Future Cities Forum REPORT 'Student Cities - engines for progress and prosperity'

Image: view to Titanic Quarter Belfast (courtesy K. Mitch Hodge) - where both Queen's University Belfast and Belfast Metropolitan College have an important presence

Future Cities Forum's 'Student Cities 2026' discussion event focussed on the impact of UK universities on their host cities, from economic, research, innovation, social and built environment perspectives - and the role of design in helping student and staff well-being.

Contributors to the forum were: Dr Aileen Jones, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Partnerships at Liverpool John Moores University, Linda Goodacre, Estates and Facilities Director, University of Sheffield, Adrian Johnston MBE, Innovation Commissioner for the City of Belfast (commenting on the role of Belfast's universities and FE colleges in the recent City Deal), Professor Tim Thornton, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Huddersfield, Michael Mitchell, Associate Partner - Architecture at Ridge & Partners LLP, Jessie Turnbull, Associate Director at MICA Architects and Ian Pratt, Director and Head of Education and Healthcare at Scott Brownrigg.

In August 2023 (according to the House of Lords Library) the economics consultancy firm London Economics published analysis of the impact of the higher education sector on the UK economy. The analysis was commissioned by Universities UK (UUK), which represents 142 universities across the UK, and was based on the 2021/22 academic year.

Its analysis estimated that the ‘economic footprint’ of higher education (HE) providers across the UK resulted in

• 768,000 full-time jobs

• £71bn in terms of gross value added (GVA)

• £116bn in terms of general economic output

It explained that these figures were calculated on the basis of direct impacts from HE providers, for example capital and operational expenditure, but also their ‘indirect and induced’ impact, such as spending flowing from suppliers and employees of the industry. For example, the analysis broke the economic output down as £46bn of direct impact and £70bn of indirect and induced impact.

In addition, it explained that these figures did not account for estimates of spending by international students who started studies in 2021/22. With this included it estimated that the economic output of HE providers was approximately £130.5bn.

It also set out analysis of these impacts by nation/region and type of industry. It found that each region of the UK benefited by more than £2bn in terms of economic output, with London and the South East benefitting the most and Northern Ireland and the North East benefitting the least.

Innovation Commissioner for the City of Belfast, Dr Adrian Johnston, MBE, started Future Cities Forum's conversation by talking about the billion pound investment from the UK government for the Belfast Region City Deal and the role of university research and innovation:

'We're delighted with the Belfast Region City Deal investment in its totality. It's a billion pounds of investment coming into the region. And in fact, my role Innovation Commissioner is one to bring strategic alignment across the innovation landscape of all the anchor institutions associated with innovation, but also the digital pillar of the Belfast Region City Deal. So £120 million of funds that underpins the activity, the digital infrastructure and challenge programmes which supports the work that Momentum One Zero will be doing. And we're really excited by that because if you look at the economy for Belfast and Northern Ireland over the past 10 to 15 years, it's really been built off digital and AI capability more than anything else.

'So when you look at the roll off from that into cybersecurity, into AI and big data, Momentum One Zero is effectively a 'one health' initiative. So everything from environmental, citizen, animal health, and the longitudinal studies of those data (sets) to then inform other activity - for example, in iReach, which is clinical data trials, or better therapeutics for citizens. We're really excited on how all of that starts to amalgamate into developing the city into a living lab where all citizens, whether they be students or the more mature residents within the city, ensures through our city investments, that it's not just an economic benefit, but actually a societal benefit from that as well. So it's kind of consolidating, which we haven't done for many years, but over the last two to three years with the help of the city and growth deals, and it has consolidated a lot of our strengths. These are around frontier type activity, but not just frontier activity that disconnects from the foundation economy, but also drives better benefits for people, really with that inclusive growth agenda.'

Dr Johnston was asked about how important the location of Momentum One Zero is and how it brands the innovation district. He responded:

'It's hugely important. So if you look at where Momentum One Zero is located, it's actually located in Titanic Quarter. It's co-located with Catalyst. And Catalyst is actually what was the Northern Ireland Science Park back in Gordon Brown's days. That particular campus is about 350,000 square feet of office space and incubator space for everything from small start-ups and the single entrepreneurs through to the large multinationals taking 30,000 space. There's about two and a half thousand employees on that campus every day. And it's co-located then with that academic institution of Momentum One Zero. And that has been really the strength of what has now become Momentum One Zero, that consolidation of cybersecurity, AI and data, wireless technologies and the capabilities of that entrepreneurial ecosystem. So in fact, Catalyst is one of the founding members of Innovation City Belfast, one of six members of Innovation City Belfast, along with Belfast Harbour.

'So we now have that physical space, which has been co-developed with partners to develop an entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem, if you like, and that has really enabled things like Momentum One Zero to occur. Now we're starting to see the expansion of that, both in terms of physical space, but also the technologies and innovations that they're developing through that ecosystem. So it supports everything from academic research through to translation and commercialization with entrepreneurs. And we see that having a massive impact actually on student entrepreneurs as well with that link back into the ecosystem.

He was then asked whether it is the sense of place and flexibility for companies to grow that will continue to attract global investment and firms to locate? Can it compete with innovation hubs in the US?

'I think that's a really important point. Catalyst as an entrepreneurial ecosystem actually was founded off the San Diego Connect model. So what was actually occurring in San Diego when they translated into the defence sector. And also Catalyst has a direct relationship with MIT and within Boston with Cambridge and Cambridge Innovation Park in Boston as well. So we take a lot of our influences from that but actually what we see from another perspective is if you look at Innovation City Belfast, it's the deep integration of our innovation ecosystem.

'So we have everything from the head of the civil service, permanent secretary of our departments of health and infrastructure, et cetera, really deeply integrated with the innovation ecosystem. In fact, what we have here is a time-to-market advantage. We should be able to take these new innovations, whether it's going to be implemented within the public sector transformation process, or whether it's about new technology development - that deep integration gives us the ability to do things at pace. And, you know, whether it's in policy, whether it's in funding, whether it's in translation of that academic research, we have the ability to do things at a quicker pace because of the deep integration. So while we've taken influences from other cities in the past, we've also tried to look at it from a place lens, what works for here, and actually, what are our strengths?

'Historically, you kind of look at other cities and see strengths in academic output or research capability. In fact, ours is in that deep integration of the ecosystem, which allows us to translate those. And we're also looking at that, for example, in the Enhanced Investment Zones and Local Innovation Partnership Funds. That's the kind of methodology we're using there.'

Image: Copperas Hill development at Liverpool John Moores University with view to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (courtesy Sheppard Robson)

Investing in innovation at Liverpool John Moores University was taken up in the discussion by the Pro Vice-Chancellor for External Engagements and Partnership, Dr Aileen Jones:

'I will start with just the Liverpool city region economy because it displays a number of the same characteristics as Belfast, similar size, productivity challenges, high economic inactivity. So I previously oversaw how devolved funding could be invested for greater economic impact in the Liverpool city region and now at the university, looking at the role of the university as an anchor institution in the Liverpool City region and the role that it can play in contributing to economic growth. So that's not just done through, you know, improving the regional skills base. The University does so much in terms of research and innovation and development. It invests in its campus in terms of capital investment. We've, as a university, invested between 2019 and 2022, over £100 million in our campus. And over the next five years, we'll invest another £45 million. So we play a really significant role in making the place more attractive through campus investment.

'We want to keep as many students and graduates in the city region as possible. I know we supply more graduates than any other university into the city region economy and retain more of our graduates. What we would like to see is more of our students being able to stay and get into high skilled employment here in the Liverpool city region. That is a potentially difficult given some of the economic challenges. We have a high business start-up rate, but sustaining those businesses is a real challenge and therefore job creation is challenging. Whilst we do retain a higher proportion than other universities it is still really an ongoing challenge given just the availability of jobs that there is in Liverpool.

Dr Jones was asked to expand on the academic range of courses run and whether this was key to the University's success:

'We have a wide portfolio offering at the university. So, you know, it's broader than those sectors that you suggested. We have a huge cohort of nurses, I mean, health and social care offer, physiotherapy, psychology, social work, nursing, pharmacy at John Moores as well. So we have a really broad and wide portfolio offering. We're actually in the middle of a portfolio review to ensure that it is reflective of employers' needs and I think that's a critical consideration for education institutions, ensuring that we are catering for jobs of the future, there's something about jobs of today but what are the jobs of the future, where are the skills gaps that employers are seeing and how do we as a university respond more quickly to that?

'I do think that is an ongoing challenge, particularly in AI and technology, which is changing all the time, and equipping students for jobs in the future. But we do have a broad and wide portfolio. As you say, our cultural identity in Liverpool has been a real pull and the football clubs, let's be honest, takes us to a global stage as well. We do also, whilst they are a smaller part of our portfolio, we do attract international students. We have over 2,000 international students here studying with us at Liverpool John Moores, but through our transnational education, we reach twenty four and a half thousand students internationally. I do think that is critical.

'We touched on inward investment and Adrian did one of the first things that a company will ask which is about the workforce and the skills and space in the city. So I do think as well as commercial space, somewhere to obviously locate and whether it ticks all the right boxes, but having a skilled workforce in the areas of those companies is critically important. So we do talk to the Combined Authority regularly in terms of the interest that they're seeing from international companies and the skills bases that they're looking for, so that we can provide a pipeline of graduates. So I think we offer a broad programme portfolio, and actually 8% of our students are from Northern Ireland. So we attract and continue to hold market share in Northern Ireland, but yes, I think our program offer is broad, but there is just a challenge in terms of how, employers' needs are met and whether we are catering and ensuring that we are filling any skills gaps.'

Image: artist's impression of the Emily Siddon building at the University of Huddersfield (courtesy University of Huddersfield)

Professor Tim Thornton, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Huddersfield., joined the conversation to pick up on Dr Jones' comments about the NHS and how central the organisation is to the new Emily Siddon building on the Yorkshire campus. It is the second faculty on the National Health Innovation Campus:

'The National Health Innovation Campus on which the Emily Siddon Building sits is a 6.5 acre site in the centre of Huddersfield. It's dedicated to health innovation, research, and skills. The entire campus is based around five key principles, which I think are ones that will resonate with other participants here, and indeed some of the contributions we've already heard around skills, around direct impacts on the health of regional and wider populations, around partnership, around innovation and around regeneration.

'Each of those themes is built on very strong foundations, so for example on skills, University of Huddersfield has a triple gold rating under the official teaching excellence framework system, gold for student experience, gold for student outcomes and gold for our overall position. We're the only university in Yorkshire and Humber and the northwest of England that has that triple gold rating. We're also Ofsted outstanding for our apprenticeship provision and we're the largest provider of apprenticeships to the NHS in Yorkshire and Humber.

'On direct health impacts too, there are strong foundations going back many years, for example around our pioneering student-led and student-supported clinics, innovative approaches such as the 'Get Set Goal' scheme that we've operated for a while, originating in our mental health nursing provision, but now spanning into other professions and taking those professions into unexpected settings, a kind of guerrilla health approach. Partnership, we're very fortunate that we are developing on a very strong underpinning of partnerships with local trusts, good local trusts like Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust, others like Leeds Teaching Hospitals who have a genuinely national and indeed international footprint.

'Innovation again, has very strong foundations, the University has been for some time among the top providers of knowledge transfer partnerships in the UK and then finally around regeneration and I think here Heather coming to to your point more directly, recognizing the transformative effect that university activity has on wider economic and social activity in the region.'

Professor Thornton was asked to expand on the environmental qualities of the building and the blue and green infrastructure in which it sits:

'We have been pioneers in the application of the Well Building Standard. This is a broad-based sustainability standard. It comes out of the US. I think some colleagues, Eileen, I suspect you'll know the SPINE. The SPINE is a well platinum building. We have the first higher education platinum accredited buildings in the UK. And one of them will be the Emily Siddon building. This is not just about the performance of the building on handover. It's about the long-term performance of the building in the broadest sense. And it includes things like the quality of the air, the water, the food, for example, in the building in terms of their impacts on sustainability. And that makes a real difference to the experience of anybody who uses the building, including obviously those clients who are coming in to use the clinics and other health resources.

Image: canal-side campus of the University of Huddersfield (courtesy Knowledge Exchange framework)

Professor Thornton continued:

'I think you pose an interesting question there around the access to green space and to natural resources, which is so important in supporting health and wellbeing. Huddersfield, I think it's perhaps unlike some of the other participants in the call in that we're not a core city. We are a large urban environment, but we are part of a group of large towns and smaller cities in this part of West Yorkshire. And I guess some of the challenges, but also the opportunities that come with that, they do relate to access to green space. Although we are a very urban environment, we're only a very short distance from the Pennine Way. And part of the intervention that we have to support is enabling our local communities to get the best out of those combinations of urban and rural environments.'

Image: view over Sheffield's main station towards the Arts Tower of the University of Sheffield - courtesy Ben Elliott

Working towards net zero goals is a priority for all universities and Director of Estates and Facilities Management at The University of Sheffield, Dr Linda Goodacre, who joined the conversation, explained how she and her team had developed a long-term plan:

'We have got approval for our new Future Campus Plan which we have dovetailed into that the future of the sustainability strategy as well, so we are working as a single entity across with our own sustainability and our our academic colleagues who have masses of experience in carbon reporting etc. So we have a plan for net zero by 2032 and how we're going to achieve that. So largely through coming away from our gas and CHP, largely, and servicing most of our, let's say, power hungry, heat hungry buildings, through air source heat pumps. So we have zoned our campus into a series of zones and we are focusing on the zones that are going to make most impact in that. By pulling the future campus or master plan in with the sustainability strategy and having a combined strategy, we were able to have a five or six year vision in terms of what we might want to do to enable that sustainability strategy to be delivered.

'Part of the strategy is to have a smaller, more compact, more used, more intensive campus that we can invest in more frequently to keep it current and to keep it sustainable. So that's where we're coming from. So we're in a city, and we're able to divest from a lot of buildings on the periphery of the campus that we no longer need.

'In a city centre context, it's a lot easier to achieve than on a campus. We're probably going to raise somewhere between £20 million and £30 million from divestment over the course of our master plan, so over 10 years. And that doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it takes an awful lot out of the operating costs as well.

'But the one project that has continued is what we call our Faculty of Health phase one building, which is a combination of research and teaching. It is going to sit adjacent to our SITraN building (Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience). As we are consolidating our campus, our SITraN building, which sits next to this new building, those two are going to sort of be an outlier from the rest of our campus strategy, but because that's the proximity to the hospital. So we understand that actually, there's the sort of clinical skills journey, the research and the teaching coexisting in a location, but strategically doing it rather than it just being there by coincidence.'

Image: view of how the proposed SITraN building could look from Glossop Road (courtesy University of Sheffield)

Dr Goodacre was asked about how the new Renters' Rights Act 2026 might affect the up take of student accommodation. She said:

'We have an over-provision at the moment. Ours is largely a PFI situation, which has got about 20 years to run now. So probably I would say 80% of our accommodation sits in there. So we also have some in the city centre, which is not on our strategy to retain. They're a third party that we can we can come out of a bit sooner. So we have a fantastic location in Sheffield for our students. It's a 20 minute walk from campus for those who don't know Sheffield, up a hill which probably is not a surprise in Sheffield!

' I'm just writing the new accommodation strategy, which will say that we have too many rooms. However, it's this balance between the growth of the commuter student, you know, and we're seeing a little bit more of that, and I think the view is that that's going to continue to grow. So we've got to think about how we adopt that into the strategy, but also the new legislation that's going to impact on HMOs. I think there's an expectation that that's going to really impact on certainty, the certainty, for a lot of independent landlords around income, obviously. Because both have got the double whammy of how we've been hit by international students who like to go to in those sorts of accommodations as groups. And also the fact that the renters bill is going to mean that there is a little bit more risk associated with having that, having HMOs in portfolios. Also you've got the fact that the local authorities in a lot of cities are limiting the amount of changes into HMOs.

'So I think all that coupled together means that actually we've got a lot to think about what our strategy is for the student accommodation going forward. But I think that the truth of the matter is, the challenges mean you can't sit back now and the accommodation will just fill, you have to really work hard, whether that's continuing to invest, continuing in marketing, but also continuing to understand what's happening in the sector. Believe it or not, student numbers are declining but these buildings are still going up, and we already have an oversupply in Sheffield, so you really do need to be on top of it in terms of really making your provision attractive to students. Now, whether that is the price, whether it's the accommodation itself and its condition and what it offers, but I think the thing that universities can do that people I say to don't do so well is that wraparound service.

'That's the thing that at Sheffield we're really focusing on making that a unique position that actually students have from a well-being, from a safety point of view, from all of that. We've got a really, really good support network in place to support that. So that's that's how we're approaching it.'

Image: Clive Booth Student Village at Headington part of Oxford Brookes University's campus - courtesy MICA

The conversation touched on the fact that Sheffield is branding itself on being 'the green city' because of its close access to the countryside for health and wellbeing. This led to Jessie Turnbull of MICA Architects, to describe how the design for new and upgraded student accommodation at Oxford Brookes, has been planned to be steeped in nature.

Jessie explained:

'It touches on so many of the things that Linda just mentioned about providing first of all that wraparound care for students so that they've got a kind of environment where they're completely looked after by the University, which is important for Oxford Brookes, as they do have a pretty high proportion of international students. In their case the HMO market in Oxford is completely different to Sheffield's and the HMO market is so tight, it's just a really unaffordable city, so Brookes was really keen to bring as many of their students as possible into their student accommodation where they can control the rent prices, the prices at costs of utilities and achieve that kind of certainty throughout the academic years or multiple academic years.

'And it was also a slight reputational problem of this older accommodation that they had. It was built in the late 70s, it was completely inaccessible, it's a very steeply sloping site in a woodland setting, so lovely in that regard and it's well used by dog walkers, it's completely a totally permeable site, so it's a lovely amenity for the whole community. It's got allotments on two sides, it's got a really lovely kind of character to it, but the problem with the accommodation was one, very dated, two, completely inaccessible, three, very dark, four, had quite a lot of security problems, as it had so many front doors everywhere, lots of kind of nooks and crannies for antisocial behaviour.

'But it was also a really prime site for redevelopment because it was it was pretty much underdeveloped and we were able to, I think, more than double the capacity of the site while retaining all of the category A trees within the overall woodland setting and it's also in a conservation area and visible on the skyline and from Great St Mary's Church, so there were all these natural and historical constraints to the site.'

Jessie was asked whether there was a conscious decision to try to connect some student accommodation at Headington to the hospital site nearby?

Jessie commented:

'There is a relationship with the University Hospital because they do have a a lot of nursing students who are housed at the the Clive Booth Student Village. So that was a kind of very conscious thing of making really excellent routes for those people to be accessing the hospital because they obviously have to travel at antisocial hours because of their shift patterns and making sure that they had the right to a bit of parking because they have to do this antisocial commute but also making sure it's kind of well linked to all the bus stops and cycle parking and that kind of thing.

'I mean, speaking of divestment, as you mentioned again Linda, Brookes in order to fund this project got rid of their Wheatley campus and that the funding that came from that divestment was a key aspect to unlocking the ability to to redevelop the Clive Booth student village. That campus actually was closer to the John Radcliffe hospital so they kind of had to make a hard decision about you know consolidating onto fewer sites that work better for their central Headington campus while sacrificing a a little bit of that proximity to the hospital.'

Image: master-plan of the University of Portsmouth campus - courtesy Ridge and Partners

Michael Mitchell, Ridge, spoke of its work to re-design the University of Portsmouth's academic departments and student learning facilities post Covid:

 'Portsmouth University approached us to work with them to develop a strategic master plan and really to target some key areas for improvement across the site. So they're a multi-site university within city of Portsmouth, and the key things that they wanted to improve was student experience, the interconnectivity across the master plan, and consolidating departments together, so it would allow investment in certain departments. The University also felt it would allow them to invest in certain capital projects as well.

'So alongside that, there's a big drive to bring students back into the city centre a bit more and to improve facilities for student wellbeing. And we've been finding that the way that students learn has changed as well, especially after COVID. There's a lot more hybrid learning, and I know that some universities are not trying to stay away from that, but it's something that we've had to consider as well. So there's definitely been a need for increasing social learning spaces, and more student support facilities.

'A big part of the master plan was to develop a campus spine, to unify the campus a bit more in the centre of the city, rather than having different quarters to go to. And then within each of the main hubs along this spine, we would then consolidate the departments to focus on certain aspects, maybe it's technology or health or science. We looked at it from macro scale down to the micro scale. So starting from the city scale, then zooming into the campus scale, then down to a quarter scale. How do the inter-department adjacencies work? Which departments work well together? Which departments worked well together under one faculty? The micro strategy was being able to decant buildings' departments into certain buildings, and that would allow you to bring all of the technology together in one place.

'You mentioned cost management and as a multidisciplinary firm, we've worked closely with lots of different consultants within our team and cost management, of course, really important to make sure that all of this lines up with the strategic vision and business case and can align with changing workforce needs in going to government level investment in dentistry, for example. You mentioned climate change and net zero and because Portsmouth is a coastal city and certain sites are really impacted by rising sea levels, we've been working closely with the flood management team to ensure that that's accounted for. There are certain areas you can adapt to provide flood defences, but there also need to be flood evacuation plans.'

Image: interior of the Spark building at Southampton Solent University - courtesy Scott Brownrigg

Ian Pratt, Scott Brownrigg, also spoke of the new 'mixed economy of teaching' and how that has been evident in its design for Southampton Solent University's Spark.

'I think what really amazes me about this whole sector is just how underreported it is really. It's a source of dismay to me that universities aren't appearing in headlines daily because of the positive impact they have. They are absolute engines for progress and prosperity. I'm deliberately not using the word growth, because I actually think we need to fundamentally measure our economy and success in different ways.

'We were given the opportunity to help these institutions find new ways of engaging, not only with their own in-house learning communities, if you like, the staff, the students, the support staff, but also the broader contextual communities, so cities, wider regions, and really exploring new ways of how they can open their campuses up beyond that kind of traditional academic context. I think many of the kind of severe financial constraints, I think there are different causation factors and equally when I think about Solent there was a real need, a critical need to think about reducing estates costs.

'The university had expanded its portfolio of property over time, bringing leasehold properties into the mix. because they couldn't deal with some of the older buildings on the campus, or they didn't have the swing space to move things around. So they were thinking, even in those days, about reducing energy costs, consolidating the building footprint. What I realised in the case of that project, is that estates projects actually are usually driven by serious cultural change and they then become that kind of physical manifestation of the change and the best projects match the space needs, the space provision with the strategic goals of the institution. With Solent we were fortunate they had just published a five-year strategy so that building was all about pooling all of the centrally timetabled teaching space into one new building.

'The big opportunity that we saw was actually that if we built that new accommodation immediately adjacent to an existing building, we could link into it and help transform the specialist facilities in that space. And at the same time, the space that became the atrium that you can see behind me, we formed that by completely moving the existing vehicle access and egress arrangements, but then making use of the structures that form the car park and the vehicle ramps to create destination lecture theatres. Then the 'pod' really came about from a conversation with the vice-chancellor at interview. We'd competitively tendered for the project.

'I was a young architect at the time, sitting opposite the vice-chancellor. At the end of an otherwise completely successful interview, he looked me squarely in the eyes and said, Ian, tell me what you think the logo means to the university? And the logo was essentially a spark from whence the name of the building came. And I'll be honest, I fluffed my response, I became very waffly. I'd like to think I threw in a few good words, like, you know, it's distinctive, it says something about your identity. He very graciously sort of intervened and said, Ian, let me elaborate on some of what you've said. And that really stuck with me. So the idea for what you see here, the pod, was really, how do we physically express and say something about the university?

'I think that's a concept that can be applied to whole campuses. What I know for sure in education design and campus design is that one size does not fit all, and that campuses, individual universities need to be very specific to their context. They need to be attractive. They need to be really distinctive.

'London Design Engineering, UTC, very different, much more challenging context. Solent here, we were opposite Guildhall Square. So we had good opportunities to enforce physical connections, drive movement across the listed park there. So there's a really lovely green outlook from the top of the pod when you're standing there.

'It (UTC) felt quite barren, quite windswept when we first arrived on the site. But the positives, you know, right next door to East London University. Great connections in terms of public transport, the Docklands Light Railway. What better building typology to re-energize, activate, enliven, be the catalyst for future development. And hopefully over time, that's exactly what that building or rather series of buildings will do.

We've created the original building for 600 students, for 14 to 19 year olds, for those of you who don't know about the University Technical College's initiative, but we've just recently completed a brand new T-Levels building, which gives them expansion space. I don't think it's any great secret, but they're in discussions about a new centre of excellence. I'll leave it on this point, just thinking about now finally having a 10-year infrastructure strategy as a nation. It's very clear what the government would like universities to be doing, and I'm sure what universities would love to be doing in that context, but also read with great interest the post-16 education and skills white paper and what that hints to again, in terms of where the sector might go. So increasing collaboration between universities that perhaps haven't worked closely together in the past, particularly the regional universities.'

Image: CGI of the University of Ulster's CDHT Building (Centre for Digital Healthcare Technology) on Frederick Street Belfast - courtesy of Cyanotype Media

The conversation followed between all contributors on the topics of skills development pathways, branding and cultural challenges, the importance of partnerships, student mental health and wellbeing, enhancing green spaces and sustainable building methods:

Dr Johnston:

'It's been really, really interesting conversation and actually sparked a lot of thoughts on my own head, even the role of the universities and academic institutions and the overall regeneration of the city here within Belfast. I think from an Innovation City Belfast perspective, that's what has been one of our key enablers, is having that direct link between FE and HE as part of that skills development pathway. There's 60,000 students living and studying in the city, and about 34,000 of those students are in FE, you know, with Belfast Metropolitan College, which is co-located, it's a multi-campus, but its biggest campus is co-located on the Titanic Quarter.

'So there's direct links in and pathways, and Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland have done a fantastic job around apprenticeships and around skills pathways and academies to link in that post-16 through those various different skills pathways, and they're very much aligned to develop the right skills portfolio for even the Belfast Region City Deal investments.

'There's really good models of that sort of practice here within Belfast. I mean, some of the earlier points that were raised around the regeneration of a city, one of the major, major investments that we've seen, I mean, Queen's University itself has contributed about £700 million to infrastructure around their own accommodation, student accommodation, but also around the campus infrastructure they have. But Ulster University, about five years ago, relocated their campus from Jordanstown, which is about six miles outside of Belfast, into the city centre, into York Street. And that's a £364 million investment in a new campus and around student accommodation that fell out of that, which included three multi-storey accommodation centres for young students, about 700 rooms in in each one. And that has actually sparked off in regeneration of public space, green space, investment by private investment, as well as public sector investment in redeveloping those green spaces and infrastructures needed.

 'So if you think of Queen's and Ulster book-ending the city, we're starting to see then the effects of filtering through that sort of corridor between Queen's and Ulster. And in fact, those Belfast regions, they deal investments around using the city as a living lab. Another one of our investments is £350 million of physical research centres of excellence being developed as part of that. And one, connected data health technologies, which is about obviously connected digital health technologies and how citizens can benefit from those, is co-located now. It's being rebuilt. The ground has just been broken to build that centre next to the York Street campus, but also next to areas of deprivation that require regeneration within the city, so there are spill over effects from that.

Professor Thornton:

'I think this comes back to the point around branding that you raised earlier, which obviously has many dimensions. There are only so many things you can do around structuring progression opportunities for young people before you start to meet the cultural challenges, which I'm afraid are so often the obstacle that they really face. At the University of Huddersfield, we have a population which is more than half from backgrounds where there's no previous engagement in higher education. Well over half come from the least privileged two IMD quintiles.

'Those are demographics that often find higher education extremely difficult to access, even if it's immediately adjacent to them. You can put a building up immediately next to their FE college or next to the estate which they live but the reality is they're not able to to pass the threshold and to join the academic community. I think we have some advantages in the traditions of the institution. We're a former mechanics institute if you go back into the 19th century, we were created by local people by a group of warehousemen and their employer, so we're not the product of central government intervention or you know large-scale philanthropy, but even so we have to work very hard, and I know colleagues across the discussion event do so in different ways to challenge those cultural barriers.

'The name of buildings is really important, I have to say. If those populations don't see themselves reflected in a building, and that is often first encountered through its name, then it makes it a difficult space to enter. The first of the buildings on our National Health Innovation Campus is called the Daphne Steele Building. It's named after the first black matron in the NHS. We've had a fantastic response to that from so many disadvantaged, minoritized communities in the region. Just such a clear signal that we value the achievement of a real pioneer and that was actually an achievement delivered here in West Yorkshire too. Emily Siddon building, the one you mentioned, which has just opened, is named after one of the first female GPs in the UK, as somebody who achieved that through their pioneering work around what we would now call learning disability and mental health. Also a woman who achieved that in spite of the fact that she lived in a same sex relationship through all of her life here in West Yorkshire. There are so many ways in which we have to continue to work hard in ensuring that the spaces that we create are genuinely accessible to those communities who we want to engage with.'

Dr Jones:

'I guess one of the things that I really picked up on through the discussion was the power of partnership and the importance of universities working with others within a city in order to achieve, you know, common goals and priorities. I know Adrian talked about the deep integration between government, universities, business, third sector and how important that is when in an environment where public funds are so constrained, the importance of that coming together to discuss economic development, regeneration, campus etc. is so important and how you can achieve more through partnership working.'

Linda Goodacre:

'We're fortunate in Sheffield to have a very proactive City Council, so we've got two big universities and the City Council, but also we're all involved in the business, the BID, the Business Improvement District as well, and we come together through different forums to discuss stuff like this, so to basically make sure that we as a city and the sort of anchor institutions in the city, including the health service, make sure that we're an inclusive city in terms of, and also, you know, we recognise ourselves,

'We are a Russell Group research intensive university and going forward do we need to build in some of these connections with communities? That's not our role. However, we need to and we have a role to play in terms of our citizens that leave us to ensure that they are inclusive in the way that they go forward in their careers as well.'

Ian Pratt:

'Just on that subject of students, mental health and well being, and thinking, you know, how people have able to describe that kind of range of very individual different circumstances, pressure points that people may be exposed to, but certainly from some research we've undertaken that the kind of value for money and the cost of being a student these days is a really significant pressure point that can have, in the worst cases, some disastrous impacts on students. And I'm wondering how colleagues are making decisions around right sizing of the estate. We've heard about creation of new campuses, we've heard about disposal of assets, retrenching from city centre projects, bringing beneficial reuse of those buildings, which is really encouraging. But yeah, I'm just wondering to what extent that kind of mental health wellbeing lens, if you like, is informing decisions around property strategy specifically.

Michael Mitchell:

'Well, it's a really interesting point. I think part of the studies we undertook was around the existing Students Union. And we found that it was actually not being used as much as it could be. And part of it was due to being a bit far away from some of the more busier parts of the site, but also the way students are using these spaces is changing and there's been a big part of one of our projects is to look at wellbeing for students, but also for staff as well. So you want to also be attracting the best staff to your universities over your competitors as well, and providing different kinds of spaces that, yes, there is a bar, but there is also more social learning spaces, more collaborative spaces, more areas for students to come together and collaborate together. Yeah, so I'd be interested to hear from our university colleagues if that's something that they have, a trend that they're seeing.

Dr Goodacre:

'So part of the work we've done in the master plan is obviously well-being, health and safety obviously, but well-being in the widest context. And thinking about how people are going to feel moving from building to building. So looking at those student journeys and staff journeys between buildings to make sure that A, it's not having to rush between that. But there's also there's that, there's that downtime, you know, we've got opportunities around campus to sit, reflect, and recover, whatever, whatever that feels like. So I think it's the connectivity between buildings is in some respects as important. But also, as simple as it seems, wayfinding can cause an awful lot of stress. And so making, you know, having a really simple way of getting your way around campus and also, you know, access to toilets, access to coffee, access to whatever, has to be really, really easy for both staff and students. And that's something that's been quite critical in the way we're taking our future campus forward.'

Tim Thornton:

'I'm beginning to sound like a salesperson for the International Well Building Institute, I'm afraid, but I would advocate for the way that that helps structure regard for mental health into the buildings that we create. I'm not an expert on all the dimensions of the certification, but I know that it has quite a wide range of mental health related elements into it, whether it's around the policies of the institution supporting mental health, or some of the detail we've been talking around, biophilic design, for example. I think that's one of the, I suppose one of the messages we give to potential colleagues, students, partners, clients, when we talk about the certification of the building, it does have regard both to physical and to mental health.'

Jessie Turnbull:

A couple of those things that both Linda and Tim have touched on have made me think of our project for Lancaster University, which was also called The Spine, and it completed back in 2017. And that was a fully external project. And it was very much about thinking about how people move between buildings. It was all about linking a whole series of 1960s buildings and also harking back to what Michael was talking about, dealing with the stormwater and the flooding issues that the campus was seeing.

'So it did kind of two or three things at once. It made, first of all, connected all those buildings in a way that was accessible. You could get to all buildings on an external step-free route. It dealt with a lot of the stormwater problems. So we were introducing a lot of green roofs, a lot of kind of swales and rainwater retention features, but it was also creating really wonderful outdoor space where you could sit and enjoy the outdoors, adding a lot more biophilia, a lot more greenery, places for flora and fauna to flourish, and they're covered outdoor spaces, so you can enjoy them all year round. You know, Lancaster's not the most clement of environments!

'I think WELL is a really fantastic building standard, but that was the first BREEAM infrastructure project to receive, I think, outstanding certification. And these things are really meaningful because they hold you to account. you say it's not just about like increasing the level of porosity but it's increasing it to a very specific measured amount and it's increasing the biodiversity a very specific measured amount all a lot of these things have now become you know enacted in in acts of parliament and they're things we you know everyone has to comply with that but let's not forget that these these standards were once innovation things that people committed to not because they had to because they believed that they were the right thing to do and I think a lot of this a lot of the well building standards are being baked into our building regulations now about things like overheating, access to light and air and I think it's a really positive thing and I'm just so glad that institutions are the ones who are willing to commit to these things at quite an early stage when they are still you know untested ground.'

Ian Pratt:

'I was just going to come back to the point Linda made about the importance of the spaces between And I take that to mean spaces within buildings, between cellular accommodation, lecture theatres, social learning spaces, but also externally. And I think that they are absolutely critical to human experience, actually. And in terms of the external spaces, and others have spoken about this to a degree in the context of their projects, obviously, they present a great opportunity for addressing the biodiversity crisis that we're facing globally. hear constantly about drastic and dramatic loss of species in the UK, so anything we can do to help with that, that might be rewilding turf for example, but also of course the advantage that brings in terms of cooling the urban environment, the more we can use buildings to shade spaces, greenery to cool the urban environment, you know very much combating that heat island effect, then the less we're going to need to cool buildings moving forward and it does seem certain that we do in some context. So yeah, I think really important to think about the spaces between and the many benefits they can bring.'

Future Cities Forum would like to thank all its contributors to this fascinating report that layout the future planning issues around the expansion of university cities in the UK.

Image: Physics Garden - part of the Lancaster University Spine (courtesy MICA)