Universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) have three principal missions, all of which are of great importance to business as well as to society at large.
1. They provide higher education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a wide range of disciplines – including the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects as well as other subjects.
2. Their staff also conduct research, much of it of world-leading quality, and in the process also provide training for researchers who are at an early stage in their careers. Some of this research is 'curiosity-driven' and seeks to advance the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding as an end in itself – but may eventually also have important economic or social consequences. Other research is intended to have a more direct impact on those who make use of it, whether in business, government, charities or elsewhere.
3. HEIs also have as their third mission the sharing of knowledge with society generally, including business. This takes a variety of forms, including collaborative and contract research, consultancy, establishment of spin-out companies, student placements and staff secondments.
In addition to these activities, universities operate as businesses in their own right: they are major employers with significant economic impact on their regions, and they compete with each other, both for talented staff and students and for research and other funds from public and private sources.
You can read CBI higher education policy recommendations in Stronger together, a report on the needs of business and higher education and the culmination of a year's work by the CBI higher education taskforce.