Durham University: Helping our region grow and thrive
Proud to be part of the North East
We’ve been part of North East England for nearly 200 years and we’re working with partners across the region and beyond to ensure our economy adapts for the challenges that lie ahead.
£3.2 billion and 32,000 jobs
A new report has found that universities in North East England contribute £3.2 billion to the economy and support 32,000 jobs across the region.
The study by Frontier Economics, commissioned by Universities UK, also found that across England universities contribute around £95 billion to the economy and support 815,000 jobs.
As well as direct employment, universities support these jobs through their purchases of services and goods from other sectors and through employee spending power. Universities also attract substantial numbers of international students, and visitor spending associated with international students runs in the hundreds of millions.
This significant economic impact runs alongside the huge contribution universities make to the economy through life-changing research and educating tomorrow’s workforce. A predicted 191,000 nurses, 84,000 medical specialists and 188,000 teachers will train at UK universities over the next five years.
The new research comes as the UK Government is receiving evidence for its Comprehensive Spending Review.
What we’re doing…
We’ve recently launched Orbit, a University enterprise zone based at NETPark, one of the UK’s leading science parks, in Sedgefield, County Durham.
The Durham Internships and Collaborative Enterprise (DICE) project, which we run jointly with Durham County Council to support start-up businesses, scale-ups and local Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) through a subsidised internship programme, Durham City Incubator and a programme of enterprise interventions for students, has delivered over £3.3 million in value to its participants in the first three years.
Experts from our Business School analysed data from over two million UK companies to better understand supply chain configurations, then set up a free triage service to help businesses in County Durham and North East England to survive the impact of Covid-19 and prepare to compete in a post-pandemic marketplace.