Jan R. Boehnke

A THE item on the upcoming spending review:
"Universities will be lucky to avoid being completely hit over the head..."
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/universities-face-tough-spending-review-after-brutal-few-months

HT @DianeCoyle1859 on 🟦

Difficult to get independent figures, but a London Economics report (for #UniversitiesUK) summarised economic impact of universities in the UK as:

768,000 jobs
£71bn gross value added
£116bn general economic output

The full report (all 4 nations):
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/publications/economic-impact-higher-education

#AcademicChatter #HEI #University

Universities face ‘tough’ spending review after brutal few months

Potential reprioritisation of parts of research budget could heap pressure on institutions already counting cost of immigration and tax changes

Times Higher Education (THE)
May 30, 2025 at 1:47pmWeb
Show threadJan R. BoehnkeMay 30, 2025

It is also interesting where those impacts manifest:

- government, health, education sector (£52.8bn)
- distribution, transport, hotels, restaurants (£15.4bn)
- production (£12.6bn)
- real estate (£9.7bn)
- professional & support activities (£9.2bn)
[source: see above]

Arguably: which inputs are required?
The report estimates funding for teaching at £7.3bn (2021/22 cohort) compared to £94.8bn economic impact.

You may have read the "get £13 for every £1 spent" narrative.

#EconomicImpact #HEI

Show threadJan R. BoehnkeMay 30, 2025

Play around with these figures:
- how much lower might the economic impact be?
- what is an acceptable #ReturnOfInvestment?
- are costs left out*?
#ThoughtExperiment

*e.g.,
the House of Commons estimates the cost for 2023-24 (not by-cohort) at £10.3 billion for England
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10037/

Show threadJan R. BoehnkeMay 30, 2025

How about going after research funding instead? Or especially?
(e.g., UKRI budget for 2025-26 at about £8.8bn: https://www.ukri.org/publications/ukri-budget-allocation-explainers/ )

Well, to me it is difficult to imagine a more obvious way to counteract any narrative around growth & innovation.

And this not only at universities / #HEI. Research funding supports industry as well (often in particular #SME), either directly or through strong encouragement to have cross-sector projects.

#AppliedResearch

Explainer: UKRI budget allocations

Detailed breakdowns of UKRI budget allocation for the financial years 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024, 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026.

Show threadJan R. BoehnkeMay 30, 2025

Are we alone? No.
Other education sectors are hit as well. Probably equally nonsensical.
Do we even dare to mention #HealthCare? Or #SocialCare?

Another example is the contribution of the arts to society and the economy, which are summarised nicely here:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10037/

And I think my favourite disturbing quote from the THE piece is
"Labour is “more interested” in how universities can help these specific missions, like supporting defence" (Andy Westwood)

#HEI #Funding #AppliedResearch

Show threadJan R. BoehnkeMay 30, 2025

And yes, points about money, return of investment, etc. follow the narrow neoliberalist/capitalist (take your pick) interpretation of how public services should be structured.

But I think it also shows fairly straightforwardly where key principles of its own logic are not really met.

Show threadLukeJun 5, 2025
@jrboehnke well spotted, that is going to be a big pivot for some research intensives… and really hard for specialist arts institutions who do research…