20 | S EVIEW OEP HE Y AR | NEW URR
Stephen Charles
REVIEW OF TH Vivreau looks back at 2014
Vi Tap Plus
In 2014, Vivreau celebrated the work of its Managing Director, Stephen Charles, who was awarded the ACE Sustains Lifetime Achievement Award in July.
After pioneering the world’s first table water botling
system in the 1980s, Stephen took his company from humble beginnings in a small restaurant to becoming a highly successful international business. Renowned globally as a leader in advanced water filtration systems, the company is driven by Stephen’s passion for environmental awareness and his mission to reduce corporate water miles. Stephen commented: “Recent advances in technology have meant that taking energy usage into consideration is now a thing of the past, and therefore most new types of beverage equipment have been developed to take care of this for their operators, as well as increasing efficiency in a multitude of environments. “At Vivreau, we believe that 2015 will bring with it a greater need for self-service beverage-making equipment, where the ever-advancing rate of technology makes ease of use and convenience a priority for the consumer. And with youth at the forefront of market trends, universities are encouraged to take action!”
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www.vivreau.com
best preparation to succeed and make a difference in the world. I think this in turn has led to an active debate on how universities need to be delivering an improved experience for their students, particularly in stepping up to the challenge of producing job-ready graduates in the 21st century. When it comes to both the quality and the job-readiness of our graduates Alliance universities are competing with the best in the world. Our Job Ready project this year revealed how Alliance universities offer programmes that are co-designed with employers and students, where students engage in real-world practical projects alongside their academy study. 2014 finally saw the economy beginning to recover from the financial shocks of the past few years. We’ve a long way to go before we are out of the woods and that’s why we should be ensuring that the UK’s rich and diverse ecosystem of world- leading research and innovation has everything it needs to play its vital part in creating economic growth. Our small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a driving force of innovation in our economy and responsible for half of new jobs created. But they spend much less on R&D activities than our global competitors. Alliance universities are using their connectedness, research expertise and business collaborations to increase the innovative capacity of SMEs and investment of private funds in research and development. But this element of university work – what’s known as the ‘third mission’ – is massively underfunded. As Sir Andrew Wity’s review highlighted last year, higher educationinnovation funding (HEIF) must be increased if we are serious about supporting our small and rapidly innovating companies so that they can fulfil their potential in helping our economy to grow. HEIF also needs to be channelled to those universities who are demonstrating excellence in SME engagement by increasing the weighting for these activities during the allocation process. This would incentivise this activity more widely, maximise existing
hubs of SME connectedness and recognise the larger commitment required to develop these crucial (but resource- consuming) interactions with larger numbers of SME partners.
Alistair Jarvis: Yes. In 2014 universities across the UK have continued to deliver huge impact in
supporting economic growth, social mobility, creating jobs, boosting skills and creativity and innovation through research.
Encouraging application figures from UCAS provided a positive start to the year. There had been some dire predictions of students turning away from higher education following the government's reforms in England. However, the figures for the 15 January deadline revealed an overall 4% increase in applicants compared to the previous year. A more recent UCAS report from September gave an interim assessment (four weeks after A-Level results) of how many students enrolled at university at the start of term this year and also showed a 4% increase on last year.
The publication of Universities UK's latest analysis of higher education's contribution to the UK economy also highlighted the sector's success. The latest UK-wide study showed that universities now generate £73bn in output – up (24%) from £59bn when the last study was published in 2009.
Q: How will the lifting of the cap on student numbers affect the UK higher education scene in 2015?
Gordon Slaven: We can refer to lessons from Australia which introduced a similar policy in 2012. Australia experienced a growth in HE enrolment from across the social scale, with a knock-on increase in costs to the government. The growth in numbers led to concerns about the sustainability of quality of teaching. Alternative providers have been very keen to take on some of the ‘overspill’ of capacity in the Australian system. In England, there is further concern that
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