19 September 2018 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
Richard Brabner, writing for Wonkhe, trails the launch of UUK's campaign to convince the unaware, the cynical and the sceptical of the value of universities. The UUK campaign follows months of research conducted by Britain Thinks, which revealed that 31% of those interviewed were ‘net neutral’ about the value of universities and 13% ‘didn’t know’. Richard rightly observes that "[A] pessimistic reading of the UUK findings would conclude that less than half of the population really care about our universities." Richard is now Head of the UPP Foundation, whose Civic University Commission conducted a poll of 10 cities in March found "big variations [in support for universities] – geographically and between classes. This showed up in its focus groups too: better educated, civically involved people were very positive. For others, universities were at best an irrelevance, at worst a nuisance."
BUFDG has produced a series of short videos that attempt to explain the value of universities. They may not reach the unaware and unconvinced, but we hope they will inspire colleagues working in finance (and other departments) to shout more loudly about the value of what they do. No matter how good a university's marketing and comms team, everyone working in this amazing sector has a duty to promote what we do and explain who we are doing it for. No more lights under bushels and inverted snobbery, please.
