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.
Shutt et al. (Wed,) studied this question.