Demonstrating the Economic Impacts of Civic Universities

“University economic impact assessments at a local level need to be reframed as a dynamic, contextualised exercise that is part of the wider strategic decision-making process”

This report aims understand how universities are currently measuring their civic economic impact. Universities are not fully embedding their civic economic impact within their strategic framework and decision making. An economic impact assessment should be utilised by universities as an evidence base within their strategy and decision making for improving upon their civic economic agendas. Going forward, civic university economic impact assessments need to be reframed as a dynamic, contextualised exercise that is part of the wider strategic decision-making process.

The report recommends the following actions:

• Reframing civic economic impact assessments as dynamic, contextualised and evaluative pieces of work that provide an evidence base for the university civic mission and embedding these impact assessments within the university’s strategic framework and decision-making.
• Universities should utilise the University Civic Economic Impact ROAMEF cycle and the Theory of Civic Change to develop a robust and university specific rationale and objectives for university civic economic impact. They need to develop their SMART objectives in partnership with civic and economic partners to more accurately demonstrate their civic economic impact.
• Universities need to have a greater awareness of their own civic economic impact. To gain a better understanding of their civic economic impact, universities should be utilising the 12 Pillars of University Civic Economic Impact tool to map the civic and economic outputs that the university is producing. However, this needs to be an ongoing process and sufficient monitoring of the outputs needs to be developed in order to effectively measure impact.
• Implementing civic economic impact assessments as part of an ongoing effort to improve universities’ civic role at a local, regional, national and global level. Universities should develop implementation plans with senior level ownership and accountability to action the findings arising from economic impact assessments.

Please reference this paper as:

Pugh, A., Read, H., Riley, B., & Hassan, S. (2024). Demonstrating the Economic Impacts of Civic Universities.

Meet the Authors

Hannes Read

Hannes is a Policy and Data Analyst with experience working on economic development research projects in local government and with business improvement districts. Hannes has recently worked at Lancaster City Council actively engaging with the economic recovery and resilience in the response to Covid-19. He has also worked closely on the council’s Community Wealth Building Strategy for sustainable and inclusive economic prosperity.

Alice Pugh

Alice is a Policy and Data Analyst with an undergraduate degree in BA Economics from Manchester Metropolitan University, and a postgraduate degree in MA Criminology from the University of Manchester. As part of her undergraduate degree, Alice completed a sandwich year with the Department for Work and Pensions as an Economic Data Analyst, working with big data, creating dashboards and conducting evaluations.

Bec Riley

Rebecca (Bec) Riley is an experienced researcher, intelligence provider and information professional. She has been helping practitioners and policy makers make decisions and develop solutions for over 20 years. Rebecca has delivered over 200 research and information projects to the public and private sector across economic, social and environmental policy areas. She is a champion of using evidence for decision making, making research accessible and ensuring it has impact.

Sara Hassan

Sara Hassan is a Research Fellow at City REDI with a strong multidisciplinary background: a Doctorate in Urban Transport Planning, a Master’s degree in Urban Planning and Landscape and a Bachelor in Architectural Engineering. Her research and teaching interests include a focus on urban and transport planning by developing innovative policy evaluation models and policy reform issues, policy analysis and how it impacts poor and marginalised communities, community development and urban planning. She also researches in the area of local economic development, migration and commuting.