= Are public universities in the UK owned by the Government?
No, they are basically <not-for-profits>, more like what the <United States> more sensibly calls "<private universities>". But if they take government funding (directly or indirectly through subsiding enrolment fees?), they have to follow some government rules, and all major ones do it seems: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49187/in-what-sense-are-uk-universities-public/49188
A similar confusing naming pattern appears to apply to <Public school (united-kingdom)>.
In the <University of Cambridge> for example, all MA degree holders or higher appear to have some voting power: https://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/how-the-university-and-colleges-work/governance (https://web.archive.org/web/20210811192322/https://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/how-the-university-and-colleges-work/governance[archive])
This adds an extra layer of difficulty for the average taxpayer to make changes to university policy, e.g. making universities publish all material with <Creative Commons licenses>. At most, voters could require this indirectly through the government funding requisites. It is a mess.
Not even the <Open University> seems to be very open!
<Ciro Santilli> once attended a round table in the early 2020s where a <University of Oxford> official from the IP licensing department. The <University of Oxford> took a 20% equity on <spin-off companies>, not an uncommon <University IP ownership> policy at the time. At one point, the officer clearly justified this along the following very official sounding lines (paraphrased):
\Q[The university is a <charity> with the goal of promoting education and research. All money obtained is reinvested in furthering education and research.]
While noble sounding, this immediately reminded Ciro of <Instrumental convergence>, in the field of <AGI> philosophy. Or in other words, of course the best approach to maximize education and research outcomes of society is to first <take over the world>, and then implement those goals from there! See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pUA3LsEaw[Why Not Just: Think of AGI Like a Corporation? by Robert Miles (2018)]
Notably, the <University of Oxford> was extremely protective of its learning material at that time, which was highly paywalled behind university logins, presumably with the rationale of having unique learning materials to enroll more paying undergrads. How can giving out free information to all not be the optimal way to "promoting education and research" is very hard to envision.