Strengthening university-government collaboration – lessons from the UK

Governments are increasingly being asked to deliver better policy outcomes in faster and more complex environments  - while universities face growing pressure to demonstrate real-world impact beyond academic research. 

At a recent ANZSOG public lecture, ANZSOG 2026 Academic Fellow Dr Andrew Mycock explored how the UK has responded to this challenge through stronger university–government collaboration. 

Dr Mycock, from Leeds University, took the audience through the key features driving an increase in the ways researchers and policymakers were connecting at various stages in the UK. He outlined his views on why Australia was moving along similar lines, and some concepts that were relevant to Australia, despite its different government and research funding systems. 

“[Academic/policy engagement] ranges from informal enquiries to formal inquiries. It enables researchers and policymakers to use academic evidence and expertise to improve public policy.”  

He outlined the drivers for the shift towards knowledge exchange, transfer and development as evidence for policy making. 

“Three key areas have driven the work in the UK: infrastructure, intermediaries and incentives. These have allowed academics and researchers, working both within universities and the broader research ecology, to connect their research and expertise into the policy making cycle in different stages.” 

He said that in the UK the process towards greater academic/government engagement was a conversation that resided at multiple levels of government and was driven by a number of issues. In particular, that growing pressure on governments to reduce reliance on external consultancies had created renewed interest in universities as sources of policy expertise and evidence.  

“There is the ongoing mission for public service reform and that idea that civil service can be more effective and efficient through reform. That policy resides over multiple scales of government,” he said. 

“In the UK, this idea that universities have got a broader civic responsibility is something that is very much involved [in reform]. This cannot simply be about university to policymaker collaboration. You have to bring in community sectors, business, other public bodies, and most importantly, citizens and communities themselves.”  

He also recognised that there were tensions between the ways that universities and governments worked that would never be resolved. 

“There are always going to be tensions between the research cycle, which typically is extended over quite a long period, and the policy cycle, which is often volatile, often chaotic, and sometimes very much influenced by the electoral cycle,” he said 

Lessons for academic/government engagement in Australia 

Dr Mycock said that the current situation in Australia reminded him of the one in the initial stages of driving academic/policy engagement in the UK. He suggested Australia was at a pivotal moment in deciding how universities could contribute more directly to public policy and public sector capability. 

“The recent statement of expectations by Education Minister Jason Clare was very clear, in stating he idea that universities should be seen to be providing excellent research for the benefit of Australia's economic, social and environmental cultural benefit,” he said. 

“That is very similar to the kind of rhetoric that was coming out in the UK a decade ago. So we can say that there are political drivers which are starting to coalesce about the idea that universities need to shift in their orientation of some of the work they undertake.” 

He said that his time in Australia had demonstrated that there was work being done at a grassroots level to connect governments and universities. 

“I'm aware of the more complicated Australian funding ecology. I realise that universities themselves receive considerably less in public funding to drive up this work,” he said. 

“But it's not year zero here. There is a huge amount of activity already. Institutional, regional networks, networks involving different universities. Beyond that, within government, there are various advisory groups, networks and systems already in existence. They're sporadic. They're often disconnected, but they do exist.”  

“What's the Australian model? It's not going to be the UK model or the Canadian model. It's going to have to be something that reflects the context of Australia. But you can learn lessons from where this work has happened elsewhere,” he said. 

The UK’s knowledge ecosystem 

Dr Mycock outlined the combinations of infrastructure, intermediaries and incentives that led to the increase in engagement in the UK. 

This included structures that had been developed to encourage collaboration, including the British Parliament’s Postal Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology which consistently engaged with universities for evidence to evaluate policy, and networks of universities in Yorkshire which worked to improve collaboration between universities. 

 One of the UK’s major lessons, he argued, is that collaboration cannot rely on individual relationships alone. Universities need dedicated staff and systems to help translate research into policy engagement. 

“I think in the UK, the investment in this aspect of work has been fundamental. This is what has driven that shift from relational work to something which is more systemic. It's moved it away from simply, who do you know, to a much broader way in which you connect,” he said. 

“In my university, there are probably over 30 people now who are invested in knowledge mobilisation in different ways.” 

He said that incentives to encourage engagement and collaboration needed to be built into funding models and metrics, evaluation criteria and institutional recognition mechanisms. 

“You need incentivisation and reward. Personal incentivisation in terms of career pathway progression, recognition that this work is of equal value as other aspects of the academic profile, but also the institutions should be rewarded, and that universities need to collaborate as well as compete. 

Despite the impressive growth he said that there were questions about the extent to which the system was working in the UK. 

“There are hot spots and cold spots. The better capacity, the larger, the more research-intensive universities are more adept to do this work and those that are more vocational applied.” 

“If the UK did one thing wrong at the beginning of this work, we never really established what it sought to do. What was the fundamental mission in this? And it's had to work that out over time. What is the USP of universities? What is it that they bring? And what is it that they shouldn't be trying to do?” 

Dr Mycock’s fellowship is focused on Building Connections and Collaborations between ANZSOG and the UK’s University Policy Engagement Network (UPEN).  

His work is supporting knowledge exchange between the two organisations by sharing international insights on effective policy engagement and building stronger research–policy connections. His work examines how universities and governments can overcome institutional and cultural barriers to create more effective, evidence-informed policy relationships. 

For more information on the Academic Fellows Program click here.

Download the slides here. Watch the lecture below: