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Reimagining the civic university: from local leadership to civic partnership

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Sarah Chaytor, Luke GreenORCiD, Professor Louise KemptonORCiD, Professor John Tomaney

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Despite its widespread adoption in UK higher education discourse, the civic university concept remains weakly and unevenly realised in practice. This paper argues the core challenge facing the ‘civic university’ is not insufficient activity but a failure of embeddedness: civic engagement is rarely secured in governance, incentives or operating models, relying instead on fragmented initiatives, individual champions and short-term funding. Drawing on extant research and practitioner experience, we show how leadership-centric framings privileging visibility and control have constrained impact. We propose a shift to a civic partnership model, positioning universities as actors within local systems and emphasising long-term cross-sector collaboration.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Shutt L, Chaytor S, Green L, Kempton L, Tomaney J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Contemporary Social Science

Year: 2026

Volume: 21

Issue: 1

Online publication date: 05/08/2026

Acceptance date: 24/07/2026

Date deposited: 18/08/2026

ISSN (print): 2158-2041

ISSN (electronic): 2158-205X

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2026.2712318

DOI: 10.1080/21582041.2026.2712318

Data Access Statement: Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

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