Tag Archives: funding

New life for old homes: the potential of retrofitting social housing

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by Ian Babelon

How can social housing retrofits help tackle the cost-of-living and climate crises that are currently exercising the minds of landlords, householders, tenants and governments? In this, blog post, Ian Babelon looks at the potential of retrofits for making homes more energy efficient and for futureproofing the built environment.

The benefits and costs of retrofitting

Around 38% of all homes in the UK were built before 1946. As a result, the UK’s housing stock is not only the oldest, but among the most poorly insulated in Europe, leading to higher energy bills and a lower quality of life. At the same time, UK homes account for over 66m tonnes of direct carbon emissions, undermining government decarbonisation efforts.

On many different levels, making Britain’s housing more energy efficient makes sense. Estimates by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) suggest households could save £220-400 in energy bills per year. In addition, retrofitting homes can address fuel poverty, provide decent homes, reduce public health costs, and help deliver decarbonisation targets.

But energy efficiency requires investment. Insight shared by the Greener Futures Partnership shows that it could cost between £13,000 and £25,000 to bring a social home to EPC (energy performance certificate) band C. This does not take into account training and skills requirements to retrofit homes, nor the significant variations in property condition, fabric type, fluctuating costs of construction materials, retrofit design choices, scheduling of renovation works, and availability of construction labour with the right skills. Retrofitting social homes at scale therefore requires working on multiple fronts at the same time.

The cost of not retrofitting

The 2022 Cost of Living Crisis in Scotland report by the Scottish Government shows that as many as 35% of households in Scotland may be fuel poor. In England, figures for 2022 by DENSZ indicate that fuel poverty affects 13.4% of households.

The consequences of fuel poverty are wide-ranging. The annual cost of treating health conditions associated with cold, damp homes in England amounts to £1.3 billion. Poor housing also affects mental health, can impair children’s learning opportunities, and puts older people at greater risk of strokes and other severe health conditions.

A 2021 National Housing Federation report showed that the UK’s social rented sector has made great progress in tackling fuel poverty (64.3% of housing association homes already have an EPC rating of C or above). But the study also underlined how much more needs to be done. An additional £36bn of investment is required, said the report, to bring the remaining 39% of housing association homes up to a C rating, as well as installing heat pumps and other clean heat technologies in all 2.7 million homes.

Financing challenges and solutions

Social landlords also face significant costs for remediation and building safety improvements that hamper their efforts to retrofit homes and meet national energy efficiency targets. As DESNZ rolls out the second wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, the NHF has called for long-term funding certainty so retrofits can pick up the pace.

Fortunately, more financing opportunities are becoming available for social landlords looking to make their properties more energy efficient, as reported in a report by the Green Finance Institute. These include local climate bonds, leaseholder finance and insurance-backed ‘comfort plans’, such as the Energiesprong approach, which can pay for insulation measures with energy and maintenance savings.

Fabric first…

It pays to insulate homes before investing in complementary measures such as renewable energy generation or smart technologies. This ‘fabric-first’ approach is an attractive alternative to the large up-front investment costs for deep, ‘whole-house’ retrofits that may be prohibitive for social housing landlords.

Incremental retrofit approaches can combine initial fabric improvement with scheduled upgrades, such as replacing gas with energy-efficient electric heating and hot water, installing air-source heat pumps (ASHP) or introducing smart home devices.

Strategic planning is essential to avoid piecemeal interventions that might prove more costly and less effective over time. The Social Housing Retrofits for the Future report commissioned by the Greener Futures Partnership highlights the need for cross-sectoral collaboration to tackle technical, financial, legal and customer engagement requirements simultaneously by providing extensive evidence from across Europe and the UK.

LETI, a volunteer network of over 1,000 built environment professionals, has published a Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide for use by social housing landlords, designers and contractors. The guide provides an engaging infographic overview as well as guidance for a range of home archetypes.

… Or building from scratch

Are all poorly performing homes worth retrofitting? So-called ‘hard-to-treat’ and ‘hard-to-decarbonise’ homes (about 2% of all social homes) can be very costly to upgrade. LETI provides a decision aid to determine whether one should retrofit or build anew, to be used in conjunction with other guidance.

A key aspect of this decision is to differentiate between embodied carbon (carbon emitted in making construction materials and during actual construction) and operational carbon (emissions produced during occupancy). All things considered, it is usually more worthwhile to renovate and reuse homes than to knock them down and redevelop them.

Beyond retrofitting

As performance increases to meet sector-wide energy-efficiency targets, designing for and monitoring air tightness will become increasingly important to help achieve decarbonisation.

High-performance standards such as Passivhaus ENERPHit are premised on sound air tightness and ventilation to guarantee thermal comfort while reducing energy costs. The Passivhaus Trust provides resources and case studies to help councils, ALMOs and housing associations deliver energy-efficient retrofits and new builds, along with a recent evidence-based research report that makes the case for whole-house, low-carbon retrofits.

The next frontier for retrofitting social housing at scale lies in neighbourhood-wide retrofits that could appeal even more to green finance but would require commensurate public-private partnerships and coordination.

Final thoughts

Overall, retrofitting social housing is a win-win for everyone involved. It is good for the environment, the economy, and the people who live in social housing. The up-front costs can be substantial, but the long-term benefits should make these investments cost-effective.

The social housing sector has clearly been taking action to deliver more energy efficient homes, and it’s working with residents, contractors, local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund succeeds.

Challenges remain, notably concerns about skills shortages. But the prize of warmer homes, affordable energy, a better quality of life and a cleaner planet is well worth the effort of overcoming these obstacles.

Ian Babelon, UX Researcher, Idox

A longer version of this article is available for subscribers to The Knowledge Exchange Information Service. To retrieve it from our online database, use the reference number: B67199.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Further reading: more on energy efficient housing from The Knowledge Exchange blog

MyFundingCentral: helping thousands of charities address financial pressures

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The effects of the current cost of living and inflation rises are spiralling through society, and the voluntary and charitable sector is on the frontline when it comes to supporting struggling individuals and communities. However, the organisations delivering this support are anticipating significant financial pressures themselves this winter.

Rising demand and rising costs are combining with falling charitable income to create a crisis within the sector. At the start of September, 46 sector organisations issued a joint statement calling on the Government to provide targeted financial support for charities, voluntary and community organisations and to include these organisations in any plans to support businesses.

Funders are already starting to respond to the pressures – and an anticipated increase in demand for food, debt advice and mental health support – by closing or pausing regular funding schemes in order to launch new emergency funding opportunities, just as they did during the pandemic. It is expected that funders will also provide more support for core costs, in order to help organisations struggling with energy costs or retaining staff.

The importance of grants for the sector

Even in normal times, the voluntary and charitable sector relies heavily on grants from trusts, foundations and government in order to carry out its crucial work.

Recent research from the Law Family Commission on Civil Society has shown, though, that small and medium charities face particularly high costs in accessing funding. On average, they devote more than a third of their total annual grant income to applying for charitable grants. The report suggested that a key cause of this is making applications for funding for which they are actually ineligible.

Smaller charities are unlikely to have dedicated funding officers to search for funding and submit applications. With thousands of funders awarding grants to charities for a wide range of causes and beneficiaries, it can be hugely difficult to keep track of potential funding opportunities and decide which are most relevant.

An affordable, essential solution

It’s for this reason that more and more small charities are turning to MyFundingCentral to help them. Now in its second year of operation, the MyFundingCentral database (produced by software specialists Idox) provides easy access to thousands of grants and social investment opportunities from local, national and international funding sources – all in one place.

The service is available to organisations with an annual income below £1m and is free for organisations whose income is under £30k. Larger charity and voluntary organisations can access Idox’s GrantFinder service, which works with organisations with an income over £1 million.

MyFundingCentral is designed for easy use and around 3000 small charities use the service every month to find funding to keep existing projects going or to expand their work. It is updated every day with new funding opportunities from charitable trusts, foundations, councils, national government and corporate sponsors.

Success stories

Charities regularly share their success stories with us.

Paula Baker who is Director of HeadsUp Mental Health Awareness CIC was pleased to report that they secured £14,500 from four grants identified through MyFundingCentral. “It’s an easy-to-use service, which has benefitted us greatly.” HeadsUp is a charity that works with children and young people, promoting understanding, raising awareness, and breaking down the stigma that surrounds mental health issues. Even small amounts of grant funding can have a big impact on the number of children and young people that they are able to help.

Lucy Whitehouse, Founder and CEO of Fumble.org.uk said that “MyFundingCentral’s portal is totally invaluable to us as a tiny, fledgling charity with really limited staff capacity. The service has helped us find and apply for relevant funding opportunities that we otherwise wouldn’t know about or be able to access.”

Easy to use

Subscribers to MyFundingCentral have immediate access to a database tailored to meet the needs of the charities and voluntary sector. Users of the service can:

  • search the database to identify opportunities that match their project;
  • find niche funding opportunities that free funding tools typically miss;
  • narrow searches to funding available in specific geographic areas;
  • receive alerts about new funding opportunities tailored to their needs direct to their inbox; and
  • get the latest news on funding.

The database is easy to use, with key eligibility criteria highlighted, and information on how to apply fully explained. There’s no jargon, and because all of the funding opportunities have been handpicked by MyFundingCentral researchers to be right for the sector, users can be sure that they are current and relevant to their needs.

For further information and to subscribe, visit the MyFundingCentral website.

Further reading: more about the charities and voluntary sector on The Knowledge Exchange Blog

Community funding reigns supreme in Jubilee celebrations

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By Bonnie Thomson

This year, Her Majesty the Queen will observe her 70th year on the throne – making her the first British monarch in history to reach a Platinum Jubilee. Celebrations will take place across the UK, with most concentrated on the Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend from 2 to 5 June 2022. Street parties, concerts and community lunches are just some of the initiatives planned on a local and national scale to mark the milestone, with a mixture of traditional and unconventional tributes set to take place. Taking just one example from Bradford, Councillor Sarah Ferriby said of the activities in her area:

“There are events planned for people who are experiencing homelessness, isolation or loneliness, there are dementia friendly events and intergenerational and intercultural events all reflecting the diverse communities of our district and the Queen’s Commonwealth. There really is something for everyone.”

The rich programme of events has largely been made possible by the multitude of funding opportunities, both large and small, on offer to community organisations throughout the country.

Diverse grants for diverse projects

The National Lottery has been perhaps the most significant provider of community funding for the Jubilee, offering more than £22 million through a range of schemes supporting everything from creative arts enterprises to preservation of local green spaces. According to a recent update, the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF)’s Platinum Jubilee Fund has given awards to a wide variety of innovative projects, including a beekeeping initiative in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, an intergenerational skill-sharing platform in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and a programme of sporting events for those with acquired brain injuries in Worcestershire, England. The same update reports that, according to NLCF research, over half of all UK adults are likely to join in with celebrations in their local area. This marks the Jubilee as a monumental opportunity for the voluntary and community sector to create new, and strengthen existing, community networks in their areas of operation.

As well as these opportunities from larger funding bodies, many local councils throughout the UK have offered funding streams aimed at supporting community events in their neighbourhoods. Breckland Council has given almost 30 grants to local community groups and associations for activities such as picnics, quizzes, all-day parties and arts exhibitions, while the Scottish Borders Council has funded a range of projects including a 50s-themed party and the creation of a breeding facility for the ‘iconic’ Scottish red grouse. In Northern Ireland, Lisburn & Castlereagh Council has awarded funding to a total of 91 organisations in the area, highlighting the vast appetite for local celebrations and inclusive community activities.

Opportunities for last minute ideas

For community groups still looking for a chance to get involved, funding may still be available in their local area. For example, Richmondshire Council is offering grants from its Platinum Jubilee Festivals and Events Fund until September 2022, for projects which can take place at any point during 2022. Similarly, Harborough Council is offering grants to secure or develop capital assets across the district as a lasting commemoration of the Queen’s legacy until the end of July 2022.

Also armed with £5 million of National Lottery funding, Sport England’s Platinum Jubilee Activity Fund is still accepting applications for projects which involve physical activity as a means of tackling inequalities and engaging communities. Speaking on the fund, Tom Hollingsworth, CEO of Sport England, said:

“As part of the celebrations of an unprecedented anniversary, we’re excited to be able to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with a fund designed to help people to come together and get moving.”

Priorities for the programme include introducing those who are less active to new sports and activities and removing barriers to participation in areas of deprivation. Full guidance is available here.

Creating a legacy that endures

Despite the diversity of concepts, the common thread throughout all funded activities and programmes which have been offered is a sense of connection-forging, which has the potential to extend far beyond the Jubilee. Founded on local knowledge and the goal of understanding community needs, the charitable sector is key to fostering longevity in relationships, and ensuring the feeling of commonality created during these celebrations does not dissipate.

By harnessing the momentum which has been generated this year, community-focused initiatives could thrive to an even greater degree. With funding on Grantfinder covering the Jubilee and so much more, there is ample opportunity to take inspiration from the activities taking place in June 2022 and carve out even more new avenues for community-building.

Image: Photo by Kai Bossom on Unsplash

GrantFinder and the Knowledge Exchange are part of Idox Funding and Information Services. GrantFinder is the leading funding database in the UK covering local, national, and international sources of funding. For further information about funding highlights, services and resources from GrantFinder, visit our website.

Further reading about funding on The Knowledge Exchange blog

MyFundingCentral: a funding lifeline for the UK’s vital charities sector

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It should go without saying that the charities and voluntary sector makes a valuable contribution to society. In economic terms, NCVO has estimated that the sector accounts for over 950,000 jobs and over £20bn in GDP. The social value of the sector is harder to measure, but there’s no doubt that the thousands of charities and millions of volunteers across the UK deliver vital support in areas such as homelessness, healthcare and education.

The impacts of the pandemic

During the past two years, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the charities and voluntary sector have been profound. The Charities Commission has reported that over 90% of charities have experienced some negative impact from Covid-19, while 60% lost income. At the same time, the voluntary sector has experienced a surge in demand for its services.

The importance of grants

While charities rely heavily on donations from the public for their funding, contracts and grants from trusts, foundations and government generate almost as much of the sector’s income. There are thousands of funders awarding grants to charities for a wide range of causes, from poverty relief and housing to educational and community arts projects. Keeping track of all these funding opportunities is challenging, particularly for smaller charities.

An affordable, essential solution

One solution to ensure that charities are up-to-date with information on grant funding opportunities is MyFundingCentral from software specialists the Idox Group.

Now in its second year of operation, the MyFundingCentral database provides easy access to thousands of grants and social investment opportunities from local, national and international funding sources – all in one place.

The service is available to organisations with an annual income below £1m and is free for organisations whose income is under £30k. Larger charity and voluntary organisations can still access Idox Group’s GrantFinder service which works with organisations with an income over £1 million.

MyFundingCentral is designed for easy use, recognising that smaller charities generally do not have specialist staff focused on finding and applying for funding. Around 3000 small charities use the service every month to find funding to keep existing projects going or to expand their work.

A dedicated team of expert researchers monitor, verify and report daily on thousands of funding sources, including charitable trusts, foundations, councils, national government and corporate sponsors. And because the service comes from the same reliable source as GrantFinder – the leading funding database in the UK and Europe – MyFundingCentral has ready-made relationships with funding administrators and fund managers across a wide range of organisations.

All part of the service

Subscribers to MyFundingCentral have immediate access to a suite of services tailored to meet the needs of the charities and voluntary sector. This means that users of the service can:

  • search the database to identify opportunities that match their project;
  • find niche funding opportunities that other funding searches typically miss;
  • narrow searches to funding available in specific geographic areas;
  • receive alerts about new funding opportunities tailored to their needs direct to their inbox;
  • get the latest news on funding.

The database is easy to use, with key eligibility criteria highlighted, and information on how to apply fully explained. There’s no jargon, and because all of the funding opportunities have been handpicked by MyFundingCentral researchers to be right for the sector, users can be sure that they are current and relevant to their needs.

A lifeline for the future

Over the past two years, the charities and voluntary sector has proved its resilience. Many charities and voluntary organisations have found ways of adapting to the restrictions caused by the pandemic, despite the challenges of increasing demands and falling incomes.

Now, as it emerges from the worst of the restrictions, the sector is facing a still uncertain future. The voluntary sector is a huge, diverse and vital part of our society, and now more than ever it needs funding to continue its work with and for communities.

For many charities, MyFundingCentral is already a lifeline for connecting to funding streams. It offers the sector a reliable and up-to-date resource that can point charities towards the funding they need.

For further information, and to subscribe, visit the MyFundingCentral website.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Further reading: more about the charities and voluntary sector on The Knowledge Exchange Blog

Rethinking and rebuilding the voluntary sector post-pandemic

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By Andrew Hogg

From crisis comes opportunity. COVID-19 has had an unprecedented effect on the voluntary sector, but it has also given us an opportunity to rebuild for the better.

With this in mind, the speakers attending the recent ‘Rethink Rebuild’ webinar (organised by NPC) gave their thoughts on how the voluntary sector can move forward to face the challenges and inequalities laid bare by COVID-19 and to create a more equitable society.

COVID-19 has highlighted key systemic inequalities at the heart of our economic system. A recent report from Imperial College London has shown that ethnic minority groups have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. When age and sociodemographic factors are accounted for, people from these communities are almost twice as likely to die of COVID-19 than their white peers.

Kaneez Shaid, Head of Community Engagement at Rethink Mental Illness, highlighted the direct impact the pandemic has had on people with mental health issues, such as the erosion of support frameworks and statutory services, loss of communal spaces and increased demands for accommodation. NPC have linked COVID-19 with a rise in domestic violence cases, with increased demand for services and donations from voluntary sector organisations, alongside a reduction of charity fundraising efforts:

In many communities it has been the not-for-dividends sector that has provided cohesion, that has provided people with food, with economic viability, access to vaccines, and social infrastructure stopping people falling through the net…the question for me becomes how we make this more visible politically. – Lord Victor Adebowale, current Chair of the NHS Confederation

Seth Reynolds, Principal Consultant for Systems Change at NPC, argued that the pandemic has created a ‘liminal space’ wherein we can pause and reflect on the systemic drivers and fundamental patterns of behaviour that created the inequalities the pandemic has laid bare.

This is a chance to fundamentally and systemically change the way our economy works for the better. There is no going back to normal, so how can the sector provide leadership to face the new challenges going forward?

Collaborative and system leadership

A recurring theme during the webinar was the need for a collaborative leadership approach to accommodate systemic change. Lord Adebowale talked about the need for system leadership, the adoption of which would enable voluntary sector organisations to align their missions and operations towards a common goal. This would set sector-wide objectives and generate a cooperative atmosphere whilst facilitating conditions within which others can make progress toward social change. This means leading beyond the boundaries of one’s own organisational needs to achieve aggregate, cross-sector outcomes.

This would involve understanding the interdependence of the voluntary sector, and decision-making that may go against the immediate concerns of the organisation to achieve collective outcomes. It also entails the acceptance of diversity as not only a good in and of itself, but as Lord Adebowale observed, as an “essential, economical, and operational good”, to include a broad remit of local, grassroots organisations.

A collaborative approach to leadership would also make best use of resources and help align funding to where it is needed. Juliet Mountain, the Director of Shaw Trust, argued that a competitive funding environment means that charities tend towards mission drift and invariably must follow the funding, rather than the needs of those who use their services. She argued that shared intelligence, not just of hard data but of expertise, resources, tools, and decision making, would enable lower capacity groups to easily access and understand generated data. This would enable the triangulation of funding and a coordinated decision-making process – what Lord Adebowale called “process matching intention”.

Power with, not power over

Collaborative and system leadership would also entail a shift towards localism – services either co-produced or fully produced by the communities who receive them – and relationships based on trust, power sharing and diversity. Kaneez Shaid talked of devolving hierarchical relationships between charities and local communities and creating new structures of shared power and co-production, such as integrated care systems and place-based activities embedded into local communities. Leah Davies and Seth Reynolds of NPC similarly argued for local partners and grassroots organisations to be embedded into social recovery plans to co-create structures that are built and maintained by the people using them.

Power sharing can go further than this. Even small, day-to-day changes can help to address power imbalances, such as adapting a more inclusive vocabulary when it comes to working partnerships. Both Kaneez Shaid and Juliet Mountain argued that a shift in language can facilitate a more cooperative mindset and be more inclusive of smaller, grassroots organisations. For instance, using ‘participant’ instead of ‘client’ or ‘colleague’ instead of ‘co-worker’ would create a more inclusive taxonomy and equitable relational partnerships. This in turn would engender collective decision-making and create added value for participants.   

Grant-making

One of the few things to directly result from COVID-19 that has been openly welcomed across the voluntary sector is the increased access to unrestricted funding. In November 2020 over 150 funders made a pledge towards flexible grant-making and trust-based relationships with charities.

Many participants in the webinar who shared their opinions in breakout rooms after the talks also agreed that the temporary suspension of funding restrictions and flexible approaches to grant-making during the pandemic had been hugely beneficial and at times necessary to keep smaller charities open.

Flexible grant making could also involve simplifying and standardising application processes, such as what is asked for from the grantee or the technical vocabulary used in the application. This would mean charities would not have to spend more time than necessary filling out forms and could use templates to increase their application output.

However, as Leah Davies and Seth Reynolds noted, to continue to understand the value of flexible funding and to know where future funding should be allocated, proportionate impact measurement is needed. It is important for funders to be able to keep demand light and proportional whilst having access to a funding feedback loop.

Concluding thoughts

This webinar revealed some key sticking points: cross-sector collaboration, system leadership, and the adoption of new models of power sharing that encourage localism, co-production, shared system analysis, and collective decision-making are needed to dynamically respond to funding needs. Similarly, the collective utilization of resources would allow for greater triangulation of funding and level the playing field for smaller, grassroots groups.

Organisations must come back from the pandemic with a renewed emphasis on community engagement, decentralised and devolved forms of organisation, and embrace the mentality of ‘power with, not power over’. Organisational models and processes, such as affiliate frameworks and decentralised partnerships, should be adopted to encourage power-sharing and to create structures with genuine value to the people using them.

Grant-making has trended towards flexible funding and trust-based arrangements, which is undoubtedly a good thing and grant-makers should continue to provide flexible and unrestricted funds. However, suitable impact measurement is needed to properly determine allocation and value, and that those who need funding the most will get it.

Simply put, we cannot go back to normal. The pandemic has exposed the deep systemic vulnerabilities at the heart of our economic model, and the voluntary sector must adapt to address these vulnerabilities and create a more equitable society.

Further reading: more on the voluntary sector on The Knowledge Exchange blog

Supporting universities could be key to economic and social recovery

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Image by Ian Dick via Creative Commons

“Support for universities means support for businesses and jobs, for key workers, and for levelling up the UK’s towns and regions.” (Universities UK)

Universities have long been positively associated with economic growth, not only for the regional areas in which they are situated but also for neighbouring regions as a result of spillover effects. The total income of the UK university sector has been estimated at around £40 billion per year – 1.8% of national income.

Many universities are important anchors in their local areas, supporting community activity in various ways and working in collaboration with smaller businesses. And they have played a vital role in the response to the current pandemic through medical research, sharing of resources and community wellbeing efforts. 

With widespread agreement over ‘building back better’ and ‘levelling up opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom’, it is no surprise there have been calls to ensure investment in this sector is a central priority. In forecasting the potential impact of UK universities over the next five years, recent research from Universities UK suggests that a well-supported university sector could be key to the economic and social recovery from the pandemic.

Supporting people

The Universities UK report outlines the ways in which universities support people, including by providing a pipeline of key workers and enabling upskilling for new jobs. It is projected that by May 2026, more than 191,000 nurses, 84,000 medical specialists and 188,000 teachers will graduate from UK universities. And it is suggested that these are likely to be underestimates. If these forecasts are accurate, the potential for universities to help address the skills gaps and shortages that the UK faces is clear, particularly as nursing and teaching have featured on the hard-to-fill and skills shortage vacancies lists.

It is also projected that demand for higher level skills will continue rising into the late 2020s. In the shorter term, 79% of employers with more than 25 staff anticipate a need for upskilling in the next 12 months, rising to 84% for firms with over 100 staff. No region sees the need for upskilling fall below 60%. In addition to educating students, universities are responding to this need with training and upskilling programmes tailored to employers and the community. Forecasts for each of the UK nations include:

  • universities in Northern Ireland will deliver the equivalent of 410 years of professional development training and education courses to businesses and charities in the next five years (and 90 years’ worth in the next 12 months)
  • Scottish universities will provide 3,490 years of training by May 2026 (over 600 years’ worth in the next year)
  • Welsh universities will deliver the equivalent of nearly 4,800 years of upskilling in the next five years (over 880 years’ worth in the next 12 months)
  • universities in England will provide the equivalent of over 549 centuries (54,936 years) of training by May 2026, and 10,580 years’ worth in the next year alone

As has been argued, “part of the effect of universities on growth is mediated through an increased supply of human capital and greater innovation”. 

Local economic impact

The local economic impact of universities is widely recognised. Universities have consistently attracted funding for local regeneration projects with significant economic and social impacts and the report forecasts that these will have a value of over £2.5 billion in local places across the UK over the next five years.

It is suggested that many of these projects will also attract additional funding from universities and businesses, resulting in even greater local impact.

Universities also have a direct impact on their local economies as large employers. It is estimated that 1.27% of all people in employment in the UK work for a university. Other recent analysis suggests that universities typically support up to one additional job in the immediate local economy for every person they directly employ.

The impact of universities on local procurement is also emphasised, highlighting the example of the Leeds Anchors Network, which is looking at opportunities to direct spending locally.  The report suggests that if anchor institutions in Leeds shift 10% of their total spending to suppliers in the region this could be worth up to £196 million each year.

Collaboration and contributing to research

The report also considers the role of universities in partnering with business, including providing advice/training and enabling cutting edge research and innovation.

It is forecast that UK universities will be commissioned to provide over £11.6 billion of support and services to small enterprises, businesses and not-for-profits over the next five years, ranging from specialist advice, access to the latest facilities and equipment to develop innovative products, and conducting bespoke research projects. It is also expected that universities will attract national and international public funds to spend on collaborative research with businesses and non-academic organisations, estimated to be worth £21.7 billion over the next five years.

The report highlights that this research leads to impact in priority sectors. In the East Midlands, for example, over a third of competitive funding received by research organisations since 2014 was for clean growth and infrastructure projects with businesses, a higher proportion than any other region. In Yorkshire 85% of funding has been for manufacturing, materials and mobility projects, and 53% of funding in London has been in the area of ageing, health and nutrition.

Universities have also been shown to be effective in commercialising their research via spinouts, an area that has a great deal of potential to contribute to economic growth.

Despite all universities conducting cutting-edge research, there are regional disparities in research and innovation investment. And there has been historic underfunding in some regions which has led to inequalities in economic performance across the UK, putting the levelling up agenda at risk. The report therefore argues that “research and innovation policy needs to be designed alongside, and be closely aligned to, local economic development policy.”

Of course, the higher education sector hasn’t been immune to recent financial cuts and the expected losses for the sector are “highly uncertain” as highlighted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

And the recent announcement of the 50% cut to university arts funding will come as a big blow to the already suffering creative industries sector. The decision, made in a bid to redirect spending to subjects considered a ‘strategic priority’ by the government such as medicine and STEM, is a concern if it is to have a detrimental impact on the arts industry talent pipeline.

Final thoughts

Depending on the losses the university sector experiences, it may be that the five year forecasts presented in the Universities UK report do not come to fruition.

However, as the intention of the government is to ‘level up’ and create a ‘place strategy’, surely universities have to play a central role given their huge economic and social potential. And that means investment, not cuts. As the Universities UK report highlights:

“World-class innovation and research assets need support. Training highly skilled people requires investment. Ensuring the benefits of both of these are felt equally around the UK will depend on robust policy and funding decisions.”

RESEARCHconnect is the Idox group’s specialist research funding database providing information on thousands of funding opportunities dedicated to the UK research community. It supports universities, research institutions and research-intensive companies across Europe in identifying and disseminating R&D funding. In the current economic climate, there is increasing pressure to exploit alternative funding sources and RESEARCHconnect ensures that global funding opportunities will not be missed. 

Follow us on Twitter to find out what topic areas are interesting our research team.

Horizon Europe goes live

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Horizon Europe is finally a reality. After months of false starts, soft launches and stalled negotiations, 22 June saw hundreds of funding calls published on the European Commission Funding and Tenders Portal. Researchers, institutions and other organisations can now access the seven-year, €95.5 billion research and innovation programme.

Horizon Europe is the ninth European Research and Innovation Framework programme (2021-2027). In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is one of the key instruments of the European Union’s efforts to steer and accelerate Europe’s recovery, preparedness and resilience.

The initial work programme covers the period 2021-2022 and consists of €14.7 billion in funding, which will be allocated based on competitive calls for proposals.

Around €5.8 billion in total will be invested in research and innovation to complement the European Green Deal and the EU’s commitment to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Supporting the EU’s goal of making the 2020s ‘Europe’s Digital Decade’, core digital technologies will receive around €4 billion over 2021-2022. Finally, direct investments of around €1.9 billion will be made towards helping repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

“With 40% of its budget devoted to making Europe more sustainable, this Horizon Europe work programme will make Europe greener and fitter for the digital transformation. Horizon Europe is now fully open for business: I would like to encourage researchers and innovators from all over the EU to apply and find solutions to improve our daily lives.”

Associated Countries: UK in, Switzerland out

Although the European Commission has yet to secure final agreements with non-EU countries on participation in Horizon Europe, a 17 June document revealed a list of 18 countries where association negotiations are ‘being processed or where association is imminent’.

The 18 provisionally associated countries are: Albania; Armenia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Faroe Islands; Georgia; Iceland; Israel; Kosovo; Moldova; Montenegro; Morocco; North Macedonia; Norway; Serbia; Tunisia; Turkey; Ukraine; and the United Kingdom.

Most notably, while the UK is in, Switzerland has been excluded. Reports cite Swiss government officials as saying the European Commission did not give any notification of its intention to exclude the country from provisional access to Horizon Europe.

Writing on Twitter, Senior Policy Officer at the League of European Research Universities (LERU) Laura Keustermans described the move as not only bad news for Switzerland ‘but also very bad news for everybody involved in EU Research and Innovation’. LERU President Kurt Deketelaere also responded, urging the Swiss Government to work to gain access for the Swiss research and education sector, ‘which benefited greatly from association to EU programs in the past’.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is urging researchers to start applying for Horizon Europe funding, with UK researchers and companies eligible for all Horizon Europe calls, apart from applying for equity funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC). The UK will also have to reach agreement with the Commission on rules for participating in sensitive projects in quantum and space technologies.

Free events mark programme launch

To mark the official opening of Horizon Europe, the European Commission arranged two free-to-air conferences for all citizens and stakeholders.

The European Research and Innovation Days, the Commission’s annual flagship Research and Innovation event, was held on 23-24 June. Policymakers, researchers, innovators, and other stakeholders took part in over 70 sessions and workshops to discuss the future European research and innovation landscape. Sessions included ‘tips and tricks’ for writing Horizon Europe proposals; an overview of the Commission’s Funding & Tenders Portal; discussions over lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic; and an overview of the Africa Initiative in Horizon Europe. Recorded sessions from the event can be accessed via the event platform.

Running from 28 June to 9 July, the Horizon Europe Info Days will provide an in-depth overview of some of the main funding channels provided under Horizon Europe. The sessions will specifically focus on the six Clusters under Pillar II – Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, ­as well as the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Research Infrastructures, and Widening Participation and Strengthening the ERA (European Research Area) strands of Horizon Europe. With the exception of the Cluster 3 – Civil Security for Society session on 30 June, the event is open for participation without prior registration, and attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions, find out what is new in Horizon Europe and obtain further details about how the programme will operate. Interested parties can access the event’s online portal here.

ResearchConnect: the essential source of research funding information

This post was written by our colleagues in ResearchConnect, a specialist research funding database built for and designed by the international research community.

ResearchConnect’s up-to-the-minute database covers all of the key research disciplines and is updated by an expert team who monitor and report on a wide range of funding sources including charitable trusts, government, research councils, foundations and corporate sponsors. The ResearchConnect team maintains regular contact with funding administrators and policy managers across a wide range of sources, providing advance notice of new funding opportunities and policy changes.

For more information, visit the ResearchConnect website.

Are ‘dark stores’ bringing some much needed light to the high street?

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As we pass the first anniversary of the initial lockdown and look towards opening things up again, will we see a change in footfall trends in favour of the high street as people yearn to get out again, or will it continue to experience a downward trend?

Judging by pre-pandemic trends, it would seem that high street businesses will need to do more than just open back up to entice people back to the high street. Indeed, there were signs of diversification on the high street before the pandemic in response to declining footfall. And the pandemic has led to many more innovating to survive the current challenges, such as creating pop-up ecommerce centres. Perhaps such moves could help save the high street, albeit not as we know it.

A downward trajectory

The recent news of permanent closures of big-named high street stores such as Debenhams, Laura Ashley, Top Shop and Dorothy Perkins after the collapse of Arcadia Group, and the closures of more John Lewis outlets, suggest a bleak outlook for the high street. And the pandemic has spurred the worst decline on record.

Recent figures from PwC reveal that an average of 48 stores, restaurants and other leisure and hospitality venues closed every day in 2020 – a total of more than 17,500 outlets.

This may be the worst decline on record but it is also a continuation of the downward trajectory that the traditional high street was already on. And it has been argued that this is actually a reflection of things that happened pre-pandemic, with its full impact ‘yet to be felt’.

In its quarterly footfall monitor, the British Retail Consortium highlighted in May 2019 that high street footfall had fallen by 1% year-on-year and that vacancy rates on local high-streets had risen to 10.2%, equivalent to one in ten shops having succumbed to the high street crisis. This was the highest vacancy rate in four years and it continued to increase in the next quarter.

Support through a crisis

It has become clear that trends before the pandemic have just been accelerated by it. The continued growth in online shopping and the impact of government policy costs such as business rates are just a couple of the causes of the decline in high streets over the years that see little sign of abating. But the urgency of the current situation has seen a huge increase in government support across the board which has helped many businesses stay afloat as they try and wait out the storm.

In December 2020, the UK government announced it would invest up to £830 million from the Future High Streets Fund in local high streets across England to help them recover from the pandemic and drive long-term growth.

In September 2020, funding was secured for England’s historic high streets through the £95 million government-funded High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) programme, which is delivered by Historic England. The aim of this is to help transform and restore disused and dilapidated buildings into new homes, shops, work places and community spaces, restoring local historic character and improving public realm.

And just this month, the government has announced a series of new measures to support a safe and successful reopening of high streets and seaside resorts, including a £56 million Welcome Back Fund to help councils boost tourism, improve green spaces and provide more outdoor seating areas, markets and food stall pop-ups. This builds on the £50 million Reopening High Streets Safely Fund announced in May 2020. Similar support schemes have been introduced by the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Of course, this hasn’t been enough to save the high street stores that have announced closures. But it brings to the fore once more that high streets are about more than just shops as each funding programme highlights the aim of transforming high streets into vibrant mixed-use places where consumers can enjoy social experiences.

Adapting to survive – dark stores bringing light to the high street

As the PwC study suggests, it is really about keeping up with consumer behaviours that is the challenge for retail, perhaps even more so in times of crisis. And there have been many examples of high street retailers adapting to survive.

With the huge increase in online shopping during the pandemic, many manufacturing and distribution centres were operating at maximum capacity which led to some retailers unlocking the potential of their local high street stores to provide local distribution hubs, known as ‘dark stores’.

Lush is one company that changed the way they used their retail space so they could continue to use it while their stores were closed. It created Lush Local, a pop-up e-commerce centre which used the shop as a local distribution centre so they could fulfil local orders and not let their current stock go to waste.

Some businesses have also partnered with others to make use of local unused space such as Crosstown Doughnuts which have been trialling the use of dark stores in Cambridge and Walthamstow, partnering with independent operators so it can provide on-demand deliveries and collections to customers.

As ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers try to adapt to support their online capability, providing efficient local deliveries, at the same time as utilising their physical retail space, the ‘dark store’ trend may be here to stay. Pre-pandemic, it was reported that using dark stores and offering click and collect can reduce delivery costs and increase profit margins. Analysis showed that if deliveries from dark stores increase by 50%, profit margins could grow by 7% as a result of lower delivery costs and higher delivery throughput compared to conventional stores (while also not affecting store operations).

And it has been suggested that this model can be further adapted to provide ‘hybrid stores’ as shops re-open. These hybrid stores enable local stores to combine space for their fulfilment centre with their physical shop so consumers can still benefit from the tangible experience offered in store that can’t be replicated online.

Final thoughts

Only time will tell if recent innovations will have the desired effect. What is clear is that the rate of change cannot continue at the pace it was before the pandemic if high streets are to have a fighting chance. Dark and hybrid stores could be part of the answer. But much more is needed.

The most successful high streets, it is argued, will offer a mix of retail, entertainment, culture and wellbeing as they focus on the experiential side of things, because, in the words of retail guru Mary Portas, “vibrant, innovative, socially dynamic high streets will help this country not just heal, but thrive.”

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Can the arts recover from coronavirus? (part 1)

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No part of society or the economy has been untouched by the coronavirus outbreak, but as the situation develops globally, it has emerged that the arts, culture, and heritage sectors may be among the hardest hit. Organisations and individuals are working hard to adapt and deliver art in more creative ways than ever, but there is real concern about the lasting effects the pandemic could have on the cultural and creative industries, and the extent to which they will manage to recover.

The impact of coronavirus on the arts, culture and heritage sectors

Back in March, the UK government’s implementation of lockdown and strict social distancing measures led to the sudden and indefinite closure of cultural spaces such as theatres, museums, galleries and cinemas, and the cancellation or postponement of pretty much all events, performances, and festivals across the country. This suspended the usual operations of most cultural institutions, leading to uncertainty and potentially devastating financial losses for those working in the sector, particularly freelancers.

Many involved in the creative industries have expressed concern about financial sustainability, and about how a crisis like this may deepen the sector’s existing inequalities. In the UK, the creative industries employ around two million people, and approximately a third of these are freelancers – the group likely to be the hardest hit by the cancellation of events and projects.

The cancellation of summer festivals and gigs has particularly affected freelance musicians, comedians and performers who often rely on the festival circuit for a substantial proportion of their income.

On top of the immediate financial concerns, artists have expressed worries about the effect of the coronavirus on their visibility, as long-planned projects grind to a halt.

A recent report published by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland estimated that the average loss of earnings for individuals in Northern Ireland’s arts sector was £3,756 between March and May 2020, and the total income loss for organisations was approximately £3.97 million during the same period. Arts Council England have been conducting similar research to gauge the impact of the crisis on the arts sector in England, and are expected to publish their findings soon.

A series of recent webinars delivered by OECD addressed the impact of the coronavirus crisis on museums, and the wider cultural and creative sectors. Museums are at immediate risk due to the dramatic reduction in revenue and charitable donations, and the livelihoods of their staff and freelance professionals are in jeopardy as a result. The loss of income across the wider arts sector has the potential to wipe out a significant proportion of its creative framework. In the longer term, museum ecosystems may be seriously damaged by the loss of smaller creative companies and professionals, on whom museums rely for creative outputs. OECD also warned that the sudden withdrawal of museums from local development projects could have a lasting negative impact on their local communities.

Similar concerns are raised in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland report, which emphasises that the suspension of public classes, workshops, community outreach initiatives and work within schools, usually provided by arts organisations, is likely to have a profound impact on Northern Ireland’s local communities and place vulnerable people at risk.

What is being done to help?

Across the UK, emergency funding programmes have been launched to support organisations and individuals at risk.

Arts Council England has offered £160 million of emergency funding (almost all of its reserves), to protect England’s arts, museums and libraries. The funding package aims to support individual creative practitioners, as well as organisations at risk. As part of this programme, they are continuing to fund their existing National Portfolio Organisations, even where agreed projects cannot go ahead.

Arts Council Wales has allocated an initial £7 million to an urgent response fund, with the hope that  funding will increase through collaboration with other trusts, foundations, and charities who are able to contribute. Arts Council for Northern Ireland has combined £500,000 of their own funds with £1 million from the Department of Communities to create an emergency fund for artists and creative organisations.

Creative Scotland have launched three new emergency funding programmes, as well as guaranteeing that all previously committed funding awards will be honoured regardless of event cancellation. They have also encouraged recipients of their funding to honour their pre-existing agreements with artists and freelance professionals.

Businesses and employees in the sector are receiving support from the government’s furlough scheme, and freelancers can apply for government grants as part of the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme.

A variety of independent funding schemes have also been set up by charities and non-profit organisations across the UK to support organisations and individuals.

What next?

The arts sector is in serious danger as a result of the coronavirus crisis. The assistance on offer has the potential to help individuals and organisations to stay afloat for the time being, but as lockdown persists and social distancing measures seem set to continue for the foreseeable future, there are already concerns that the funding on offer at this stage is not going to be enough. The second part of this blog series will consider how the arts sector is responding to the crisis, and what is needed to help its recovery going forward.

Part two of this blog post will appear on Wednesday 13 May.

Further posts on our blog concerning the arts and culture include:

Further education: happy-ever-after for the Cinderella sector?

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“It has, I believe, been an old complaint among many concerned with the technical side of education that that part of education has been the Cinderella. Well, the Government is determined that even if there was any truth in that in the past, there shall be none in the future.”

That forthright pledge came, not from a politician in our own times, but from the president of the board of education in 1935. Almost a century later, further education (FE) is still struggling to break away from its position as an overlooked and under-resourced Cinderella sector.

The importance of FE

FE matters in many ways to many people. Through FE, individuals can get a second chance to obtain qualifications, equip themselves for higher education, and improve their employability or chances of promotion, as well as enjoying countless health and wellbeing benefits.  Employers look to FE  to provide a workforce with the skills they need. So many of the services we rely on today depend on people who learned their skills in FE colleges, from car mechanics to care workers, hairdressers to housing managers. Not incidentally, the wider economy benefits from the improved productivity, increased tax-take and knowledge transfer that FE delivers. In spite of all these benefits, FE colleges attract less attention and funding than schools or universities, and their impact is not so widely recognised.

The Cinderella factors

In 2018, researchers from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education identified six key issues affecting FE policy in England:

  • English FE is not defined clearly and stably;
  • the strength and continuity of FE colleges have been undermined by multiple and changing funding sources and funders, frequent government reviews and frequent substantial policy changes;
  • increasing numbers of college lecturers are employed on zero hours contracts;
  • mergers and closures have undermined colleges’ community and employment functions;
  • competition among the multiplicity of private bodies awarding FE qualifications is leading them to make their qualifications easier to attain;
  • cuts in FE funding have greatly weakened colleges, leaving them under-resourced.

The hardest-hit service

As the Ontario study noted, funding is a key factor in the precarious position of FE in the UK, something echoed by further research. An independent review of post-18 education, led by Philip Augar, reported that in 2018 English universities received £8bn in government funding to support 1.2m undergraduates, while just £2.3bn was allocated for the 2.2m full and part-time students aged over 18 in further education.

A further report, published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies  found that over the last decade further education and skills spending for young people and adults received the largest cuts across all areas of education spending.

The House of Commons Education Committee has also identified FE as the hardest hit part of the education sector:

“Participation in full time further education has more than doubled since the 1980s, yet post-16 budgets have seen the most significant pressures of all education stages. Per student funding fell by 16% in real terms between 2010–11 and 2018–19 – twice as much as the 8% school funding fall over a similar period.”

Witnesses contributing to the Committee’s investigation were in no doubt that FE has been hit harder than other parts of the education sector because it doesn’t have the ear of politicians in the way that schools and universities do. As one contributor put it:

“…there are more votes in schools than colleges.”

Remedies and recommendations

The Augar review observed that there is a powerful case for change in the FE sector, and made a number of recommendations to improve the quality, capability and capacity of England’s FE college network, including:

  • a national network of colleges should be established, with a dedicated capital investment, and the integration of small, local colleges into groups;
  • full funding should be provided for all students participating in study for levels 2 and 3 to remove barriers to social mobility and productivity;
  • the reduction in the core funding rate for 18 year-olds should be reversed;
  • Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding rules should be simplified, and government should commit to providing an indicative adult education budget;
  • the government should invest in the FE workforce as a priority;
  • FE colleges should have a protected title, as universities are entitled to.

The Augar recommendation that £3bn should flow to colleges, along with a one-off £1bn capital funding boost for the national network underlines the need for government to take further education seriously. As things stand, FE is still awaiting a definitive government response.

FE in the rest of the UK

Scotland
In Scotland, where FE colleges provide around 71 million hours of learning to over 242,00 students each year, financial pressures are increasing. A 2019 Audit Scotland report noted that Scottish colleges are operating within an increasingly tight financial environment. It reported that 12 colleges were forecasting recurring financial deficits by 2022-23. The report suggested that there is scope for the Scottish Funding Council to work with individual colleges and their boards to improve financial planning and to achieve greater transparency in the sector’s financial position. More recently, research by the principals of Scotland’s two largest colleges reported that FE boosts Scotland’s GDP by £3.5bn a year.

Wales
The 2016 Hazelkorn review made recommendations for post-compulsory education in Wales, including a new Tertiary Education Authority to distribute funding to universities and colleges, and to shape the vision of the post-compulsory sector. The review also recommended that education policy and institutions should be more focused on Wales’ social and economic goals. The Welsh Government has accepted the recommendations.

Northern Ireland
Six regional colleges, operating across 40 campuses, are the main providers of technical and vocational education in Northern Ireland. In 2016, the Northern Ireland Executive reviewed FE, resulting in a strategy with nine themes covering areas such as economic development; social inclusion and delivery. It includes a commitment to, in partnership with the colleges, review the funding model to ensure that it supports and incentivises colleges to deliver the strategy. With the resumption of the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland, the hope is that the government can work with the FE sector to meet the challenges of funding and the needs of the economy.

Cinderella no more?

Further education is the backbone of the UK’s efforts to meet the country’s growing skills gap, and may hold the key to improving productivity and social mobility. But OECD figures show just 37% of men and 34% of women participate in further education (compared to averages of 49% and 44% respectively across other industrialised countries). Clearly, more needs to be done to help FE level up.

Earlier this month, in his first Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the Conservative Party’s election manifesto commitments for FE, including £1.8bn for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to upgrade college buildings. There are also high hopes that more money will be delivered to FE in the autumn spending review.

The FE sector has welcomed the change in approach. Following the Budget speech, the Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said: “Today showed a clear shift in attitude towards technical and vocational education, after a decade of neglect.”

It might still be too soon to forecast a happy ending for the Cinderella sector, but the signs are that FE is coming in from the cold.

Further reading from The Knowledge Exchange blog