Digital Futures

Introduction

The UK academic sector is successful on a global scale. It not only contributes more than £73 billion to the national economy each year, but also produces some of the most groundbreaking research undertaken anywhere in the world, and is highly effective in the commercial exploitation of that research, leading to significant economic return and societal impact. While the UK represents just 0.9% of the global population and 4.1% of the world’s researchers, it produces 15.9% of the world’s most highly cited articles.¹ The sector excels not only in research but also in teaching, with a world-class reputation across teaching, research and knowledge transfer.

A contributing factor to this success is undoubtedly the investment made by ...