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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Sarah Chaytor, Luke GreenORCiD, Professor Louise KemptonORCiD, Professor John Tomaney
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 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.
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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