Why public trust is now part of research impact

Public expectations around research are rising. Governments are under fiscal pressure. Technology is reshaping research and learning. And universities are being drawn into wider debates about trust, value and legitimacy.

That is the tension at the center of a new examination of this issue: Rebuilding Universities’ Social Licence. In this piece, Professor Rufus Black (Vice Chancellor, University of Tasmania) and Dr Nick Fowler (Chief Academic Officer, Elsevier) argue that universities remain deeply important, but their environment has changed

They are no longer being judged only by research quality, teaching, innovation or global reputation.

Instead, they are increasingly being asked a more public question: who does this work serve?

Trust is under pressure

The essay starts with a clear warning: public confidence in universities has weakened.

• In the US, confidence in higher education fell from 57% in 2015 to 42% in 2025

• 85% of respondents at the Universities Australia Solutions Summit agreed the sector risks losing public and government trust

• Only 43% said their own university faces the same risk

Why it matters: leaders can see the sector-wide problem more clearly than the institutional one. That gap is important. If universities believe the trust problem is mostly “out there,” they may miss the local work needed to rebuild confidence.

Rankings are not relevance

The piece also points to a familiar tension: universities are rewarded for global visibility, but judged by the publics on local value.

• 65% of session participants said ANZ universities focus too much on global rankings and too little on local impact

• Only 47% said the same of their own institution

• Audience responses named “disconnect from communities,” “corporatisation and marketisation,” and “complacency and internal culture” among the causes of the current trust problem

Why it matters: a university can perform well globally and still feel distant locally. Rankings may help attract talent and signal quality. But they do not answer the public’s simpler question: how does this institution improve life here?

Read: What if universities could turn local challenges into global change?

The next model is more connected

To tackle this, Black and Fowler point to models that make universities more visibly useful. These include the civic university, the engaged university, the sustainable university, the AI university and the Fourth Generation University. Each model is different. The common thread is connection — with place, citizens, industry, government and shared societal problems. The Fourth Generation University model frames universities as ecosystem orchestrators, with emphasis on:

• partnerships with local industry, local government and the public

• open innovation and knowledge exchange

• collaborative infrastructure

• metrics focused on societal outcomes

Why it matters: this changes the impact story.

The message is no longer just, “We produce excellent research.” It becomes, “We help organise knowledge, talent and partnerships around problems that matter.”

Public value must be visible

The piece closes with three priorities:

• strengthen local engagement

• partner across sectors

• communicate public value

That last point is easy to underplay. But it may be the most important. Public value does not explain itself. Universities have to show where their work is used, who benefits and what changes because of it. The takeaway: research impact is not only about outputs. It is about connection.

The strongest impact stories will show who was involved, where the research travelled and why it mattered beyond the institution.

That is how universities rebuild trust: not by asking the public to assume their value, but by making that value easier to see.