Jobs, industry and commercial networks, training for local business, part-time degrees for the community

Jobs, industry and commercial networks, training for local business, part-time degrees for the community - just some of the things HE institutions are doing for East Anglia

Low participation meets blue-chip research: Phil Baty reports on the East in the latest of our regional focuses

Tony Wood

Vice chancellor, Luton University

"The thing we feel most strongly about are our strong industry and commercial networks. We contribute about Pounds 150 million a year into the local economy.

We are very much tied into the local business community. We've been developing funded student scholarships and we now have about 60 students, who are fed into local business for employment. Businesses are not just hanging about and spending their time and money with us - they're looking for some payback. We knock spots off every other university in this region in terms of employment. This doesn't show up in the league tables.

Of our full-time undergraduates, 50 per cent are mature students - that's huge. We have 10,000 full-time undergraduates. And we have 5,000 part-time. Many don't have A-levels or grants, many are in work.

Helping non-traditional students into higher education is a central part of our mission. We take students who are poor, from lower social classes, ethnic minorities. The East is rural, with low participation in HE, but here on the edge of the region, we've got big industrial colonisation - and working-class people. We are working to produce student profiles with degree awards next year. We offer tailor-made degrees for nearby Vauxhall Motors - these are all horny-handed car assembly workers. We run MBA courses at the weekend. We're moving away from conventional patterns of attendance. We're the only university in the country that runs a third semester throughout summer.

We get very little money from the RAE. Most research money comes from industry. It is all very, very job oriented. Dearing will favour places like this. Somewhere like Luton will be far more of a model for the next 30 years than the more established universities. Six years ago we had 1,000 full-time students and one degree programme. Now we've got 10,000 students and 160 degrees. We didn't achieve this by dictating to the market. We had to offer the programmes the market wanted."

Tony Brown

Dean of continuing education, University of East Anglia

"We were surprised to find out that over 40 per cent of our new undergraduates live in Norfolk and Suffolk. When the university was first set up we concentrated on developing a national and international excellence and credibility. But in future we expect to see the proportion of undergraduates from close by increase significantly, because of student immobility and financial constraints. We have to make what we do more relevant to the community in this region.

Our biggest growth area has been in part-time postgraduate degrees, which tend to serve the local community.

It is part of our mission to become a more accessible resource in the region. Last summer we made Ipswich College into University College Suffolk, part of UEA. We have also been part of developing a regional federation - relations with all the FE colleges. Some are doing access courses for us, and we validate some college courses. We have just opened a joint learning shop with Norwich City College. There is much more collaboration than ten years ago. It is similar with our research activities. Traditionally our cash generation for research has been international, but we are increasingly moving into applied, local work. For example we have some work in progress dealing with coastal erosion, which is a problem in East Anglia."

Alec Broers

Vice chancellor, Cambridge University.

"Cambridge's regional position is not separable from its national and international standing. We have got to be a feature of the region, for example, via the Board of Continuing Education. We were one of the major local organisers of Science Week, which brought thousands of local people to the university. We are Cambridge's biggest employer as well as owning Cambridge University Press, and being involved in a teaching hospital with 7,000 staff.

Cambridge has links to firms of all sizes. It collaborates with other institutions by allowing the use of our library and other facilities. Local colleges and groups make a lot of use of our Fitzwilliam Museum and the Botanical Garden. Cambridge works to bring in local students, especially to Lucy Cavendish and the postgraduate colleges like Wolfson, St Edmunds.

The university also attracts tourism, one of the city's main moneyspinners."

Mike Malone Lee

Vice chancellor, Anglia Polytechnic University

"Our mission is to extend HE to the community. We have these huge tracts of population - separate communities with limited resources. About 70 per cent of students come from within a 30-mile radius of our two main campuses - Cambridge and Chelmsford - and 46 per cent are part time. To expand higher education, we really need to do a lot more collaboration. We have a network of 22 partner colleges, from the Wash to the Thames.

We don't have many big industries here, but there is an enormous number of small and medium-size enterprises that we serve. We have a new family-run business development unit. We are heavily into total quality management and continuing professional development, so we get local people coming to us throughout their careers. Many come to do MBAs. We have a partnership with Ford Motors for upskilling programmes. We work closely with Essex TEC and with the regional CBI.

Our research activity tends to be at the applied research end, working with local firms."

Ivor Crewe

Vice chancellor, University of Essex

"We've always had an international student body and an international faculty. But we have become very aware of the need to balance that with a strong presence in the local community. With research, we're trying to balance our international interests and reputation with the needs of the local people. We do have an international research reputation - but we have something to contribute to the local economy, through providing continuing professional development and training at the advanced levels.

Some universities concentrate on very applied research with small and medium-size enterprises, but Essex looks to attract investment from international firms.

We are going to do research for Fujitsu, which is moving to Colchester. It's good for us and it's good for Colchester.

We contribute Pounds 60 million a year to the local economy. We are the largest employer in northeast Essex."

Neil Buxton

Vice chancellor, University of Hertfordshire

"We have always had very strong relationships with our local industry - we were top of The THES's league of new universities for attracting income for R&D from industry. I am a founding member of Hertfordshire Business Link, and I'm on the board of the TEC - so I have a direct line to 28,000 companies in Hertfordshire. We are strong on technology and we are heavily into applied research with industry. The businesses here are overwhelmingly small and medium-size enterprises so we target them and offer the education and training facilities, consultancy and the applied research they might want."

Revel Barker

Director of public affairs, Cranfield University

"Cranfield could be anywhere. We are not a Bedfordshire university, we are an international university that happens to be in Bedfordshire because we were set up by the government in 1946 as a school of aeronautics and this site happened to be near an airfield. Having said that our impact on the region is enormous. We bring many European students to the area. We are a major employer, and an indirect employer as most services are brought in locally. Cranfield is a Pounds 60-million-a-year operation."