UHI Contributes £191m To Scottish Economy

17th March 2011

The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) contributes £191m every year to the Scottish economy and supports 3,300 full time jobs, according to a new independent economic impact assessment.

Scotland's newest university also helps to sustain a further contribution of £202m every year and 2,700 jobs through the further education provision of the 13 academic partners and research institutions in the partnership.

The report 'Economic impact of the University of the Highlands and Islands and its academic partners' showed that for every £1 invested in UHI, the university put back nearly £4 into the Scottish economy.

Welcoming the findings, UHI principal and vice-chancellor James Fraser said: "This research was commissioned to measure the impact the University of the Highlands and Islands is having on the economies of Scotland, our operating area in the Highlands and Islands and Perthshire and at a local partner level. It shows that investment in UHI from the public purse has a demonstrable benefit and, in these uncertain economic times, it is right to analyse that benefit and let people know the value UHI brings to their communities.

"It reaffirms our belief that there is a tangible economic difference to be made by UHI delivering higher education in partnership with our constituent colleges and research centres, many of whom who also deliver further education in their respective communities."

However, Mr Fraser has warned that UHI will need a greater share of public funding if it is to achieve its objectives. In the run-up to the Holyrood election in May, UHI is lobbying the political parties to press its case.

He explained: "A new university awakens high levels of expectation in its community. UHI is no exception. We have to generate the academic and financial strength to grow our activities in order to satisfy the demand for education, training, learning and research.

"There are enormous expectations on UHI as a new university to recruit more young people in our region and to attract more students to our region from the rest of Scotland and the UK. We can only satisfy these expectations by attracting a greater share of public funding than we have historically received.

"We are in the ironic position of being able to accept more students from outside the UK, because we charge them full cost fees, but not able to grow the number of students from the UK and Europe, because of government funding constraints.

"Scotland has created a new university; Scotland must ensure that it progresses to maturity by allocating exceptional funding in the early years."

The study, which looks at data supplied from 2009/10, examined:

Direct impacts of the university, including staff employed and their spending in their home area, associated services and resulting jobs
Student impact including their spend and jobs through part-time work during study
Additional economic activity through attracting and retaining graduates
Increased productivity from higher qualification levels
Research commercialisation and the liaison between education and business
Tourism
Capital projects eg new building works
It also details these impacts with regard to the UHI academic partners and research institutions in their particular areas.

The report has been compiled by BiGGAR Economics which recently completed similar research for Universities Scotland.

UHI web site - www.uhi.ac.uk

In Caithness the North Highland College is part of the UHI
Web site - www.nhcscotland.com