Cuts are coming, regardless of who wins the election, but Oxford and Oxfordshire will continue to benefit economically from the activities of Oxford Brookes University, according to its vice-chancellor.

Despite being unusually dependent on public spending (with 46.6 per cent of employees in Oxford working in public administration, education or health, compared to 25.5 per cent for the south east as a whole), Prof Janet Beer said: “It’s easy to let gloom and doom rule.

“But we have a lot of good news here and plenty to celebrate. We have the best ancient and modern universities — and they have a bright future.”

She was speaking to The Oxford Times at the launch of Brookes’s new survey, The Economic Contribution of Oxford Brookes University.

She added: “We are committed to making Oxfordshire a better place to live, work and study and we hope that this report demonstrates some of the ways in which we meet that commitment.”

The report, published this week, marks the beginning of a new university strategy designed to take it to 2020 — though Prof Beer also admitted that showcasing the contribution Brookes makes to the economy (£im a day to the UK overall) can do no harm in persuading politicians, both in government and opposition, to spare the axe.

In that context Prof Beer was off to Westminster after talking to The Oxford Times to meet Conservative shadow education secretary David Willetts, who has recently defined the “challenge” of universities as how to find savings “in ways that don’t damage teaching and research”.

Following that line of thinking, Prof Beer said: “Reorganisation here means that eight academic schools are to become four faculties. But we are hoping to avoid staff cuts.”

To some extent, Brookes succeeds in being our “local” university. For instance, in addition to scholarships for local candidates, it guarantees an undergraduate place to every pupil of Oxfordshire state schools with the requisite qualification.

Prof Beer explained: “For example, someone at an Oxfordshire state school with two As and a B at A level and wanting to join our very popular architectural course, will get that place.”

Blowing its own trumpet — and who can blame it — Brookes, which still plans to spend £200m on its new campuses during the next four years alone, reports that it injects £20m into the Oxfordshire economy every year with direct spending on local services and suppliers.

It also spends £85m a year (2008/9 figures) on staff costs and with more than eight out of ten of its 2,500 staff living in Oxfordshire, this has a massive impact on the county’s economy.

On the income side, Brookes’s money has gone up by 74 per cent, from £91m in 2001/2 to £158m in 2008/9, and its government funding for teaching has also inceased 50 per cent in the same period from £32m to £49m, while the number studying at the university’s three campuses — Headington, Harcourt Hill and Wheatley — only increased 0.5 per cent between 1999 and 2008/9 a year.

Crucially for the future, the report states: “We have been highly successful in diversifying our income. With a quarter of our funding coming from other sources of income [such as business consultancy], we are in the top 25 universities in the UK..

“We are less dependent on and influenced by fluctuations in government funding than many others and this self-sufficiency puts us in a strong financial position.”

Much of this “other income” has been generated by working closely with the Oxfordshire business world: providing professional training, for instance, or consultancy, or creating valuable intellectual property. Then there is the high-profile motorsport school which works closely with Oxfordshire’s money-spinning racing car industry.

On the intellectual property front, Brookes has developed a diagnostic test for Downs Syndrome which now earns “significant income” for the university.

Prof Beer stressed Brookes was “going into the cuts” in a strong state, having accumlated a surplus from the good times, and that the county would continue to benefit from its presence.

The finances are well supervised. But why, some might ask in the circumstances, is it still contemplating massive rebuilding of its campus?

Prof Beer said: “The place is very tired and in a dire condition. It’s very important for us to provide best-quality facilities in the future. The vice-president of the Student Union said recently that the bar was empty and it was impossible to find a place in the library. That will not do.”

The university has a diversified income too, with 80 per cent of its students coming from the UK, five per cent from the European Union (EU), and 15 per cent from elsewhere.

According to another report, this time from Brookes MBA student Shenoy Karun, foreign students at the university spend some £21m a year in the city, second only to Oxford University with its estimated annual spend by foreign students of £63.5m.

One contentious set of figures that bugs academics and students alike at the moment, is contained in a report from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showing numbers of “other staff” such as managers have grown almost three times as fast as numbers of academics since 2003/4.

Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, has responded by saying that growth in higher education and government regulatory requirements had inevitably led to extra managers.

But Prof Beer said: “There is no sense of them and us. Many of us — take me for example — are both academics and managers at the same time.”

Universities UK has the avowed policy of maximising its own sources of income and engaging much more closely with local communities. No-one could accuse Brookes of not doing that.