TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION: Creating a range of collaborations for universities’ civic engagement

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Universities, similarly, must make a strategic case for partnering with business. Luke Georghiou is deputy president and deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Manchester and professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the Alliance Manchester Business School. He, too, stresses the importance of working with companies of all sizes. “At one end of the scale we have our strategic partnerships with major corporates, but it is important that we keep working with the smaller firms,” he says. “Universities cannot work with all small firms: there are just too many. But if we could selectively partner with those who have this growth potential then that produces the best results for the economy.”

Professor Georghiou believes that universities are “anchor institutions” whose identity is inextricably linked to their location. That they deliver social impact locally is critical. The University of Manchester’s partnerships with business and government have already had brought profound benefits to the city. Manchester has the Royce Institute and BP’s International Centre for Advanced Materials, but it is most famous for graphene, with two graphene institutes – the newest built to industry scale – conducting cutting-edge research and ensuring that the economic benefits from graphene stay within the country and the city. “That was a good example of university/city cooperation,” says Professor Georghiou. “We developed the concept together, that we would need the kind of institute that East Asia or the US would have. We had the strategic drive. We were determined that [graphene] wouldn’t be one of those stories of discovery in Britain and exploitation elsewhere in the world.”