Download and print

Download a print friendly pdf of the leaflet 'Your Area Our Impact' on the Regional Impact Study findings.
Download high resolution graphics from the leaflet here.

The University of Warwick: Making a contribution to our region

The University of Warwick is both globally and regionally focused. We believe that these are not conflicting aims. Indeed, quite the opposite. Our international reputation and global connections help us to ensure that our local communities benefit from the University’s facilities and presence in the region. Our world-class Business School works with companies and entrepreneurs across the West Midlands and WMG continues to strengthen its relationships with major employers in Coventry and Warwickshire such as Jaguar Land Rover and Tata – attracting the very best talent to work and study in the local area. As a result, our excellent track-record of working alongside business is widely regarded as a blueprint for how to connect research, innovation and economic growth. However, it is the extraordinary wealth of people all working, studying and thinking at the University of Warwick that is our biggest contribution to the region and to local communities. This report sets out how our students and staff connect the University with our local areas through their ideas, ambitions and hard work.
Professor Nigel Thrift Vice-Chancellor and President

A bit about us...

The University of Warwick is globally connected, forward-looking and entrepreneurial. We create new ways of thinking and achieving: making us stand out from our competitors and the more ‘traditional universities’ and creating an inspiring place to study and undertake research. Warwick is one of the UK’s great success stories. In less than fifty years since being founded we’ve become one of the UK’s top ten universities and we’re rapidly climbing the international league tables of world class universities. In 2012, the University commissioned independent consultants SQW to undertake a study looking at the annual impact we had on our region between July 2011 and July 2012. The results of this highlighted five key areas in which the University makes a contribution to your area:

Economic Impact

The University directly spends around £306m in the West Midlands each year, and our staff and students further boost the regional economy with their expenditure.

When this is all added up, weighted for seasonal differences and indirect ‘multiplier-effects’, SQW estimated the total value of the University’s economic impact in the region during 2011/12 to be worth £520m to the West Midlands. Within this total, we generated almost £351m in the Coventry and Warwickshire sub-region, £222m in the city of Coventry, £84m in Royal Leamington Spa and £20m in Kenilworth.

SQW calculated that this expenditure, combined with direct employment by the University, supports around 15,500 jobs (full-time equivalents) in the West Midlands, of which around 10,900 are in Coventry and Warwickshire.

These figures are based only on the University’s direct financial expenditure and that of our staff and students. The economic impact of the University’s presence in Coventry and Warwickshire is likely to be much greater – including financial benefits from international students, their friends and families visiting the area; attracting inward regional investment through our track-record of excellence in innovation and research; as well as our work with local schools and children. Much of this can’t be quantified, but this report gives you a snapshot of how the University of Warwick has an impact on our region and local area.

Innovation

A hub for world-leading research and creativity

University of Warwick Science Park

Now owned outright by the University, the Science Park provides a full range of support services to businesses in Coventry and elsewhere in the West Midlands. These services have benefitted over 1800 companies in the last eight years, attracted 24 businesses to the region and created 66 companies and safeguarded 291 jobs. The Science Park is currently home to 140 tenants on four sites.

Helping regional manufacturing thrive

WMG (formerly Warwick Manufacturing Group) has developed a close relationship with Jaguar Land Rover, a major employer in the region. JLR has located 180 of its research and development staff on campus as part of a programme which will generate £100m of collaborative research over ten years. WMG have also led the Premium Automotive Research and Development Programme (PARD) designed to assist the automotive supply base in the region. An independent evaluation concluded that it has assisted 605 businesses, generated £55.5m in value added and safeguarded 5,496 jobs.

Science City Research Alliance (SCRA)

Sience City Research Alliance is a partnership between the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham. It was catalysed through an initial grant of £10m from Advantage West Midlands, and £1m from the Wolfson Foundation, for staff and set-up costs. A further £57m investment in the regional research infrastructure has also been provided. The work of the Alliance is focused on three high-growth technology sectors: Energy, Advanced Materials and Translational Medicine. It has created over 254 jobs, attracted additional research funding of £13m and helped more than 140 businesses.

A world-class business school for the region

Warwick Business School is ranked by the Financial Times as the UK’s 3rd best business school in the UK and in Europe’s top 15. Many of its courses are ranked amongst the best in the world – and it is a beacon of business research and innovation excellence for the Midlands. In 2012, WBS received £2.9m funding, along with other regional partners, to launch a new Enterprise Research Centre to boost SME performance. It has also joined forces with the West Midlands Economic Forum to improve the way in which policymakers and businesses support the regional economy, helping produce more up-to-date and reliable data for a true picture of the West Midlands’ economic performance.

Education and Training

Providing education, skills and training of the highest quality

In 2012/13 the University of Warwick was ranked as the best University in the Midlands by all four major UK university league tables.

Warwick graduates are ranked as the number one target for the UK’s top recruiters and account for 3% of the West Midlands' population with NVQ Level 4 qualifications and above, a significant proportion of the region’s highly skilled labour force.

University innovation helping improve the health of the region

In 2012, the University of Warwick, GE Healthcare, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW) and Coventry City Council joined forces to create the Warwick Healthcare Partnership. WHP will seek solutions to the chronic diseases responsible for millions of deaths worldwide each year. The new consortium brings together expertise from academia, industry, medicine and the local community, to address the key health problems that affect resource-poor communities both locally and overseas.

In 2009 the Clinical Trials Unit building was completed at Gibbet Hill at a cost of £4m. The Unit now boasts 24 separate trials across its four major work streams of musculoskeletal conditions including injury prevention and management, cancer, clinical trials methodology and systematic reviews. This resource is also credited with raising the quality of clinical practice in the local area.

WMG Academy for Young Engineers

In September 2014, the University of Warwick will open the WMG Academy for Young Engineers. It will be a brand new school and part of a family of University Technical Colleges – schools for 14–18 year olds which are led by businesses and a university. The WMG Academy will take all that is good from mainstream education and add in a host of skills which will prepare young people from the local area for apprenticeships, employment or Higher Education. A key feature of the curriculum will be a close working relationship with local and national employers.

A key feature of the curriculum will be a close working relationship with local and national employers. Employers will be involved in setting the Academy’s curriculum, which includes technical projects which are based on the day-today problems and situations they have to resolve in their companies. The University is already working with Jaguar Land Rover, National Grid, SCC, Prodrive, Ricardo, Automotive Insulations, Squires Gears, Dassault Systemes, Bosch and Tata Motors, and hopes that many more businesses will also join us.

Global Connections

Bringing a global reputation and international connections

Through our global reputation and international connections, the University of Warwick brings significant benefits to the regional economy and our local communities.

The role universities play in attracting inward investment is well known. In Warwick’s case, the relationship between WMG, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata has helped strengthen investment in advanced automotive manufacturing in Coventry and Warwickshire. The SQW report concluded that ‘the presence of a major inward investor like Tata [at the University] gives a positive signal to other major firms to consider investing and potentially locating in the West Midlands.’ An example of this is the £100m investment being made by Jaguar Land Rover and Tata and the UK Government to the development of the National Automotive Innovation Campus at the University. This state-of-the-art new building on Warwick’s campus was announced at the end of 2012.

Warwick is also one of the UK’s most culturally diverse universities, with 8,350 international students from 72 different countries on campus in 2011/12.

Our international students make up 40% of all Warwick Volunteers, and organise events like One World Week, which, with over 200 student volunteers, is arguably the world’s largest student-run international event.

In addition to direct economic benefits to regional tourism created by visiting families and friends, our international students act as ambassadors for the region and local area. Over 45,000 international alumni are resident in 193 countries and 83% of our international students would recommend the University of Warwick – higher than the national average.

The NAIC builds on Tata Motors European Technical Centre's long-standing relationship with WMG. It showcases the kind of academic and industrial partnership that will help the UK to be a destination of choice for inward investment in high valueadded automotive R&D.
Nick Fell, Director and Head of the Tata Motors European Technical Centre

The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) – connecting the University of Warwick to New York

In 2012 New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that Warwick would be the only European university involved in a consortium of world-class universities and multinational corporations that would create a brand new campus in downtown Brooklyn.

The Centre for Urban Science and Progress will use cutting-edge research techniques like ‘living laboratories’ and real-world data to address the major challenges facing cities across the globe. Warwick’s involvement will connect the region to this ground-breaking initiative, helping policymakers better understand how cities can deliver services more effectively, efficiently, and sustainably while keeping their citizens safe, healthy, prosperous, and well-informed.

Culture

A cultural centre that supports the local community