Annual Review 2008-9 Contents 1

Annual Review 2008-9 Contents 1 Contents Foreword 2 Introduction 3 Promotional Initiatives 5 Partnerships 13 Working with the Membership 15 Finance Report 16 Publications & Reports 17 People & Places 19 Conclusion 21 Foreword 2 Foreword from the Chair of London Higher It is customary for the introductory text of a I could expand at some length about our many document such as this to be filled with hyperbole successes throughout the year. Amongst those – the year has never been so productive, the that spring to mind are the Schools and HE Links organization has changed beyond all report to the Minister for London Schools and our recognition, never has so much been achieved. successful bid to host the London Higher Business Development Unit. The latter has attracted £1.45m This year, however, I am in the happy position of funding from HEFCE – the single largest grant we being able to say such things without fear of have ever been awarded. Others include the contradiction. For in so many ways London setting up of London Medicine, running a Higher is an entirely different organization, and successful Podium conference and publishing no one that continues to outperform all expectations fewer than twenty-eight separate reports and made of it. guides concerning London’s HE group. In regard to all the achievements of the year I thank the To begin with London Higher is now a company executive staff of London Higher for their tireless limited by guarantee with charitable status - a and professional work. measure, if one were needed, that the organization has come of age. It was no mean feat delivering Last but not least you will notice that we have forty-one Members’ Agreements, an MoU with the changed our logo and brand. This is in part to University of London, accession to the USS and a commemorate our new legal status, but also to Deed of Transfer all within six months. mark the tenth anniversary of London Higher. The inaugural meeting of the London Higher With age comes responsibility and the Education Consortium, as it then was, took place organization has not disappointed here either. on 20 April 1999. No one who was at that first This year we took the challenging decision to meeting (and there are still a few of them around) leave the University of London and run our own could have imagined the distance the accounts, payroll and human resources, a organization would travel in ten short years. decision that will allow us greater freedom in the future as well as control in the short-term. As I enter my last year as Chair, it is with great pride that I look back over the extraordinary But the change is not all behind the scenes. achievements of this past year and with Structurally London Higher has grown from four anticipation that I look forward to the next ten business units last year to five at the end of this; years of London Higher. and financially from a turnover of £1.2m in 2007- 8 to £1.8m this year – and with growth forecast to £2.8m in 2009-10. Professor David Latchman, Chair, London Higher 3 Introduction Introduction London Higher is a membership organization that promotes and acts as an advocate for higher education (HE) in London. It is an ‘umbrella’ body representing over 40 The organization currently runs five core publicly funded universities and colleges and is programmes, each with its own stream of the biggest and most varied of the regional research and advocacy activities: university associations in the UK. 1. Case for London which aims to create a About London’s Higher Education robust evidence-base pertaining to, and in London’s universities and HE colleges are a support of, HE in London; powerhouse of research, teaching and technology transfer unrivalled anywhere in the 2. Study London, promoting London as an UK, Europe and beyond. Collectively, higher educational destination and the best city in education institutions (HEIs) in London: which to be a student; • Generate c. £10.4 billion each year in goods 3. Podium, the Further and HE co-ordination Unit and services and £1.2 billion in export for the 2012 Games; earnings (2005-6 data); 4. Employer Engagement, our response to the • Educate c. 400,000 students from the UK and higher-level skills agenda; and overseas– who are able to choose from over 11,000 undergraduate courses and nearly 5. School-HE links in London (SHELL) 4,000 postgraduate qualifications; developing a strategy for meaningful links • Employ c. 94,000 academic and non- between secondary schools and HEIs in academic staff; London. • Win c. 27% of Research Council grants and £466m of recurrent grant research funding from HEFCE; • Attract to the UK c. 93,000 international students from over 200 countries, who in turn contribute £1.5 billion to the UK economy; • Produce over 56,000 skilled graduates every year, 90% of whom find work in London and the south east. About London Higher As their member association London Higher works to represent the group as a whole. We do this in two ways: by collecting and researching data on higher education (HE) in the capital and by advocating, on behalf of our members, the case for London’s HE. Introduction 4 Our outputs are diverse and include research Universities and higher reports, promotional material, meetings and education institutions workshops, parliamentary lobbying, media that are members of management and receptions. We also run a wide London Higher range of advisory groups and networks. FACT: 41 As well as working with, and for, the institutional members London Higher works closely with Our Mission partner organizations including the London In support of this vision London Higher is Development Agency (LDA), the Greater London remitted to actively promote, and act as an Authority (GLA), London First and with the advocate for, all institutions represented in the business sector. university sector in the London region. Our Vision The following pages outline how we have Our strategic reference is the Vision & Excellence developed these objectives during the past year statement (available on our website) which sets through our promotional initiatives, our out the long-term objective, agreed by all partnerships, our members and our people. London-based HEIs, to establish London as the undisputed ‘Knowledge Capital of the World’. 5 Promotional Initiatives Promotional Initiatives The primary function of London Higher • promote effective policies and initiatives that is to raise awareness of HE in the London maximize the contribution of London’s HE region and promote the extensive benefits sector to the social, cultural and economic it makes to the region and beyond. development of the region. We achieve this through five core programmes This year, the Case for London HE stream has of work: developed the following initiatives: • Case for London HE; Research Excellence Group Chaired by Professor Michael Worton (University • Study London; College London), the group aims to promote • Podium (the Further and HE unit for 2012 research excellence across the capital – wherever Games); it is found - regionally, nationally and internationally. • Employer Engagement; and In November 2008 we commissioned Innovation • Schools and HE Partners to produce a study on how London’s HEIs interact with the Technology Strategy In this section we outline the objectives of each Board. The report was followed up by a of these workstreams and give summaries of conference at which over 100 delegates heard some of the activities each has undertaken speakers including David Evans, Head of during the year. Innovation, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The Case for London HE This year speakers at the meetings have included Prof. David Sweeney, Director of Research, The Case for London HE is a core workstream of Innovation & Skills at HEFCE and Prof. Adrian Smith, London Higher, resourced primarily in Director General for Science & Research, DIUS. association with the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the London We have completed our work on CaseMakerHE, Development Agency (LDA). which combines a web-based database of promotional information about London and The programme aims to create an ongoing and London’s HE research infrastructure with a robust evidence-base in support of HE in the flexible binding system that allows bespoke capital. In particular it seeks to: design-standard documents to be produced quickly and cost effectively. • contribute to a better understanding of the impact of London’s HE sector on the regional, We conducted a second set of mapping which national and global economy; plotted all HE campuses, offices and outstations • advise London Higher’s member institutions on in London (there are 110 of them) and key policy initiatives in the London region; and calculated the average distances from them in each travel zone (7.3 km in Zone 1). Although our submission to ESRC for a CASE studentship to broaden our HE spin-out study was unsuccessful we are working to develop another proposal with NESTA. Promotional Initiatives 6 Healthcare Education Group The average Chaired by Professor Pat Hughes (St George’s, distance you University of London), the group is unique in are from an bringing together senior academic leaders from FACT: KM HEI in Zone 1 London’s medical, dentistry and allied 7.3 healthcare professions. This year we have had several successes. In autumn 2008 we were invited to join the planning group for the inaugural LondonHealth08 conference which has been a long-standing aim of the group. Through our work we were able to showcase a Research involved semi-structured interviews dozen case studies drawn from HE members at 14 London HEIs to “map” HE-community during the two-day conference in December.

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