The University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sasha Roseneil, attended the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week, speaking out to warn of the imminent dangers to research and teaching excellence at the UK’s universities, and calling for urgent government action to protect the sector, “before it is too late.” Sasha was a key speaker at a packed HEPI (Higher Education Policy Institute) panel event titled “How can universities best win back public support?” and she followed up her remarks with a HEPI blog.

HEPI speech  

In her HEPI speech and blog Sasha responded to the contention that universities need to ‘win back public support’, arguing, with strong evidence, that universities have not actually lost the support of students, prospective students, parents, and grandparents across the political spectrum. Rather, a daily barrage of anti-university news stories, rooted in opposition to the democratisation of access to higher education, and mobilising an ‘anti-woke’ agenda, has distracted government from the real crisis: an unprecedented funding shortage caused by a failing quasi-market model that is forcing universities to make devastating cuts to courses, staff, and research.  

Sasha concluded her blog by saying that: “We urgently need government action to support our universities to continue conducting the world-leading research, catalysing the growth-producing innovation, and providing the transformative education and advanced skills that we are capable of doing – before it is too late.” 

ResearchPlus fringe event 

On 30 September, Sasha also spoke at an event organised by ResearchPlus, a new collaborative of research-focused universities, of which Sussex is a founding member. At this well attended fringe event, she reiterated her warning about the threats to the sector, commenting that research-focused universities, such as those that are coming together to found ResearchPlus, are critical to the UK’s future prosperity, societal wellbeing, and civic cohesion, but they need urgent support to continue delivering world-class research, advanced skills, and innovation. She illustrated her speech with examples of ground-breaking Sussex research that is contributing to exciting innovation and industry partnerships in each of the three Sussex 2035 transformational themes of digital and data futures, environmental sustainability, and human flourishing.

ResearchPlus will be launched in Westminster at the end of October. It seeks to give a collective voice to universities that constitute a critical element of the UK’s research and innovation system, and that deliver vital research-informed education and advanced skills. For more information, see this HEPI blog which sets out ResearchPlus’s initial manifesto.   

Media coverage  

Sasha’s speeches and comments at the conference and her HEPI blog have been widely covered in the media: 

• The inclusion of a short interview with Sasha on ITV Meridian covering what MPs and others want in the Autumn Budget (starts at 03:56)  

• Two articles in the Times Higher Education*: 

• ‘Stupid’ fee levy plan ‘opposed by Labour backbenchers’ (see archive link if you are not signed up to THE) 
• Universities victims of ‘relentless negativity campaign’ (see archive link) 

• An article on Research Professional News* reporting on Sasha’s speech at the HEPI event 

• Another article on Research Professional News*,  about ResearchPlus: universities urged to get more political by scientist turned MP 

Sasha also commented in article an on Research Professional News* on problems that will be caused for universities by the introduction of a levy on international student which will be used to fund maintenance grants for some home students. She said: “The demand by international students for international study in the UK is not infinitely elastic. If we have to put up our fees, we will see fewer international students coming to the UK. The knock-on impact of that will be that universities have to make further cuts.’ She continued by saying those cuts “are already running very, very deep across the sector. It’ll mean more cuts, it’ll mean fewer staff, it’ll mean less research, because as we all know, international students have helped cross-subsidise research activity.”

Sussex academics sharing expertise at Labour Conference 

Illustrating the importance of university research, Sussex academics also shared their expertise across a range of high-profile fringe events:  

• Professor Winni Hensinger spoke at the Labour Tech panel hosted by PLMR, discussing how the UK could lead the world in quantum computing.  

• Dr Jo Wilding joined the Legal Aid Practitioners Group in the session “Justice: A way to a better society,” chaired by Lucy Rigby, Solicitor General.   

• The Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy based at the University of Sussex hosted a session on “Trade and Growth: A Strategy Fit for the UK”, featuring Matt Western MP and our academics Professor Emily Lydgate and Professor Michael Gasiorek.  

• Professor Emily Lydgate spoke at the Chatham House event on building the UK’s economic resilience in an uncertain global landscape.    

Sussex has had a profile at other party conferences and we will share more information on these shortly. 

*Staff can login to Research Professional News and Times Higher Education (THE) by signing up using your Sussex email. HEPI is open access.