Universities are not typically at the centre of debates about babies and toddlers. But if we are serious about improving lifelong outcomes – from attainment and productivity to physical and mental health and social cohesion – then further and higher education must play a far more deliberate role in what happens in the first five years of life.

In the UK, the work of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood – founded by the Princess of Wales in 2021 – has helped to build a shared understanding of the golden opportunity that early childhood presents to shape lifelong well-being. Research shows that our relationships, experiences and environments in the first five years of life – by which time, our brains have already grown to about 90 per cent of their adult size – play a fundamental role in shaping how we think, feel, relate to others and cope with challenge in later life.

That is why early social and emotional development is a strong predictor of later outcomes, including educational attainment, employment and mental health. These are the very outcomes that higher education is tasked with shaping. And universities are well placed to improve the current situation, in which about one in five children in England does not meet expected levels of development at age five, with much wider gaps for those growing up in disadvantage.

Universities are not just generators of knowledge. They shape the workforce, define professional standards and determine how evidence is translated into everyday practice. If social and emotional development is to be understood consistently across health, education and community services, it will be through education and training pathways that this change is realised.

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That is why the launch of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood’s Foundations for Life report at the University of East London’s Stratford Health Campus last month saw the across the UK signing a shared pledge to embed a stronger and more consistent understanding of early social and emotional development across curricula, qualifications and workforce training.

This matters because the early-years workforce – spanning health visitors, early educators, social workers and teachers – is highly fragmented, often undervalued and too rarely equipped with a shared, evidence-based framework for child development. Moreover, the importance of understanding early-years development goes beyond these obvious professions. Even architects and urban planners need to know about it.

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Children are not raised in a vacuum. The conditions in which they grow – housing, income, community infrastructure, digital environments – shape what is possible. Universities, as civic institutions, have both the reach and the responsibility to influence these wider determinants. Working in partnership with local systems, they can support public understanding and equip families with clear, accessible information without placing unrealistic expectations on them.

As well as influencing professional standards and helping to ensure that early-years roles are given the same intellectual and professional status as other graduate careers, universities can also contribute by ensuring that we translate research into practice at the scale required to make a population-level difference.

At UEL’s Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth, we are exploring what this looks like in practice. Based in the London Borough of Newham, which has some of the highest levels of child poverty and temporary accommodation in the UK, the institute works with families, practitioners and local services to study how young children’s brains develop in real-world environments, not just laboratory settings, and how insights grounded in lived experience and can be applied in practice. Using tools such as wearable brain-imaging technology, researchers examine how everyday factors – including noise, predictability, shared reading and access to outdoor space – shape stress, attention, communication and learning.

The opportunity for universities, then, is clear: to align education, research and civic leadership with the science of early childhood in ways that deliver measurable, long-term impact – improving the quality of interactions that children experience every day, strengthening early identification of support needs, and building a workforce that is both better equipped and better valued.

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The economic case is compelling, with early intervention consistently delivering some of the highest returns on public investment. Analysis by the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood’s found that investing in early childhood in the UK could generate £45.5 billion in value added for the national economy each year.

Universities cannot champion widening participation, student success and social mobility while overlooking the stage of life where inequalities first take hold. By the time students arrive on campus, many trajectories are already set. The first five years are not peripheral to the sector’s mission: they define its possibilities.

The shared pledge made by 24 institutions is an important step forward. The challenge now is to move from commitment to coordinated action at scale – embedding this understanding across education and training pathways, strengthening the workforce, and ensuring that every child has the best possible start in life.

Amanda J. Broderick is vice-chancellor and president of the University of East London. Christian Guy is executive director of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.

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