We need to address how we raise the aspirationsof a whole raft of younger people and their families, but also how we addressskills issues that successive governments have failed to acknowledge.This was important because the world was likely to change radically,said John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC. He predicted that many current jobswould not exist in 20 years time, while demand would increase in areas such ashealth and social care because of the ageing population. This would demandretraining and a renewed focus on employability, blending work experience andeducation.Universities also needed to consider the wider cultural contributionthey could make, said Anita Bhalla, chair of the Creative City Partnership, setup to support job creation and growth in the creative industries. Internationalstudents in particular influenced quality of life in a region, she argued.Ian Curryer, chief executive of Nottingham city council, feltuniversities were important for a regions schools, influencing pupils throughcampus visits.Sponsoring schoolsOne of the policies pushed by the last government was the idea ofuniversities sponsoring schools. But Eastwood said his university had been ableto draw on its longstanding resources to establish the University of BirminghamSchool, a free school, run by a trust set up by the university. When (former)No 10 advisers had asked what proportion of universities he felt could followBirminghams example, he estimated only between 20% and 25%. We have tounderstand the different roles and capabilities of universities, he said.Allison said that if his university was required to open a nearbyschool, another school somewhere else in Loughborough would close: In thatcase, we are the pariah. On the other hand, he said his university could workwith teachers to improve maths teaching more widely across the region,encouraging pupils to enjoy maths, and perhaps in future consider careers suchas engineering.If there was uncertainty about exactly what future government policywould be on the relationship between schools and universities after the election,it was as nothing to that caused by Brexit.The impact is going to be somewhere between bad and disastrous, saidMaddalaine Ansell, chief executive of the University Alliance.But she said the government clearly saw Brexit as an opportunity for a moreradical industrial strategy and she was encouraged by its approach towardsresearch and development.She understood that universities that collaborated with businesses andcivic authorities on plans likely to have a positive economic impact in the shortand medium term were likely to receive most research and development funding,with those integrating research and development with developing studentsskills probably most favoured.But David Docherty, chief executive of the National Centre for Universitiesand Business, warned that getting too distracted by Brexit would be a mistake.I just dont want us to get caught by two years of debate around Brexitand forget that actually the world moves on outside of our small island, hesaid.For instance, he predicted that 99 % of due diligence work often anentry level job for undergraduate lawyers would be done by artificialintelligence in a few years time, as would about a third of audit jobs.Universities tended to put skills into the local economy. If jobsdemanding those skills disappeared universities would have to work out,alongside business and government, what the next thing was likely to