Higher Education Estate Data Accountability: The Contrasting Experience of UK and Poland

Abstract

Higher education estates are large and valuable assets that affect diverse stakeholders. Despite recent growth, data on university estates has received little concerted attention from national and international statistics bodies. This paper examines and contrasts the evolution of universities and their estates in the UK and Poland, in light of the degree of central government control versus institutional autonomy. Given increased international competition for students, staff and research funding, the paper argues that universities and their stakeholders would benefit from more transparency, the development of an agreed set of estate definitions, standards and regular statistical reports. Data based on agreed standards would provide a basis for comparative analysis and help to run better university estates and facilities, thereby enhancing HEI efficiency, effectiveness and environmental sustainability. Higher education changes and the idea of a public good Universities, with a long and distinguished history since they first appeared in Europe almost one thousand years ago, are now undergoing vast change in their scale, operations, and perceived social and economic importance. Particularly in the last four decades, higher education institutions 1 , HEIs, have grown rapidly and are increasingly perceived as vital contributors to the development of the workforce for knowledge-based economies at global, regional, national and local levels. While in 1990, there were fewer than 10.3 thousand HEIs worldwide, the number had almost doubled by 2015 when there were over 18.5 thousand (WHED, 2017), employing over 12.7 million academic staff and educating more than 212 million students (UNESCO, 2017). In 2015, almost 36% of the global population aged 19 to 24 was enrolled in tertiary education compared to only 14% in 1990 (World Bank, 2017a). In response to evolving economic needs and social aspirations, higher education systems have moved progressively from being 'elitist'

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