Who benefits from HEIs engagement? An analysis of priority stakeholders and activity profiles of HEIs in the United Kingdom

Abstract

multidimensional scalingapplied to data on the universe of HEIs in the United Kingdom, we show that HEIs with different institutional resources and undertaking different sets of activities prioritise their engagement with different stakeholder groups. We also confirm the complex associations between HEIs' institutional resources, activity profiles and stakeholder prioritisation strategies, which lock HEIs into configurations that are difficult to change.

Understanding the evolution of the entrepreneurial university. The case of English Higher Education institutions

“…McCormack et al () suggest that research‐intensive universities see themselves competing in international and national markets (for staff and students) while newer universities focus more on local markets. This is consistent with De la Torre et al ()'s findings of a long‐standing division between traditional universities and former vocational education institutions, in terms of specialisation, teaching and research intensity, and stakeholder engagement.…”

“…Our findings echo previous studies confirming that there is no one model of the entrepreneurial university (e.g., Benneworth et al, ; Hewitt‐Dundas, ; Hussler et al, ; Philpott et al, ; Sánchez‐Barrioluengo, ; Sánchez‐Barrioluengo & Benneworth, ), but further complement them by taking a longitudinal view of third mission performance over time. While previous studies have provided cross‐sectional evidence of a differentiated HEIs picture (De la Torre et al, ) we show that universities have become even more differentiated over time. We do this by also providing a more fine‐grained differentiation between university types that goes beyond dichotomous types (e.g., high vs. low research intensive; and old vs. new universities), and beyond a narrow commercialisation focus to consider a broad range of KE activities.…”

“…A binary divide (McCormack, Propper, & Smith, ) is therefore often made within the UK Higher Education sector between the old universities, founded before 1992, which are typically more research focused, and new universities which were granted university status after 1992 as a result of the Further and Higher Education Act (HMSO, ), and also former university colleges that have become universities in recent years. New universities tend to be more teaching focused, and their third mission activities are assumed to be locally oriented given their traditional focus on vocational education and training, and their relatively low engagement in basic research (Charles et al, ; Goddard et al, ; De la Torre et al, ). Boliver () indeed found large differences between the old pre‐1992 universities and the new post‐1992 universities in terms of research activity, economic resources, academic selectivity and social mix.…”

“…This naturally generates a number of tensions, not least the ability and capacity of universities to balance a broad range of new tasks seemingly added on to their traditional core missions of teaching and research. As De la Torre, Rossi, and Sagarra (, p. 11) argue, ‘not all HEIs are equally equipped and prepared to interact with industry, and initiatives designed to get HEIs to work with business […] might not work with all of them’. It could therefore be argued that not all universities would respond to external pressures and incentives in the same way or interact with stakeholders in a similar fashion.…”

“…It could therefore be argued that not all universities would respond to external pressures and incentives in the same way or interact with stakeholders in a similar fashion. Using indicators of research, teaching and engagement activities, De la Torre et al () found that institutional profiles influence the types of activities universities engage in and the stakeholders they respond to. In turn, activities influence resources and stakeholders have preferences for different activities, in a mutually interdependent and recursive way.…”