(Duration 9:13) In 2008 John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills launched a consultation called the Higher Education Debate, to seek expert thinking, fresh ideas and comments on the future of higher education for the next ten to fifteen years. Today, the new HE Framework - Higher Ambitions was launched by David Lammy (Minister of State for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills) and in this podcast interview with JISC’s Rebecca O’Brien, he explains the Government’s vision of the future for UK higher education and shares his thoughts on the future of learning, teaching and research.
Rebecca O'Brien Minister, today you've launched the Higher Education framework, looking at the government's vision for higher education. Can you explain why this is a pertinent moment to engage with the future of UK higher education?
David Lammy Well, of course, it's right to say that this process began with a debate that John Denham launched now well over a year ago, and contributions from across the sector, and beyond, from those who use the sector; whether that's students or those in industry. But it's right also that now is a very pertinent time to set a vision for the vision of higher education. The sector has, without doubt, been very successful over the last decade, but there are different challenges ahead. This is partly due to increasing international competition, but it is also absolutely to do with the need to respond to the new and changed economic circumstances. And no doubt about it we, like others, will be working against a more constrained public spending environment than over the last 10 years. So we need to consider and set out a vision, a shared vision, that's about maintaining our world-class standing in the future.
Rebecca O'Brien The UK has recently been ranked second in the world and number one in the G8 for its quality research. How is the government supporting universities to strengthen their research capacity?
David Lammy Well I would certainly say that the, and I think everybody would agree, the higher investment of the past decade has renewed the public science base and created a climate of confidence across the sector. Now clearly, in a tighter public expenditure environment, we will need to carefully protect this excellence and to ensure that we maintain it. This, I think, will require a greater focus on world-class research. We must use our scarce resources well, and in the future, this should mean more research concentration, especially in high cost, scientific disciplines. There is, of course - and it's important for me to underline this - research excellence across a very wide range of institutions and the challenge now is to support that, but also to develop new models of collaboration between universities, so that the best researchers, wherever they're located, can co-operate, rather than compete, for scarce funds.
Rebecca O'Brien Just leading on from your comment there, universities are being expected to compete with one another for private income. But how does this balance with the framework's desire for greater co-operation between universities?
David Lammy I think it's true that in the future universities will need to increase the proportion of funding that they obtain from private sources, and it's probably right to say that new priorities will be chiefly supported by redistribution of existing funds and the leverage of private investment, rather than the provision of new money. But our higher education sector in this country, I think, is hugely diverse, very different universities and institutions, and I think they are well able to build on the gains that have been made over the last ten years, but target different potential streams of revenue. Now some of that is international, particularly as we see Asian countries rise and invest more in research. There are opportunities in the United States at the moment, with a large fiscal stimulus from that country, centred on research. We have to build deeper into alumnis. That has been continuing but needs to grow and sources of private funding. And in a sense, all of this is key to ensuring that higher education draws from an ever wider range of funding, not just funding dependent on the state or student income.
Rebecca O'Brien So what advice does the framework give for universities, to measure their effectiveness in research, teaching and learning?
David Lammy Well the high ambitions that we published highlights the research excellence framework that's obviously currently being developed by [HSE/HFCE 5.35] and will be understood by all in the sector. And this will more closely measure the effectiveness of research, by assessing the impact made on the economy and the impact made on society. And on teaching and learning, I think there's a great deal of information available on universities' effectiveness in learning and teaching. I think in this area it's critically important that the UK actually remain second to nobody on the quality of our teaching, on the teaching experience, particularly the use of new technology. Our experience in this country means that students are very concentrated on being consumers of the service. Their expectations of that has risen, to some extent. The information they want has risen and we're setting that out very clearly in our framework document.
Rebecca O'Brien JISC's vision is one of universal access to information and resources any time, anywhere. With technology and information management at the heart of research and education, how do you see this contributing to the UK's position as a global leader in education?
David Lammy Well we believe that, in a rapidly expanding global market, institutions based in the UK have a unique opportunity to provide education in many different forms. The potential to develop international education through partnerships with broadcasters, internet service providers, is immense and, in our view, will definitely shape and strengthen the sector over the coming decade. JISC is a member of the new taskforce, helping the UK remain a world leader in online learning and grow its market share in 2015, and the taskforce, we've asked them really to identify opportunities for existing investment and innovation. The challenge, I think, over this next period is not just to dump material on websites. It is to develop the pedagogy, to lead in the marketplace, to grow what has begun with the Open University and extend that out there to the world.
Rebecca O'Brien And finally, how do you see the role of digital technologies in helping to put UK universities at the heart of their communities?
David Lammy Well I think this is a hugely important area. I was very privileged a few months ago to spend some time in Seattle with Microsoft and there, with new Cloud technology, there are some really exciting ways, not just to engage the students in class with the lecturer and deepen that relationship, but to extend out into the wider community. We've certainly come out of the periods where universities are doing a lot in their localities and in their regions, but digital technology extends the scope of that. Look the iPhone extends the scope of that and we certainly need to facilitate universities making use of that over this next while.
Rebecca O'Brien Thank you very much indeed for your time.
David Lammy Thank you.
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