Beyond academia: how can universities deliver wider impact for social good?
Beyond academia: how can universities deliver wider impact for social good?
By Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, President and Principal of Queen Mary University of London
There is a reason why, among the meanings of the word ‘academic’, is a pejorative definition describing something theoretical, impractical, and irrelevant. I carry this definition around with me as a cautionary tale because, in today’s world, universities need to have a razor-sharp focus on their tangible impact and role in society as both a powerful catalyst for social mobility and an agent for change as we look to solve real-world problems.
Queen Mary University of London has its foundations stretching back to 1785 in four historic institutions that brought ‘hope and opportunity’ to under-privileged people in the local communities of East London and the City of London. Academic diversity and access to education are hard-wired into our DNA. Social purpose is a dominant theme of 21st century institutional and corporate purpose, but I’m reminded every day that it has always been a driving force here at Queen Mary.
Like so many of my colleagues, Queen Mary is such an obvious place for me to work because of our shared fundamental belief in social purpose. For me, this is deeply personal: growing up in west London I left school at 16 to become an apprentice draftsman. It was a widening participation initiative that opened the doors of opportunity for me to an academic career, and I am deeply committed to providing that opportunity for anyone with the potential to succeed, regardless of background.
The philanthropic vision of our founders has, however, evolved. As a university, we look at diversity and social mobility not just as the right thing to do locally, but as an essential ingredient of effectiveness for our work around the world. We know from experience that when we create more diverse, open communities, we stand an even better chance of tackling society’s biggest challenges.
Queen Mary is naturally placed to lead this agenda. We’re unique among our Russell Group peers in our ability to bring diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and ideas together, to transform the efficacy of both research and the education experience. The latest manifestation of this is our Research Highways - five themes that act as pathways for our researchers, funders, and partners, and are designed to further embed a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge sharing, in pursuit of real social, economic, and cultural impact.
1: Sustainability, environment, energy
We’re challenging ourselves to deliver research that aligns the goals of human progress and prosperity, with the over-riding imperative to protect the planet. And collaborating with the international research community is central to that approach. The Preventing Plastic Pollution project, comprising 18 organisations from across France and England, is a prime example. Looking at plastic pollution from source to sea, the project is identifying pollution hotspots and working with local communities to implement behavioural change. Powered by conscious communities, the project is expected to improve the ecological status of transitional waters between France and England by 10%.
2: Digital, information, data
Data and technology are opening up new fields of study and generating research questions that break traditional disciplinary boundaries. Our task is to help make the digital society one that works for everyone, including pioneering work into the influence of digital technologies on our behaviour. Research by Professor Julia Hörnle into online gambling harm is helping to protect communities online, by informing policy and regulatory decisions across Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the UK.
Technology is also rich with opportunity in healthcare innovation. Our 100,000 genomes project is helping uncover new cures for complex conditions and cancers and providing life-changing diagnoses for patients. As the power of technology and availability of data inexorably grows, its potential to solve the world’s problems can only increase. We are putting ourselves at the vanguard of this movement, to ensure we maximise the opportunities technology brings, and control its potential risks.
3: Lifelong health and wellbeing
Our researchers are at the forefront of medical innovation. From developing a landmark synthetic bone graft material to research into the efficacy of HPV DNA screening in detecting cervical cancer, helping people live longer, healthier lives is central to our efforts. But improving wellbeing demands a more holistic approach than clinical research alone. Professor Thomas Dixon’s research into the history of emotions looks beyond psychology and biology as determining factors for human feeling, revealing that what we feel is constructed through our individual circumstances. Community is at the heart of Professor Dixon’s work, and as part of his research, he is partnering with schools to help children develop a wider emotional vocabulary.
4: Performance, communication, creative industries
Working with partners in the creative industries, our local community, and the culture and heritage sectors our research in this area is transforming access and inclusivity. In search of a better understanding of how accent bias informs prejudices, we surveyed over 1,000 listeners to understand their perceptions of regional variations in dialect and accent. This work is helping policymakers and employers understand the impact of these biases on access to jobs, fairness in the workplace and ultimately, on social mobility, as well as supporting aspiring students in the professional world.
5: Accelerating innovation and invention
Research will often be just one of many steps on the journey towards meaningful societal or economic progress. Ranked fourth in the UK for turning research into world-changing companies, our focus with industry partners is to create sustainable growth as we help answer some of society’s biggest questions.
As our digital assets migrate to the cloud, ensuring both safe storage and easy access is an essential enabler for a digital society. Research from Queen Mary’s Cloud Legal Project, has been influential in both protecting consumers and improving governance, while benefitting business. The project has shaped and informed the EU Digital Content and Services Directive, encouraging technology and data firms to find new ways of safely innovating in cloud computing.
A commitment to wider public impact
To earn its reputation for relevance, value and practical application, academia must not only deliver answers, but devise the very questions themselves by seeking out and engaging with as many perspectives as possible. These Research Highways are a vehicle for those conversations, inspiring our academics to collaborate on new problems, to bring communities together and to shape each other’s work for the better. Our founding institutions described it thus: coniunctis viribus. With united power. I could not agree more.
Learn more about our research highways here.