Excluding UK universities from a trade mission to China led by the prime minister was a “massive own goal”, according to a leading vice-chancellor.

When Keir Starmer toured Beijing and Shanghai in January he was accompanied by more than 50 representatives of British business and culture – but higher education institutions were conspicuously absent.

Adam Tickell, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, said that the sector no-show “wasn’t for lack of trying on our part or indeed on the part of fairly significant people in significant places in government, both in civil service and politics”.

“It was a massive own goal,” said Tickell, speaking at the UK Global R&D and Science Investment Summit, held at the Royal Society in London.

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Tickell said that, of Birmingham’s annual turnover of just shy of £1.2 billion, about £300 million is “invisible exports”, with the majority of that from China, in the form of international student fees.

The roster for the China trip contrasted sharply with that of a similar trip to India held just three months prior, when Starmer was accompanied by 13 university leaders, and the prime minister and vice-chancellors were pictured with Narendra Modi.

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Tickell did not elaborate on the reasons for universities’ omission from the China mission but suggested that it might reflect unease about immigration, and some institutions’ reliance on the communist superpower for overseas recruitment – concerns that he argued were misplaced.

“If we’re thinking about exports in the round, then it isn’t just physical, tangible things that are made in this country which we put on a ship or a plane. It’s a much more sophisticated understanding of trade…we need to hold our head up high about [universities’] contribution rather than apologise for students who come to this country for a short while and then go home and all the soft power benefits that [accrue from that],” said Tickell, who has led Birmingham since 2022.

He suggested that the exclusion might also reflect the sector’s “significant legitimacy problem”, contrasting contemporary politicians’ attitudes towards higher education with former prime minister David Cameron’s characterisation of universities and the research system as being the best thing about the UK.

“If we can imagine any politician of note getting on anywhere now saying the best thing about Britain is universities and the research system, then I can see the pigs flying,” Tickell said.

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The vice-chancellor was speaking at the launch of a  by the Commission on Devolution and Diplomacy, led by Birmingham researchers, which calls for a major overhaul of how Whitehall works with city regions and universities to attract inward investment.

The report says that although metropolitan mayors are increasingly building their own global partnerships, these are often “fragmented, unevenly supported and disconnected from national priorities”. It urges government to create a devolved diplomacy unit that could help develop trade missions and advise on political and commercial risks and says that universities should be at the heart of regions’ international engagement, given their alumni networks and role as drivers of innovation.

Among the speakers welcoming the report was Claire Ward, Labour mayor of the East Midlands, who said that she hoped its recommendations would be adopted “because that is the way in which we will promote effectively what we have to offer across our regions and utilise mayors who know their regions best, who know what is available, and also can coordinate at a much better ground level within the regions because of their convening powers [and their] relationships with the universities”.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com