Results from the annual Higher Education - Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey contain some surprising, and reassuring, figures: the higher education sector's income from services it has provided to UK businesses and wider society rose to nearly £3 billion in 2009, an increase of 5.5 per cent. This shows that even in these unstable economic times, universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly successful at using their knowledge, expertise and facilities to contribute to the UK economy through research, professional training, consultancy and services, spin-off companies and new enterprises, and to generate income to support their core activities.

Key findings of the study include:

• Continuing professional development (CPD) income rose by 4 per cent to £559 million.
• Public-sector and third-sector spending on HEIs rose to £937m.
  
• Income from intellectual property and sale of spin-off companies almost doubled to £124m.
  

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