We analyse the link between a change of focus in one of the higher education institutions (HEI) missions and the corresponding effect on the variety and intensity of knowledge exchange (KE) activities. In doing so, we bridge two partially disconnected streams of the literature in science and innovation studies focusing on the HEI missions and heterogeneity of HEI KE activities. We rely on a longitudinal dataset comprising information on publicly funded research projects obtained by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in the UK over the period 2006-2013. Our identification strategy exploits the variation in tuition fees following the 2012 reform to proxy for the increased attention on the teaching mission of English and Welsh HEI compared to other HEI in the UK. We find a strong negative effect of the increase of tuition fees on the variety and intensity of KE activities by English HEI. We further show that English HEI applications to competitive research funding, after the reform, did not change in terms of grant length, value and number of collaborating partners.