Charity and commercial research adds £1.1 billion to UK HE income

Results of the 2011/12 HE Business and Community Interaction Survey 

HE Business and Community Interaction Survey 2011/12, published today, show that UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) made £1.1 billion through research contracts with businesses and non-commercial organisations. A further £1.4 billion of income was derived from consultancy contracts, facilities and equipment, CPD courses, intellectual property (IP), and regeneration and development programmes.

HEIs' income from most sources rose between 2010/11 and 2011/12, although income from  regeneration and development programmes was lower in the latest survey. The table below shows the value to HEIs of the various business and community interactions broken down by type of business and organisation where appropriate:

3,000 new companies formed

The HE-BCI survey is completed by all publicly funded UK HEIs and the results show the extent to which HEIs are embedded in the economy and communities of the UK. The HE-BCI publication displays the full survey results for every UK HEI. This release provides the headline results for the UK and for each devolved administration.

The survey results include the number of new and on-going spin-off companies associated with UK HEIs. 170 spin-offs were started with some HEI ownership in 2011/12 and over 2,500 graduate start-up companies were formed. In 2011/12 active spin-off companies employed nearly 33,000 people.

HE-BCI publication

HE Business and Community Interaction Survey 2011/12 contains the full results of the 2011/12 survey for every HE institution. The publication includes the qualitative responses from Part A of the survey, as well as quantitative data from Part B (from which the above tables are drawn). HE Business and Community Interaction Survey 2011/12 is available to purchase now.

The next scheduled release from HESA will be the Statistical First Release of data from the 2011/12 Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey at the end of June. A full schedule of all HESA releases for 2013 can be found here.

Notes for editors

1. Press enquiries should be directed to:
   
   • HESA Press Office
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   • 95 Promenade, Cheltenham, GL50 1HZ.
2. HESA data is collected from all publicly funded Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK, plus the University of Buckingham, which is a non-publicly-funded institution, but excluding The University of Wales (central functions). The 2011/12 HE-BCI data covers 163 HEIs (131 in England, 10 in Wales, 18 in Scotland and 4 in Northern Ireland).
3. The Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCI) is the main vehicle for measuring the volume and direction of interactions between UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and business and the wider community. The survey collects information on the infrastructure, capacity and strategy of HEIs, and also numeric and financial data regarding third stream activity (that is, activities concerned with the generation, use, application and exploitation of knowledge and other university capabilities outside academic environments, and distinct from core activities of teaching and research).
4. In tables where comparisons are made between HESA HE-BCI survey figures for the latest financial year 2011/12 and the previous financial year 2010/11, the figures for the previous financial year are those reported in the 2011/12 HE-BCI return.
5. Some variations in the data between years may be due to availability of information from independent spin-off and start-up companies, and changes in HEIs’ reporting practices.
6. One institutions in Scotland misreported their data on Intellectual Property (IP). Their IP data has been removed from the Scotland and UK totals.
7. This is the first year that the HE-BCI survey has been a condition of grant in Scotland, and as a consequence information is not included for 2 HEIs in Scotland for 2010/11. Some of the increases for Scotland may therefore be due to increased reporting.
8. The survey has collected data for each academic year from 1999/2000, with HESA undertaking the survey since 2008/09. From 1999/2000 to 2007/08 the survey was undertaken, and its results published, by HEFCE: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/kess/hebci/
9. The data in this release relates to all UK HE institutions. Figures for the individual nations of the UK are available in the Annex below: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland.
10. Further headline survey results are published in our free statistics area.
11. HESA cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.
12. Definitions of the terms used in this press release can be found on-line here.

Annex - equivalent tables for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

England

Wales

Scotland

Northern Ireland