To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what additional funding (a) Hertfordshire University has received from his Department and (b) his Department intends to provide to Hertfordshire University as a business facing university. (150237)

The Department provides no direct funding to the institution, and information is not held centrally on whether the university has used its grant funding from HEFCE, or funding from other sources, to support its shift towards becoming overtly ‘business-facing’.

However, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has provided project funding for the University of Hertfordshire to develop its employer engagement activities. The university received £2.93 million under the third round of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) to support engagement with a range of knowledge transfer activities with business, public sector and community partners, for direct or indirect economic benefit. It received Strategic Development Fund money to: take forward its employer engagement strategy through projects aiming to secure an effective and sustainable relationship with a substantial pool of employers and enable it to address the skill needs of employers, students and its graduates (£2.2 million); re-engineer the institution to meet the needs of small and medium-sized employers (£2.0 million).