University of Dundee Strategic Advisory Taskforce workshops: income generation

The University of Dundee Strategic Advisory Taskforce held a series of workshops in June and July 2025. These covered a range of subjects agreed with the University of Dundee (UoD), and the purpose was to provide more focused and detailed discussion on issues relevant to the University’s recovery planning. Minutes from the workshop on income generation are below.

You can read minutes from the other workshops at: University of Dundee Strategic Advisory Taskforce

Attendees and apologies

• Dr David McBeth, University of Dundee
• Dr Paul Davies, University of Dundee
• Rose Jenkins, University of Dundee
• Lizzi Nicoll, University of Dundee
• Dr Charmi Patel, University of Dundee
• James Bown, University of Abertay
• Gary Bannon, Scottish Funding Council
• Peter Ward, Scottish Funding Council
• Tim Allan, V&A Dundee
• David McLay, Scottish Enterprise
• Nicola McMillan, Scottish Enterprise
• Alison Henderson, Chamber of Commerce
• Ester Ruskuc, University of St Andrews
• Dr Melissa D’Ascenzio, Dundee University and College Union
• Lisa Buchan, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Presentation

Dr David McBeth, Vice-Principal (Enterprise and Economic Transformation) gave a presentation focussing particularly on opportunities to expand Continuing Professional Development (CPD) offerings, consultancy and service work, and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships at Dundee.

Discussion

Themes that emerged from discussions included:

• other universities make a significantly larger percentage of income from CPD and this is worth exploring but CPD is probably a longer-term opportunity with potentially long lead times towards sustainable offerings. Dundee could explore working with local partners to join up offerings to improve ease of access for employers and delegates
• there are opportunities to expand income from philanthropy, and it was noted that St Andrews have been developing this approach for much longer than Dundee, and could provide Dundee with advice about developing the area Commitment to this needs to be a key part of the role for an incoming Principal and Chair of Court. An external development board  will be created to support philanthropy work
• further work is needed to expand business development links from individual schools within the university – decentralising business development resources could provide immediate opportunities for income sources.
• the university’s real estate and facilities are assets that can be made use of, but  the first priority is rationalising the estate
• crucially, all activity needs to be focussed through a lens of robust business cases, value for money, and accurate costings – there may be further opportunities for Taskforce members to help with this
• but the need for controls around spending shouldn’t throttle opportunities for income

Wider discussion points:

Challenges and benefits, capitalisation

• other universities are in similar positions re filling funding gaps.
• other institutions share the experience of QA bottlenecks and the challenges to moving responsively in relation to CPD and other “taught” activities
• recognition of tension between competition and collaboration of institutions
• CPD provision to other organisations
• market trends and industry needs
• partner with other HE and FE sector can be used to deliver
• most current income in Dundee is driven from School of Medicine
• how different expertise comes together to meet demand will vary from one institution to another
• CPD is not a big surplus generator and not always scale-able, but it can grow income per capita from the existing fixed costs (staff) of the University
• recognise competitive aspect of competing for same market
• CPD is building on what the uni does anyway
• consultancy and service work mentioned in introduction but not discussed at length, ditto for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships -these sources of income also build up relationships with industry which can be long term and contribute to “core” income generation (teaching and research) in due course

Technology and its use for delivery

• sharing expertise and partnerships on this – emerging areas of work

Challenges

• timeframe of 2 years – most of the streams discussed  won’t generate income quickly enough
• lagging behind sector on distance learning
• bottlenecks – approval and QA processes are slowing things down – need to be more responsive to market needs
• the university cannot be doing things that don’t generate surpluses long-term against the (accurate) costs of doing the work
• pricing – review and be aware of what the cost of each course/offering is to include staff resource as well
• has a hit list been created for opportunities? – some schools are on it – some deals are being lost currently
• don’t always have the capacity to set resource to the opportunities in the timescales required
• one size doesn’t fit all across the university – suggested to profile in some external business consultancy to support
• resource needs to be rebalanced across the University as they have the resource across other areas – could repurpose that to develop some of the existing opportunities
• is there a clear understanding of the skill set needed? Lacking capacity rather than skills – business development is needed

Progress

• Business School progressing on CPD opportunities
• market demand – survey has been sent out this week to ask companies what the gaps are in skills and what they need – Business School is moving on and will have CPD opportunities available to run in September
• pathways on number of subjects – non-siloed
• looking for gaps in the market
• industry and academic knowledge and skills come together in the drug/pharmaceutical development  - but need local business development input – already creating income

Philanthropy

• successful Trust and Foundation support for projects over last 20 years
• historically, individual Schools have successfully secured donations/revenue  but patchy across the university. Priority to ensure coordination with the Advancement Department – adherence to policy and governance process
• working hard to build a philanthropic culture across the university
• cannot expect alumni and donor community to put their own money into a black hole – you cannot raise for a deficit
• Ninewells cancer campaign will resume in September
• CASE National benchmarking study – £3 m raised in 22/23;  23/24 survey will be done over the summer months
• alumni donor base is not as large as it should be – UoD has historically not been good at asking alumni – pipelines have improved with rigorous application of data and analytics
• strategic perspective – Taskforce may be able to help with this
• donors reinforce success – they like to see they are supporting something with momentum and impact
• Dundee’s reputation has suffered – need to re-establish the brand
• key role for Vice Chancellor and Principal to lead  major high net worth fundraising with Dir External Relations
• cultural shift needed: at every level an awareness of fundraising is a part of the job
• example given from St Andrews’ experience – Giving Club established at £15 per month 40 years ago as a starting point, to create a culture of giving. This was  a long term plan, it is low-hanging fruit
• need to be part of the role of Chair of Court and should be factored into the recruitment of those senior roles
• it is about relationship, trust, impact and time
• currently strategy to generate this income via  University priority projects (Student Experience/Research Excellence/Biomedical Sciences etc)
• need to look outside own networks – go beyond that to people who are interested in the work of the University
• this is an element of the reputation recovery strategy – homing in on projects rather than the university as a whole
• need to present inspiring things for people to donate to
• need to have people out there to have serendipitous meetings – be nosy, speak to people, what story are we telling them re successes major projects etc
• senior staff need to know what is going on across the university so they can take opportunities to talk to people about it – 25% of the Principal’s time should be spent on this process
• marketing  has not been as effective as it could be – too focused on student recruitment rather than marketing the university – that narrative is incredibly important – the message should be ‘who are we and what do we stand for’ – have confidence in telling our story

Estates

• main ownership of city campus – seeking to close some and sell some and will take 18 months - 2 years to realise receipts
• have looked at other sites – Riverside for example
• UoD do not own the Botanic Gardens
• revenue generation – minor income from rental and sub rentals
• estates rationalisation process ongoing
• UoD own the site at Ninewells but have occupancy agreement with NHS
• UoD is withdrawing from as many lease agreements as possible and renegotiating others
• reviewing capacity for conference offerings -the University has never generated sustained income from conferencing but has to date not had a dedicated person charged with generating income from conferencing and hospitality
• hospitality overall needs review:  e.g. some outlets actually run at a loss
• possibility to maximise catering and conferencing strategically together
• hospitality was raised in staff survey – how to capitalise it – outsourcing might cost the university even more – need to look at it in context
• robust business cases are needed
• brave decisions need to be made around what to do and not to do taking an holistic view
• possibility of splitting the roles in estates to keep catering in-house.  St Andrews offered to share learning on this process
• potential for links through alumni e.g. through weddings and also through tourism
• car parking may offer opportunity to raise more income especially if opened up to students and the public
• there may be opportunity to offer more electric charging points e.g. to the public as another income generator
• spend controls and towards centralisation should not be stopping progress

Actions

• centralise list of industry collaborations across Dundee plc – with Scottish Enterprise
• UoD asked for help in reviewing and developing robust business cases – explore this with Taskforce

Potential recommendations

• work with industry sector bodies to look at market trends and industry needs for  skills, training and support
• have a wider survey of staff and harvest the staff knowledge
• develop appropriate, accurate costing methodologies for each activity against which decisions can be made about whether or not true surpluses are being / can be generated
• create a policy framework to make it easier for university staff to do CPD and reduce transactional barriers to launching new offerings
• consider distributed business development staff appropriate to School needs
• create an external development board to be set up to support philanthropy
• use taskforce to support developing networks of support with business cases