Cairney Conversations – Interview with Professor Nic Beech, University of Salford
Founder and CEO of Cairney and Company, Karen Cairney, had the pleasure to meet recently with Professor Nic Beech, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford to discuss his first year in post, the civic role of the University and the potential of philanthropy and alumni engagement to support the University’s ambitions.
Professor Nic Beech, As the new Vice Chancellor at Salford, what were some of the key things that attracted you to the role?
Prof. Nic Beech: Salford is a really interesting University! Firstly, although it dates back to the 1800s, it was set up with certain Robbins principles, such as higher education should be available to everybody who can benefit from it and contribute to the learning. So social justice, widening participation and access are very central to us and personally important to me.
Secondly, there was always an intention for those Universities to innovate and to create research that makes a difference in society. Within Salford the place and Salford the University, we combine the technical with the human. So many things have started in Salford. We were the first public park in the land funded by the people’s subscription, and we have the first ever public lending library. The campaign to start free time for labourers on Saturdays was started in Salford, and now there’s a festival down the road called “We invented the weekend”.
Equally it’s home to inventions that have connected technology and people and social change. For example, the first street ever lit by gas lamps and the first ever swing bridge across the Manchester canal to progress shipping. And the University still creates this change, so for me it was a lovely opportunity to have education and innovative research with purpose put together in what turns out to be a fabulous community.
I know you have a passion for the University of Salford to play an ever-increasing role as a Civic University, and for it to make tangible and meaningful social impact. If we were having this conversation in 5 years’ time, what are some of the things you want to ensure the University has achieved in creating social impact?
Prof Nic Beech: We have the opportunity to work hand in glove with Salford City Council. The City here is fantastic, and although it’s been home to huge innovations, it’s also an area of real challenges, financially, socially and economically. It’s the 18th most deprived area in England. I would love some of the innovations that we are involved in across education and in the community to have made a real difference to the lives of people locally and globally. A lot of our research is seeking to influence people around the world and amplify often unheard voices and what I want to see is Salford innovation making social change locally, regionally, nationally and across the planet.
Universities can often be seen as large, bureaucratic organisations that aren’t nearly as flexible, agile or entrepreneurial as they need to be. Given that there are lots of challenges facing Universities at the moment, and some big ambitions and ideas at Salford, how will you ensure that you can respond quickly to opportunities and progress this social impact agenda?
Prof Nic Beech: A cracking question. My background is in Business Schools, so I have a whole lecture series I could bore you with on that! It is another reason why the Robbins era Universities have a big advantage. We have the ability to move more quickly but that doesn’t always play out in reality, so we’re changing a few things here.
One is to focus on design and design thinking. We start by looking at where we want to be in five- or ten-years’ time, and where we want our students and our research to be and think backwards towards where we are now. The funny thing is that when you do that, you end up with about half the number of committees. You work in a much more streamlined way. I would like to see us being much more agile. I think we are going to have a form of education that accelerates enablement. For example, online learning with flexible, high-quality high-intensity face-to-face practice-based learning, which is already one of our specialities. I also want to expand our successes in social justice and social mobility, for example through more varied technical education and collaboration with FE and other partners.
There is a whole group of universities around the world with a similar mission and approach to innovation in research, all of a similar age. In Australia, there’s a real technological movement happening, as well as Germany and Ireland. I want to see us even more embedded across the globe, working and sharing projects with more universities.
Do these principles around collaboration, innovation and social justice provide a common line of sight for everyone within the University, even if they approach it in a different way depending on where their faculty school is at?
Prof Nic Beech: Certainly. This is something I strongly agree with, and it’s reflecting the values that people already have here. Since I arrived, I’ve met about 2,200 of the 2,500 people who work here. When I ask people why they are doing what they are doing, they can absolutely tell you that it comes down to social justice, and the forms of innovation that make a difference. These ideas run through the DNA of the place, and it’s my job to recognise it, amplify it, and stimulate innovation internally and externally around it.
The collaboration within Greater Manchester is just brilliant. We work all the time with other Universities and HEIs, we have so many collaborative projects on the go, lots of student projects that are shared, lots of joint research programmes. Coming to the Greater Manchester area is a little bit special because it’s a fabulous place to be, especially if you are into collaboration.
Given the current funding climate, and your focus on community and social justice, what role do you hope that philanthropy can play in supporting the purpose and ambitions of the University?
Prof Nic Beech: I think sometimes people associate philanthropy in only financial terms. What matters to me is the relationships. We try to be as open as possible, with our people coming and going all the time, interacting with others from different Salford communities. We share a building with the BBC for example, and there is great interaction with our students and their staff.
Philanthropy for me starts from the position of our alumni relations and mutually valuable partnerships with local businesses. . The clearer we are about our focus, the easier it is for philanthropists who share our interests to spot the things that they want to support.
Quite often people think about supporting new buildings or equipment, but for Salford it is really about the people - our students and staff, but also those on our doorstep as well as our international community. The amount of support we get for scholarships, for example, can fundamentally help people from more deprived areas. We have a huge amount of support for PhD students and especially for people coming to us with protected characteristics. This positively changes our community and transforms the potential for those individuals to be involved.
At Salford we strive to look outwards with our philanthropic efforts, recognising that in collaboration with businesses, charities and individuals we can make a significant difference to enriching the lives of people in our University, within Salford and GM and globally - through outreach, research, community initiatives and talent and access programmes.
CASE, the membership organisation that supports the sector with philanthropy, marketing and communications, has an annual benchmarking report on philanthropic progress. It’s shown a decline in support from alumni across the board. How can the University of Salford ensure that it is engaging with their alumni both in time and money, and encouraging them to give back?
Prof Nic Beech: We need to make sure there are easy ways for alumni to engage with their university, because so many people really do have fond memories and a brilliant university experience that has a big impact on them and their ongoing life. We have around 200,000 alumni on our database and we are able to actively engage with a lot of them (over 70%). Often our alumni tell us that ‘Salford changed my life’. Our alumni reflect the demographic of our student body – often from similar backgrounds such as first in family. They feel driven to give back to the university and provide opportunities for students similar to the support they received when at Salford. For example, we have a huge number of people that give guest lectures or provide placements and mentoring for students as well as scholarships and bursaries.
We’ve also started having alumni speakers at all of our graduation ceremonies, which is just brilliant. I give a talk which I hope is OK, but when one of the alumni stands up and says: ‘I was sitting where you are at the moment and here’s what’s happened to me and this is how it helped’, it just captivates people. It speaks directly to them, which is key.
Universities spend a lot of time and resources recruiting students. But then when they graduate the resources to provide ongoing support is limited, even though graduates are the single largest stakeholder group. How can we balance that resource demand, so graduates feel as important as they did when they were studying?
Prof Nic Beech: One of the things we have not done well enough as a sector is to listen to our alumni. To find out what they actually want us to do. Things like newsletters are well meant, but don’t always have that much relevance or value to alumni. I think people are much more interested in hearing about where our research projects are having impact, how we are helping current students, and how we support our staff.
Staff are stretched at the moment in the whole of the sector, and I think a lot of our alumni feel connected to the staff. We need to better understand what alumni want from us. So, we run sessions here and in London, in the States, in parts of Asia and around the world for alumni. They’re extremely well attended, and it gives us a chance to showcase at least one or two key areas from the university. They are just so pleased to hear what is going on, and very often this is where conversations begin around what they can do to support us. They give quite a lot to our scholars’ scheme, so we often have scholarship students presenting what they are doing, and calling out the scholarship as the reason they’re there. Seeing the direct impact of their funding I think is crucial.
We also have a policy of having some alumni on the University Council which is always really really helpful as they bring in a slightly different perspective. We have advisory groups and boards in many parts of the University and aligned with strategic priorities. We seek advice on various projects, and our alumni in one way or another, are involved in all of those areas of design-led thinking.
Building on culture, and a culture of philanthropy, we’ve discussed the difference between a fundraising university and a university that fundraises. Salford is currently a university that fundraises, but what are the key factors that can ensure philanthropy becomes more embedded and sustained over time?
Prof Nic Beech: The key word in that question is sustained. The relationship you've got sometimes can involve advice, sometimes it can involve people presenting prizes and recognising the students, sometimes it can involve financial support. But it doesn’t have to be all of those things all the time. Somebody might support a scholar, and then nothing financially for a couple of years. But a few years later they opt for a different sort of financial support. We find that quite regularly. The ‘journey’ metaphor is used all the time, and in a way it’s a relationship change. It doesn’t always have to have a money sign stuck all over it. The relationship – and the impact an individual has - is the really big thing and that’s what you really need to sustain.
Fundraising teams are often measured annually when the return on investment comes in. Again, thinking internally about how you create that culture of philanthropy and that understanding that fundraising is multi-faceted, and that it takes time. You’ve got a new leadership team coming in, so what needs to happen to build that knowledge of what’s involved in sustaining a culture of philanthropy?
Prof Nic Beech: I think we need to be realistic and sensible about targets and pace of return on investment. Years ago, I was working in a different university, and we put a lot of time into developing a relationship with an individual who wanted to support us financially. They met students and looked at buildings and did all sorts of things. Eventually they did put in quite a lot of money that supported scholarships and students and then a building programme, and it was fantastic. But I have to say by that time, I had not only moved on to my next job at a different university, but I had moved on to another one after that! It was a long-term investment for the institution. My involvement in that was around relationship building at one moment in time, but other people then had to sustain it. There are other great prospects that sometimes don’t produce anything financially and that’s OK. That’s the nature of what we are doing. I think the real thing is for university leaders to understand not just alumni and philanthropists but also our Development Teams and to realise it’s long term. We plan to bring philanthropy and alumni engagement into the induction of our new leadership team to ensure there is a clear appreciation from the start of the role everyone has to play – philanthropy must be a shared and ongoing endeavour.
Fundraising, like everything else in universities, doesn’t happen without investment, and it’s often competing with other departments for investment. How do you think fundraising and alumni teams can make the case they are not just a valuable investment, but a fundamental part of strategic enablement? Especially when we are all facing challenging financial climates.
Prof Nic Beech: As you pointed out previously, alumni are our biggest stakeholder group. Why, in any strategy, would you ignore your biggest stakeholder group? I would put that up front and I would say that philanthropy is part of a long, ongoing sustained set of relationships. I would push back and say without it you are not going to be able to accelerate at the pace you want to. Investing in philanthropy now will enable the University to realise more of its strategic ambitions in a few years’ time. You build the ability to have an impact and that becomes a virtuous cycle. It is not separate from marketing. It’s not separate from student recruitment. It’s not separate from your mission. It’s a key plank of delivering your mission.
We often talk about all ships rising in a tide, and there is an important brand and reputation element to consider. But what happens when departments neglect the relationship with donors and alumni, and the next Vice-Chancellor has to come in and repair them? How do we break that cycle of not engaging with the people who are important to us?
Prof Nic Beech: If you just hope that somehow the philanthropic team will turn up with a magic money chest this year, then it’s not going to happen. If you consider them as part of your strategic team that leads to a sound, long-term footing of a mixed set of financial support and all the other things we’ve talked about, you just see things differently. You don’t say to your Marketing Department, ‘the numbers this year have really gone up or down just because of what you did’. It relies on the way academics are speaking to people on visa regulations, for example. There are a whole set of things that impact results, and it’s the same with philanthropy. Exchange rates matter hugely, the state of the economy in different parts of the world matter hugely. There’s a huge set of variables to consider. In terms of breaking a cycle, I think it’s important to remember that building a relationship with donors and alumni isn't with individuals in the university, it's with the university itself so that when leadership changes, support and commitment remains. In order to ensure buy-in for the long-term the university needs to put forward a clear vision, opportunities for ongoing engagement and sustained impact and excellent stewardship that involves stakeholders at all levels.
In recent years, universities have been coming under increasing criticism by our government and the media around their values and the cost of fees. We both know that universities bring great value to their communities, as well as delivering global impact. So how can alumni help get that message out there about the value of universities?
Prof Nic Beech: Number one is that we need to be clear, and we need to communicate the university’s value to alumni, so that they are not having to dig around to find the information. We have recently had a social and economic impact evaluation done which has been great because we are contributing over £830 million a year to Greater Manchester and over £40 million a year to Salford. There are probably a lot of people that just wouldn’t know this, but actually £40 million within an economy the size of Salford is really something quite special. Secondly, we need to be really clear on how we go about dispersing some of the contributions, for example supporting community projects on our doorstep. . We are doing lots of work on women coming into technical jobs, raising skills and aspirations for young people, and we do a lot of creative technology and scientific technology. These activities are actually helping people have increasingly varied career opportunities, and we need to be clear what impact we’re having and the societal challenges we are looking to tackle in collaboration with others. Alumni and donors are then really good at coming onboard to help us accelerate and celebrate this work and impact.
And there’s that untapped intellectual capacity within the broader alumni group, presenting real opportunities for the university to engage with them.
Prof Nic Beech: We are pretty fortunate that about 50% of our undergraduates come from the local area, but actually 60% of our graduates stay. So more who come to us find out how much they love it here and make their lives here, which I think is fantastic.
Internally, how can the Philanthropy and Alumni Team begin to communicate the value that they add to the broader university through both philanthropy and the role of alumni?
Prof Nic Beech: When we speak to employers, they so often say: ‘well we employed so-and-so from Salford and ever since then we have been employing more and more because they are brilliant’. I think the Alumni Team are great at speaking to academics, Deans, technical staff and professionals right across the board. It goes back to what you were saying earlier, it’s the people. My experience of people who work in Development departments is that they are just very good at understanding, engaging, and getting on with folk. Earlier I said I spend a lot of time out and about meeting staff, students and others in the community; I think for development teams, that same approach works. They’ve got all the skills to do it and there are real benefits to just being known across the University.
Thinking about you and your leadership team over the next few years as you begin to roll out your strategy, how much time and in what way do you see your engagement with donors, alumni and the philanthropy team?
Prof Nic Beech: For any VC, there is always this balance of thinking internally and thinking externally. In my first year I spent quite a lot of time internally meeting staff, spending a lot of time with students, getting to know the place, and then starting to get to know some of the immediate environments. We are now in a slightly different position. The University leadership team is changing and that allows us to increase how flexible we are.
People talk about the proportion of time spent internally and externally. Some say it’s 70% internal and 30% external. Some say the other way round. In reality for me, it’s more likely to be 50-50. But always working closely with the team because they are the ones doing it every day. They pull me in when I can be helpful and keep me out when I’m not!!
The late great Sir Eric Thomas used to often talk about Vice-Chancellors being recruited to lead universities academically and then being expected to be fundraisers, and no-one told them that in the interview!! Did it come up in your interview process that philanthropy and engagement with alumni was part of the job?
Prof Nic Beech: No - not at all which is really really interesting. Because alumni really mattered to my way of thinking. We discussed current students and their connections, but even though I’ve got an interest, philanthropy wasn’t part of the conversation at all. We recognise this is something we want to change going forward.
In the US, who have a far more developed sense of strategic philanthropic impact, I guarantee that it absolutely would have been part of that interview. That’s not just Salford, that’s the whole of the UK sector making that shift so it becomes part of the conversation.
Prof Nic Beech: Coming back to your point about Sir Eric Thomas. Whatever way you come to being the VC, there will be some things that will be home territory for you and other parts of the job that you are learning. That’s always true. For me, the interesting question is how do you best land, particularly in the areas that you are least experienced? It might be different disciplines that you are trying to understand and the cultures that exists within them. It could be if you come up through more of a research route, you need to understand education and how it’s provided, or the other way round. A lot of VCs are on quite steep learning curves and it's quite easy for some of the important things, such as business strategy and philanthropy, not to be in the right position, especially if a VC hasn’t come with that background.
My final question brings together a lot of what we have been talking about. The CASE conference will be in Manchester on August 26th for four days and there will be about 800 marketing, fundraising, alumni professionals who will come together to talk about challenges, trends and the landscape ahead. If you were giving the opening plenary to the conference, what are the key things that you would want to get across?
Prof Nic Beech: Firstly, universities need to understand marketing, engagement, and philanthropic engagement much better. The key element is that sometimes they are all seen as separate to the main part of the business, but it never works like that. We have a tendency to have an idea for a programme and then ask the marketing department to sell it. We all know that does not work. So, number one is to get in at the design stage, because that’s crucial. Number two, I think for a lot of university leadership, they have gone into universities because they are actually interested in ideas, analysis, and trying to better understand and engage with the world. Actually, everything we have been talking about is about analysing, understanding, informing what you do, trying it out, practicing and then refining it. There is an intellectual practice underpinning everything the CASE conference is looking at. We just need to make that really overt to university leadership teams, because that will speak to where they come from.
Finally, everything we do at Salford is around impact on people’s lives – enriching lives. To have a real and sustained impact, we can’t operate in a siloed way – we need to bring many areas of the university together and work more seamlessly to achieve bigger and bolder outcomes. We want to do things differently both within our university but also bringing the community into our campus – to achieve this requires a different and more collaborative way of thinking.
From your business background, you know no company would start without a marketing strategy, pipeline and people who can manage these elements. Within universities, it’s too often seen that all the things that make up good business practice are optional, and not integral to the business. Maybe that’s a bit of the shift that needs to happen, and I think the next 10 years will see universities operating in a different way not only because they have to, but hopefully because they want to.
Prof Nic Beech: Yes, and I start from the “because we want to” because it’s a great way of working. I think you are right; the external circumstances will push people into behaving differently and that can be really good. That’s where the possibilities are, and I think you alluded to this earlier, that sometimes people end up making cuts in the very area that they shouldn’t, and there is real danger for the sector if that approach is taken.