What Can Modern Universities Learn from the Past? English Universities Working with Industry, 1870–1914

Abstract

Links between universities and business have been a key strand not only within institutional strategic development but also within government policy toward higher education for many years. Figures released in 2010 showed that universities in the United Kingdom delivered services to business and industry valued at £2.97 billion a year (HEFCE 2010a). Despite a difficult economic situation in the context of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, the annual UK Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) Survey showed an increasing number of new enterprises established by staff in higher education and by new graduates, increasing levels of continuing professional development, increasing income to higher education from research grants and contracts (especially in the public sector and third sector), and increasing income from intellectual property. In response, the UK minister of state for universities and science stressed that “even in difficult times, universities and other higher-education institutions are using their knowledge, expertise, and facilities to contribute to the UK economy. In these difficult economic times we face, the whole nation stands to benefit.” Meanwhile, the director of research and innovation at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) offered some historical perspective on the relationship between universities and business, noting that HEFCE (2010b) grants reflected “the core purposes for which universities were originally created—to support the social and economic transformations of their communities.”