By , Head of Research
I have been working with Paul Hoskins, our chairman, for a while developing some thinking as to why universities do not take better advantage of the commercial opportunities that their research and expertise could offer to businesses.
One of our contentions is that if universities considered third stream activity as core to their broader strategies then it could deliver value back to the university, not just as a source of income, but also in terms of reputation, enhance student experience, better facilities etc. In fact it could touch on every aspect of any HEI’s core offer. Paul wrote an article for the Guardian’s HE network this week, which is a distillation of where our thinking has got to. There is a great quote in the article from one of the 30 or so senior people he interviewed about the subject, who said: “Outside the research framework we have no idea how much things cost. At the end of the year we just add up what’s gone in and what’s gone out and hope we end up with a big fat zero.”