universities initiated by the European Economic and Social Committee

Seven Dimensions of the ‘Civic University’ 1. It is actively engaged with the wider world as well as the local community of the

place in which it is located.

2. It takes a holistic approach to engagement, seeing it as institution wide activity and not confined to specific individuals or teams.

3. It has a strong sense of place – it recognises the extent to which is location helps to form its unique identity as an institution.

4. It has a sense of purpose – understanding not just what it is good at, but what it is good for.

5. It is willing to invest in order to have impact beyond the academy.

6. It is transparent and accountable to its stakeholders and the wider public.

7. It uses innovative methodologies such as social media and team building in its engagement activities with the world at large.

The ‘Civic University’ Development Spectrum

Embryonic Emerging Evolving Embedded

Dimension X

The spectrum describes the ‘journey’ of the institution against each of the 7 dimensions of the civic university towards the idealised model. It accepts that a university may be at a different stage of development on the different dimensions. This is intended to provide guidance in building a deeper understanding of where the university is currently positioned and help in future planning, and is NOT intended to be used as an assessment or ranking tool.

The civic university as a social innovator

•a multi-level actor linking the global, national and local domains

• working across the silos of the disciplines and of the public sector and linking with both business and the community

• developing the boundary spanning and social entrepreneurship skills of its staff and graduates

• co-producing knowledge in ‘living labs’

• shaping the future through action as well as analysis