Calling a university’s strategy its “business model” is a bit like calling the Royal Opera House a karaoke bar— both involve singing for money, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Yes, the UK sector’s fiscal plumbing is hissing ominously, but the ‘business model’ mantra pares back a sprawling public-good ecosystem until it resembles someone trying to fund science with a primary-school bake sale.

The Problem with Business Models

Business models are designed to maximize shareholder value through efficient resource allocation and competitive advantage. Universities, by contrast, are charitable institutions designed to maximize public benefit through education, research, and knowledge transfer.

Trying to apply business model thinking to universities creates several problems:

Short-term vs. Long-term Thinking: Businesses optimize for quarterly results; universities should optimize for generational impact.

Measurable vs. Immeasurable Value: Business success is measured in profit margins; university success includes cultural preservation, scientific breakthrough, and social mobility.

Competition vs. Collaboration: Business models assume zero-sum competition; universities create positive-sum knowledge that benefits everyone.

Enter the Busyness Model

Instead of business models, universities need “busyness models”—frameworks that capture how they create value through being busy with meaningful work rather than just profitable work.

A busyness model would measure:

  • Research Impact: Not just publication counts, but real-world application
  • Educational Value: Not just graduate employment rates, but lifetime learning outcomes
  • Social Return: Not just economic contribution, but community development
  • Knowledge Exchange: Not just technology transfer, but cultural and intellectual enrichment

The Multiple Value Problem

Universities create multiple types of value simultaneously:

Economic Value: Skilled graduates, research commercialization, local economic impact

Social Value: Cultural preservation, social mobility, civic engagement

Intellectual Value: New knowledge, critical thinking, artistic creation

Long-term Value: Institutional memory, intergenerational knowledge transfer

Trying to reduce this to a simple business model is like trying to measure a symphony with a profit-and-loss statement.

Why This Matters

The business model obsession leads to:

  • Cutting “unprofitable” subjects like philosophy and languages
  • Prioritizing revenue-generating activities over educational quality
  • Treating students as customers rather than scholars
  • Focusing on measurable outcomes rather than transformational education

A Different Approach: Social Return on Investment

Instead of business models, universities could use Social Return on Investment (SROI) frameworks that capture:

  1. Direct Benefits: Graduate earnings, research commercialization
  2. Indirect Benefits: Community development, cultural enrichment
  3. Induced Benefits: Long-term societal transformation through education

The Ecosystem Perspective

Universities exist within knowledge ecosystems, not business markets. They:

  • Share knowledge freely rather than hoarding competitive advantage
  • Collaborate with institutions that might be considered “competitors”
  • Create public goods that benefit society beyond their immediate stakeholders

International Examples

Finland: Universities are funded based on broader societal outcomes, not just economic metrics.

Germany: The dual system combines practical training with theoretical education, recognizing multiple forms of value.

Canada: Provincial funding models incorporate community development and indigenous knowledge preservation.

Practical Steps

Universities could develop better busyness models by:

  1. Measuring Social Impact: Tracking graduates’ civic engagement, not just employment
  2. Valuing Knowledge Commons: Recognizing open research and public engagement
  3. Community Integration: Measuring local economic and cultural development
  4. Long-term Thinking: Planning for generational rather than annual outcomes

Conclusion: Beyond the Bottom Line

Universities are not businesses, and trying to make them behave like businesses destroys their essential public value. Instead of business models, they need busyness models that capture the full scope of their societal contribution.

The goal should not be to run universities like businesses, but to run them like the complex, valuable public institutions they are. That requires different metrics, different timeframes, and different definitions of success.

After all, the best universities have never been about efficiency—they’ve been about effectiveness at transforming both individuals and society. That’s a kind of busyness worth investing in.