Five North East universities launching partnership to boost economy and other benefits

Newcastle, Northumbria, Durham, Sunderland and Teesside universities want to broaden access to higher education and have a larger economic presence

The North East’s five universities are set to come together later this year on a partnership that aims to increase their contribution to the regional economy.

Newcastle, Northumbria, Durham, Sunderland and Teesside universities collectively contribute around £2.7bn to the economy and support more than 30,000 jobs. It is hoped that a new partnership between the institutions - to be called Universities for North East England - will help them achieve even greater social and economic impact.

The new organisation aims to work with the new mayoral authorities in the North East and the Tees Valley to ensure higher education is accessible to students, regardless of their background, and to increase collaboration with with businesses and other organisations.

Both Northumbria and Teesside have been named national university of the year in recent years, while Sunderland has been shortlisted for that title in the 2024 awards.

In a joint statement, the vice-chancellors of the five universities said: “As places of knowledge and innovation, our universities play a crucial role in driving regional economic growth as well as the educational, social and cultural success of our cities, towns and wider region. The diversity of each institution and our extensive global, national and regional networks underpin the strength of our collaboration.

“Through the enhanced impact of us working together we will make an even greater contribution to everyone who lives, works and studies in North East England. Through Universities for North East England, we can strengthen our existing close partnerships and collaborations and act as a strong unified voice for the higher education sector and the North East region.”

Though each having their own areas of expertise, the North East’s universities have worked together on a number of research projects while their Northern Accelerator project, which supports researchers and businesses to spin-out academic research into commercial businesses, has seen spin-out businesses raise more than £100m in investment.

The also work together through the North East Raising Aspiration Partnership, which supports young people from under-represented groups to think about their futures and how higher education can help them reach their goals.

The partnership has come at a time of major challenges for the university sector, with a number of institutions in the North East and further afield cutting staffing and other budgets as a result of a drop in the number of high-paying overseas students.