Exploring the ‘Public’ Role of the University: Developing a UCL Perspective

This new initiative, jointly run by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the Bartlett, hopes to bring colleagues from across UCL faculties to engage in collective reflection, to be able both to theorise the public role of universities, and to work towards specific proposals for action, identifying levers of change to strengthen UCL’s public-oriented mission. The session will be geared towards open discussion, loosely structured around a series of thematic prompts, but essentially encouraging participants to make contributions as they see fit.

The initiative builds on 'Bartlett Publics: Pluralising,' a webinar series held in 2022-23, which aimed to facilitate cross-learning on the principles and practices of international engagement best able to catalyse universities’ ‘public’ role and societal relevance. Topics of discussion included the role of universities in tackling the climate emergency, fostering sustainable futures, and ensuring ethical international engagement. These discussions took place among Bartlett colleagues. The purpose of this year’s initiative is to bring in colleagues from many other disciplines into the conversation. 

We see the relevance of the proposed sharpening work in a context of intensifying multifaceted crises - from growing inequalities, to the climate emergency, including pandemic risks, the as-yet unknown impacts of rapidly developing AI and of course, an increasingly volatile international political context. Questioning the ‘public’ role of the university and its potential positive contribution is equally pertinent in the current juncture marked by strains in the UK higher education system. Such strains are manifest externally in the querying of the relevance and legitimacy of science; and internally through issues as wide-ranging as financial viability and the spaces for contention. In this context, we recognise the need for interdisciplinary discussions within our UCL community, in order to help sharpen and review what defines our ‘public’ role across the core functions of the university - education, research and public engagement. One particularly relevant development since 'Bartlett Publics:Pluralising' has been the recent decision by UCL to apply to become a University of Sanctuary, as a result of extensive work by the Refuge in a Moving World Network, led by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Richard Mole and Mette Berg.

The present initiative is led by Barbara Lipietz, Professor in Urban Development Planning at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit and Bartlett Vice Dean International, and Nicola Miller, Professor of Latin American History and Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies. Both Barbara and Nicola have been exploring this question in their personal work and in relation to their institutional functions. Recently, Barbara has curated an international network of colleagues (from Brazil, Cuba, France, India, Lebanon, Mexico, South Africa) to help unpack the meaning of universities’ publicness (their ‘fit for purpose-’ness) in highly divergent socio-political and institutional contexts, and to explore potential levers of change. For Nicola, the question of publicness imbues the IAS’s whole programme of interdisciplinary research and knowledge exchange, perhaps particularly through the lenses of Global Area Studies and Creative Practice Research. 

This brainstorming workshop is, ideally, a preliminary step in an ongoing conversation amongst members of our UCL community and envisage this conversation to be continued this year through a series of topic-based public events, with invited speakers, culminating in a day workshop in June 2025.

Participation in this workshop is for UCL Faculty and by invitation only. If you would like to attend, please send an email to marthe.lisson@ucl.ac.uk.