Leeds VC Shearer West on branch campuses, HE levy, and UK-India research
“We’re not, at the moment, looking for an overseas campus in India. I’m not saying we never will, but for Leeds right now, as one of the world’s top 100 institutions, we’re looking for really strong academic partners in both research and education, rather than setting up a branch campus,” stated West, vice-chancellor and president at the University of Leeds.
Shearer previously served as the first female VC at the University of Nottingham – an institution with branch campuses in Malaysia and China.
“If you’re going to do [branch campuses] right, you have to spend a lot of time and energy to make sure they’re right, and that’s the balance everyone has to consider,” she told The PIE News. “If you’re only doing it because you think it will be a profit-making enterprise, that’s not reason enough on its own. There has to be a strong educational purpose as well.”
While branch campuses under India’s National Education Policy 2020 have been hailed as a success, concerns remain about their role in India’s higher education landscape and regulatory challenges.
Though the debate continues, many in the UK also view branch campuses in the South Asian country as a way to ease financial strain amid staff and research cuts back home.
During her recent trip to India in June, West signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian institutions on research and student education alliances in areas such as medicine, engineering, biotechnology and social sciences “to reflect the growing importance of India in the university’s international strategy”.
These included renewed or new MoUs with Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research, the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS Pilani), the Regional Centre for Biotechnology, and Delhi University.
For West, the concept of “joint schools”, a model where universities from different countries collaborate to develop degree programs allowing students to study and experience teaching in both locations, is something that has “worked for [Leeds] in the past”.
Founded in 2014, the SWJTU-Leeds Joint School, a flagship partnership between Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) and the University of Leeds is one such example, offering four undergraduate programs that blend Chinese and UK engineering curriculum.
“Students have the opportunity, often through a two-plus-two model, to study in more than one country, if they wish. We’re looking for more flexible ways of doing that,” stated West.
“But it doesn’t mean we’re going to put bricks and mortar up somewhere, because we rely on our local partners to, as it were, have the facilities that we can use when we provide some of the intellectual capital.”
The levy that has now been announced was not something we were warned about, and we are arguing against that too
Shearer West, University of Leeds
West also spoke to The PIE about a potential university levy on international fees. While it is still unclear how the UK government intends to implement the levy or how it will affect revenue from students enrolled through TNE initiatives, universities were not consulted on the proposal, one of the key reasons they are now pushing back against it, said West.
“We did lobby quite hard through our university networks to prevent the Graduate Route from being curtailed. The levy that has now been announced was not something we were warned about, and we are arguing against that too. We wish the government hadn’t announced it. We’d very much like them to reconsider before it becomes baked into legislation.”
Though the UK government has maintained that the additional income from the £20 billion-plus international student system would be reinvested in the country’s higher education and skills sector, details of which are expected in the autumn budget, stakeholders have warned that the levy could “squeeze an already stretched sector to breaking point”.
According to West, the Russell Group is working to ensure that if the levy does come into effect, it is implemented in the “most sensible way”, though it’s a pressure “they’d rather not have”.
Beyond joint schools, the University of Leeds is also looking to deepen its partnerships in India through research, an idea reinforced by her observation that joint research papers between UK and Indian academics tend to have some of the highest citation ratings globally, demonstrating that “the quality of the work is excellent”.
“If you look at where we’re really strong globally in terms of research, it’s in areas like environmental sustainability, health tech, and also the cultural industries, particularly design. So we want our partnerships to really strengthen those areas even further.”
But India’s research landscape has not been bulletproof, with many calling the recent wave of paper retractions as a “crisis”.
A Nature analysis found that retraction volumes at certain Indian institutions have increased steadily over the past five years, in response to which India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) announced plans to penalise institutions with high numbers of retractions.
Apart from India, Leeds is also planning joint academies and research initiatives in other “priority locations”, a strategy increasingly being adopted by institutions across the Big Four as they set their expansion goals for the next 20 to 30 years.
“We are looking at some places in the Americas. There may be other options in Asia as well, but we’re exploring possibilities in subject areas where we believe there’s real opportunity,” stated West.
Back at its home campus, however, Leeds is keen to do more for its international student community of 14,400 students from over 170 countries, including around 1,000 who come from India.
“I do want to stress, we really value the students. They come in well-trained, well-educated, they’re hardworking, and they do really well in their degrees. We feel really privileged to have them as part of our community,” said West.
Though the number of Indian students in the UK dropped by nearly 28% in 2024 compared to 2023, down to 98,000, as per government estimates, management and finance programs remain a major draw, aligning well with Leeds’s own entrepreneurial initiatives.
“World economies aren’t doing particularly well at the moment, so it’s not just students from India, a lot of international students are very conscious of the cost of living,” said West. “But one thing I’ve particularly noticed among Indian students is their strong focus on careers, on work placements, real-life experience, and entrepreneurship.”
“We have a business incubator called Nexus and a program called Spark for students who want to develop entrepreneurial ideas. Alongside that, we’re also seeing growing interest in arts and design-related programs, especially those with an entrepreneurial or innovation-led focus, like cultural industries and design.”
According to West, there has also been a noticeable rise in Indian students focusing on careers and work placements, reflecting “a real interest in gaining practical experience, including entrepreneurship and placements”.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been redefining our curriculum to include more experiential learning. We’re embedding real-world experience across all subjects, not just business-facing programs, so that all our students can benefit,” said West.
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