What are universities for? How much Middlesex contributes and how much more we want to do

What are universities for? This question provokes polarised public debate, exacerbated by current financial pressures and changes in demographics, geopolitics, technology, and the world of work. The way our society answers this question will shape the future of higher education provision in the UK.

Nearly two years into my role as Vice-Chancellor, I am pleased we are publishing a report into the economic and civic impact of Middlesex University. The headline is that we contribute nearly £1 billion to the UK economy, almost five times our running costs. Between 2023 and 2025, we educated 1,500 nurses and midwives, 400 social workers, 275 teachers and 150 police apprentices each year. Our students contributed 700,000 hours of placements to the NHS. Our research contributed social benefits, including improvements in suicide prevention in the London Borough of Barnet, which now has the lowest suicide statistics in London. We supported the success and social mobility of our London students, who overwhelmingly come from backgrounds underrepresented in higher education, with 98% from ethnic minority communities, low-income families, and/or the first-generation in their family studying in higher education.

To respond to changes in society, and to maintain and increase our relevance, our education at Middlesex University is shaped by our valuable external relationships. We work with our feeder schools and colleges, such as Saracens High School, and Barnet and Southgate College, with our partner employers like the Metropolitan Police, and with professional and regulatory bodies, like the Nursing and Midwifery Council, to develop our curriculum, our teaching, learning and assessment, and how we prepare students for enterprise and employment. Our education responds to government policy and integrates our own knowledge creation through research and knowledge exchange. Our research underpins and strengthens our external relationships, when we work with partners to contribute insight, solve shared problems and achieve common goals. It shapes disciplinary developments, and our curriculum and pedagogy.

Universities function as a bridge from compulsory education and pre-graduate work to graduate work and careers. If we want to continue to provide this bridge effectively, we must adapt the structure and the pedagogy of the university to changes in what students want and to changes in employment, including those driven by technology and AI. Middlesex graduates will adapt, lead and thrive in a world where knowledge is provisional, and professional skills change. While some graduate work will be replaced entirely by technology, graduate work will evolve to incorporate AI and new jobs will emerge. People will still seek the opportunities, prosperity, choice, security, status and improved quality of life that higher education brings, for themselves and for their families.

Middlesex University is also part of a place, embedded in and supporting our local communities. Our award winning Inter Faith Network celebrates the diversity of our local region and contributes to a culture of tolerance and appreciation. We host the annual Age UK Silver Sunday, attracting over 800 local residents, making Barnet’s the largest Silver Sunday celebration in the country. Our students show their leadership through social justice projects in partnership with our local community, as in #ChangingtheCulture, focussed on tackling misogyny and violence and abuse against women. This report illustrates some of the amazing work our students and staff do in collaboration with the local community which makes us an anchor institution.

Universities are independent entities - part public sector, part charity and part commercial. It is important that we show our distinctive strengths as a higher education provider in a crowded and competitive market. We must demonstrate the value we create, and that we are uniquely good at creating that value. We must amplify our reputation externally.

This is all context for why we commissioned this report into our economic and civic impact. The report is an objective, fact-based, reproducible analysis of the huge range of social and financial value we create. It establishes a benchmark from which we can work to increase our impact and our return on investment for the London Borough of Barnet, north and west London and the UK.

In this report we celebrate how we improve the quality of people’s lives, prosperity and productivity, locally and nationally. It’s both a record of our effectiveness at one point in time, and a spur to improve. A return of nearly £1bn on approximately £200m investment is fantastic, and it’s a baseline to build on, when we commission the follow-ups to the 2026 Report.

So, what are universities for? Middlesex University generates a direct economic return well in excess of our costs. We create opportunities for students, drive social mobility, and build the skilled, professional workforce society needs. We help employers and industry adapt and improve their productivity; we help policy makers and local councils improve the lives of UK citizens. We are an anchor for our local community. I am proud to see the social and economic contribution of Middlesex University in this report. I am even more excited to see how we can build on this over the next decade.