Local enterprise partnerships are ¡°not quite working right¡± and need universities¡¯ help, the author of a government-commissioned report into universities and growth has said.

Sir Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, told Times Higher Education that LEPs, one of the government¡¯s flagship approaches to regional growth, had a ¡°crucial role¡± to play but limited resources.

¡°There is a sense in many of the LEPs that it¡¯s not quite working right yet, and that they need some help¡­therefore partnering with the universities makes a lot of sense,¡± he said.

Encouraging a British Invention Revolution, published on 15 October, made a series of recommendations, including that the government boost funding for the Higher Education Innovation Fund to ?250?million a year and increase the weighting of impact in the research excellence framework to 25 per cent.

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Sir Andrew¡¯s main proposal is to put ?1 billion over the next parliament into ¡°arrow projects¡± in technologies where the UK could have a comparative advantage. These should be in technologies where the UK is in the top three in the world, he said.

Such projects would involve university research at the ¡°tip¡±, followed by an ¡°arrow head¡± of LEPs, local businesses and supply chains, and supported by existing government agencies such as the Technology Strategy Board, he said. ¡°What we don¡¯t need is a lot more institutions. We need a consolidation of decision-making, so rather than fragmentation we should have more collaboration and streamlining,¡± he added.

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It was up to the government whether the ?1 billion came from new or existing sources, but he was ¡°certainly not recommending we diminish¡± other mechanisms funding more basic research, he said.

The report fleshes out how the government might go about following up on its promise to back ¡°eight great technologies¡±, which Sir Andrew said he broadly agreed were good targets.

A central theme was that efforts should not be dictated by postcode or asking ¡°what can we do in this region¡±, but by technology strengths. These were ¡°incredibly distributed¡± around the UK, said Sir Andrew, who denied that the plans would risk development in the regions.

¡°Actually I think the reverse is going to happen. We¡¯ve had a long experience of trying to do it the other way, and during that period we had more concentration of growth in the South East,¡± he said

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Universities and science minister David Willetts said the government would consider the recommendations and respond more fully in time.

elizabeth.gibney@tsleducation.com