Who We Are and Why We're Launching University.co.uk

Written by William Hill, founder of University.co.uk

My name is William Hill. I work as a social entrepreneur, mostly in and around regulated sectors, and much of my time has been spent in education, health and access.

Over the past few years, I’ve been fortunate to lecture at medical schools, to serve as a trustee alongside doctors from Oxford and Harvard, to advise Student Minds, the UK’s leading student mental health charity, and to help set up Brave Kids Academy, a small school in rural Uganda.

Teaching at Edge Hill University Medical School

Brave Kids Academy, Uganda

On paper, those things look quite different. In reality, they all led me to the same conclusion: that education quietly reshapes what people believe is possible for their lives and that access to good education is still uneven, fragile and, too often, unfair.

Meeting David

A few years ago, I met David Newns, another entrepreneur from Blackpool.

David had already built and sold two pharmaceutical companies to FTSE 100 firms for £140m. He had become one of the UK’s youngest FTSE 100 executives and was the first investor in SuperAwesome, which later sold to Epic Games for £300m.

What mattered to me was not the headline numbers, but the way he thought about systems. We spoke about regulated industries, how innovation gets blocked, and how many people with potential never quite find their way into the rooms where major decisions are made.

Our conversations kept circling back to universities: places full of extraordinary knowledge, but surrounded by very high walls.

David (Left), Will (Right), in Verbier, Switzerland

Meeting Rob and imagining a university

Soon after, I met Robert Pickersgill.

Rob has a first-class degree in Mathematics from the University of St Andrews. While he was studying, he built a profitable digital marketing SME and became an award-winning mathematician.

Where I tend to think in stories and questions, Rob thinks in structures and models. Together with David, the three of us started to ask a slightly dangerous question:

What would it look like to build a new kind of university from scratch?

Rob (Left), Will (Right), at our "HQ" in Manchester, UK

We did not mean a loose metaphor. We genuinely went down the path of setting up a new university. We explored routes to accreditation, mapped out possible degree structures and looked carefully at what it would take to offer something that could stand alongside existing institutions rather than just comment on them from the sidelines.

We called this The School of Innovation. At that time, the focus was very much on building a fully fledged university: with degree-awarding powers, accredited programmes and a formal place in the higher education system.

The Fews and the international perspective

The next part of the story begins when David Few (Senior) and David Few (Junior) came onboard.

David Few (Senior) is co-owner and director of Jack StudyAbroad, a leading international student recruitment firm in South East Asia, with offices in Singapore, Jakarta, Hanoi and Perth. Before that, he founded a school in Spain and spent nearly two decades as a Director at Study Group UK, helping international students prepare for university degree programmes.

David Few (Junior) has over a decade of experience in international education recruitment, working with high schools, pathway providers and universities across Central, Southeast and East Asia. As Partner / Associate Director at JACK StudyAbroad, he focuses on ethical growth, new markets and giving students access to global educational opportunities.

With the two new Davids, we began to see British higher education through a different lens, not only from inside the system, but from the perspective of students and families around the world trying to reach it.

To many of them, British universities look inspiring and out of reach at the same time.

Will (Left), David Few Snr (Centre), at our "HQ" in Manchester, UK

The turning point: accreditation on pause

For a while, everything pointed towards building a fully accredited university as quickly as possible. Then the Office for Students (OfS) announced a pause on new degree-awarding powers applications.

This became a moment of clarity.

We could spend the next several years focused primarily on process, regulation and applications or we could accept that accreditation would come later and focus first on the one group everyone says they care about, but often reach last: learners.

Instead of trying to force a university-shaped structure into existence immediately, we decided to start with what we believed we could build now:

• A platform where British professors can teach the courses they have always wanted to create

  
  

• A place where people around the world can access that teaching without needing to cross oceans, pass admissions filters or take on large debts

  
  

• A foundation that could, over time, grow into accredited pathways and ultimately degrees, but which did not wait for that permission to begin offering value

  
  

The School of Innovation evolved from “the new university itself” into the engine behind a platform. That platform will became University.co.uk.

The people and places that shaped us

As this idea evolved, we were lucky enough to be challenged and encouraged by people who had spent far longer in and around universities than we had.

Along the way, we have:

Worked with academics at the University of Cambridge, co-designing master’s-level concepts and seeing first-hand how rigorous, thoughtful teaching is built.

Met with Jo Johnson, who played a pivotal role in the legislation that made it possible to establish new universities in the UK.

Spent time with Professor Jonathan Michie, Chair of the universities association of lifelong learning, and many other academics and partners passionate about lifelong learning and knowledge exchange.

Travelled to the United States to meet the people setting up new institutions, including the founder of Ralston College, Dr Stephen Blackwood, to understand both the promise and the difficulty of building something new.

Sat down with some of the UK’s most interesting companies, including Google and Gymshark, to listen to what they wish higher education prepared people for, not in theory, but in the reality of working life.

These conversations did not give us simple answers. What they did give us was confidence that there is space and a need for something complementary: not another campus, but a platform that takes the best of what British universities can offer and lets it travel further.

From concept to University.co.uk

So, who are we now?

We are still, in a sense, trying to build a university – just in a different order.

Instead of starting with accreditation, buildings and bureaucracy, we are starting with:

• Professors – giving them a stage to teach what they believe really matters

  
  

• Learners – wherever they live, whatever their educational past, including many who would never otherwise encounter degree-level teaching

  
  

• Courses – four-hour, carefully designed experiences that sit somewhere between a lecture series and the kind of “edutainment” people genuinely want to watch

  
  

• Community – a growing group of people who believe that British university-level knowledge should not be trapped behind gates

  
  

Over time, we still intend to pursue accreditation and, eventually, to offer one of the most affordable British degrees in the world. But we are content to let that come later.

The first task is simpler and, in some ways, more demanding: to prove that we can bring serious ideas to people in a way that feels clear, humane and genuinely useful.

Why we exist

Everything we have learned, through The School of Innovation, through conversations with academics, regulators, entrepreneurs and students, has led to a straightforward conviction:

• British universities have helped shape modern ideas, research and innovation.

  
  

• Yet much of that teaching is reaching fewer people than it could, for reasons that have little to do with ability or interest.

  
  

University.co.uk is our attempt to do one concrete thing about that.

If anything in this story resonates with you, as a professor, a learner, or simply someone who cares about where knowledge lives and who gets to hear it, we would be very glad to have you join us!