By stewartb

I applied the following search terms – ‘Scottish universities’ and variants thereof – to the BBC News website this morning. I wanted to check if two positive stories I’d come across (belatedly in one case) had received any news coverage. The clue to what I found is probably in the description – ‘positive’ stories! (Unless you know otherwise!) True to one of the missions of TuS, let’s make a contribution to filling the positivity void!

1. University education in Scotland – career outcomes for graduates

Universities Scotland on 31 July 2023 issued a press statement with this heading: ’84% of Scottish graduates say going to university got them the job they wanted’. It reported on a survey of 500 Scottish graduates and 502 business leaders (business owners, founders, board members, CEOs, directors, and senior managers) across Scotland. This is what it found:

• 73.8% of graduates from Scotland higher education institutions (HEIs) said that their university experience contributed to getting the type of job they wanted
• 69.4% of graduates believing that going to university enabled them to find their job faster
• 73.6% of graduates agreed that going to university gave them a good foundational knowledge of the sector or industry they are working in
• 69.2% agreed that going to university helped them understand how their sector works in practice
• 65.8% said they had a form of work experience or work placement as part of their time at university which has helped them in their career.

Turning to responses from business leaders:

• 76% of senior managers believe that university enables graduates to build skills that are professionally valuable
• 76% senior managers believe that going to university gives graduates good foundational knowledge of their industry or sector
• 74.3% of senior managers believe that going to university gives graduates crucial transferrable skills that can be applied to jobs in their sector, and other sectors
• 70% of senior leaders believes that going to university helps graduates understand how their sector works in practice and reflecting on their own journeys
• 83% of senior managers, who have an undergraduate degree, believe going to university gave them a good foundational knowledge of their industry/sector
• 80.6% of senior managers felt going to university enabled them to build skills that have proved valuable in their professional life.

These are positive indicators of the relevance of higher education in Scotland. The Vice Convener of Universities Scotland is quoted stating: “It’s hugely heartening to see this data reinforce the career-relevance of the skills and experience in an undergraduate degree; both graduates and their employers think so”.

In an earlier press statement (27 July 2023), the Head of Learning, Teaching and Widening Access at Universities Scotland had this to say about the nature of higher education in Scotland: “The higher education sector has made significant progress to reach the 2030 target that 20 per cent of Scottish students entering university will be from the nation’s 20 per cent most deprived areas. New data published today offers reasons to celebrate including confirmation that the interim target of 16 per cent has been reached.” In the context of discussing how the final steps in reaching the 2030 target can best be measured and achieved, the statement goes on: “Scotland has the most progressive admission policies in the UK thanks to actions taken by universities.”

2) University research in Scotland – economic outcomes

More recently (October 2023), the Fraser of Allander Institute (FoAI) at the University of Strathclyde published a report entitled ‘The economic impact of university research funding in Scotland’.  The research was commissioned by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).  The analysis focuses on 2019 data in part to avoid distortions in the economy due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

See https://fraserofallander.org/publications/the-economic-impact-of-university-research-funding/

Here are some noteworthy extracts from the FoAI’s useful report (with my emphasis):

• The Scottish Funding Council (SFC), using funds provided by the Scottish Government, is the single largest funder of Scottish university research, providing £286m in research and knowledge exchange funding during the 2019-20 academic year (27% of the total)
  • the SFC’s funding is estimated to support over 8,500 full-time equivalent jobs; £570 million in economic output; and £400 million in gross value-added (GVA).
    
    
• ‘After benchmarking Scotland against other regions of the UK on metrics related to ROI (Return on Investment) for R&D, we posit that Scotland’s ROI to public R&D may be higher than the average for the UK.‘
  • ‘Scotland’s productivity spillover effect may be greater than the UK average, given the type and nature of research carried out here, including: More impactful research in technology; More research outputs in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects; More research council funding for medical research’.
    
    

Of wider interest, the FoAI reports that in Scotland: ‘The share of R&D done by businesses (BERD) has risen consistently from 39% in 2011 to 51% in 2019’. It adds that ‘These trends suggest a growing prominence of business enterprises in performing R&D in Scotland. While the relative contribution of HEIs has declined, it still contributes a large proportion of total R&D spending and has increased in absolute value over time. ‘

The FoAI report makes a number of external comparisons :

• ‘While Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK (rUK) in terms of overall R&D expenditure per capita (GERD), it outperforms rUK significantly in higher education R&D expenditure per capita (HERD), demonstrating a clear strategic emphasis on academic research and development.’ (GERD = Gross Expenditure on R&D; HERD – Higher Education Expenditure of R&D))

• ‘Scotland had 11% of the UK’s FTE research staff in 2021, more than its population share’