Report

Preparing for populism

This report from UK think tank HEPI encourages universities to engage across the political spectrum, including with parties sceptical of higher education.

Prepare for populism: Universities need to rebuild their legitimacy with all major parties and the public as they head into a tougher political era.

In Preparing for Populism (HEPI Debate Paper 44), Professor Diana Beech and Edward Venning show that public patience with universities is thin as populist sentiment rises. The report argues the higher education sector’s biggest problem is not money but trust. Universities have fallen into a complex, dull and defensive public debate, focused on economic contributions and graduate earnings. The risk is that this looks selfish, tone-deaf and insular at a moment of peril.

The authors encourage universities to engage across the political spectrum, including with parties sceptical of higher education, most notably Reform UK. They argue this is different to endorsement: it is, rather, democratic realism and pluralism at work.

The report offers a three-part framework for reconnecting universities with political sentiment:

Instrumental legitimacy: doing the core roles of teaching and research well and explaining them clearly.

Relational legitimacy: connecting to the need for national renewal, grounded in an appeal to common sense.

Moral legitimacy: playing by the rules while helping shape better ones.