It’s a new year and higher education sector challenges remain the same. However, with a new year always comes the opportunity to rethink, reframe and reset – a moment to consider new approaches and even new behaviours whether individual, organisational or cross-sector.
The last few months of 2024 saw the sector start to step up to the challenge laid down by Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson to reform and transform. In December, Universities UK unveiled its taskforce on efficiency and transformation in higher education, with a focus on partnership and collaboration to deliver transformation and cost savings through new models and ways of working. The promise is that the work of the taskforce will drive “meaningful change” that has longevity through “working well together and being productive for the long term.”
Long term, embedded change is great, but the need for something to shift is tangible and urgent today, this week, this month. I’m not sure we can wait too long for taskforce outcomes. So, as we start 2025, what can we – university leaders and sector bodies – do now to rethink, reframe and reset approaches and behaviours to enable meaningful change to happen?
System advocacy
Many of us are familiar with the practice of advocacy – supporting or defending an individual, arguing in favour of a cause, acting on behalf of others. A great advocate is skilled at providing a voice to marginalised individuals or communities, often those who do not have the social or cultural capital (in effect resources or networks) to enable their voice to be heard.
Sustained advocacy work has the potential to enable others to understand different viewpoints, can influence policy development, brings key issues to the fore and enables decisions to be made. Critically, advocacy represents the individual or community faithfully and truthfully, because the individual or community is involved in the process.
Now, for “community” read “higher education sector” and reflect for a moment on advocacy effectiveness for and within higher education as the sector faces considerable challenges. How good are we, collectively and individually, at providing a voice to support those providers who may be experiencing marginalisation?
As university leaders do we really understand, value and advocate for different missions and models of operating, especially within our own localities or geographical regions? Do we harness a spirit of advocacy to bring key issues to the fore, for the greater good, in order to precipitate systems change through coherent and collective decision-making? Are we all fully involved in a process of advocacy for our sector, to ensure that representations are made faithfully and truthfully and that diversity is properly accounted for… or is it only a few voices that are actually heard?
I believe the advocacy picture within the higher education sector is patchy. On the plus side, I do think that sector representatives and mission groups have absolutely stepped up in terms of advocating for the value our sector brings. We have a strong, consistent and evidence-based narrative now in relation to the economic impact of universities, alignment of our work with the government’s five missions and the positive career outcomes for individuals who gain a higher education. One could define that work as “systems advocacy” perhaps. However, with the government promising higher education review outcomes later in 2025, time will tell if the sector’s well-crafted narrative influences policy change in fundamental areas across our system such as funding, student maintenance support and more.
Self-advocacy is also reasonably successful if viewed through the lens of “type” of higher education provider. For example, small and specialist institutions particularly across the creative sector are good at advocating for the value of what they provide. My own university is part of the Cathedrals Group, which celebrates and advocates for those universities with a faith foundation. The Russell Group is another clear example of a collective that successfully advocates for self. However, the danger here is that we only advocate for what matters to us with reference to that particular grouping; the collective needs of the “system” as well as the particular needs of individual institutions can be lost.
What I think is missing is a more generous sense of individual advocacy, by senior institutional leaders across the sector – vice-chancellors, senior team members, and chairs of boards. Imagine a context where university leaders are supported to work through a particular problem or supported to self-advocate with an issue that is especially perplexing. Better still, imagine senior higher education institutional leaders advocating positively for each other and their organisations when the one for whom they are advocating for is not even in the room. Now that would be a breakthrough.
Networked advocacy
To be clear, I’m not describing here ongoing informal moral support, empathy and practical “tips and tricks” within an inner circle. As a vice-chancellor I have a small group of trusted VC colleagues who I know I can pick up the phone to, test ideas and speak the unspeakable.
What I envisage is a more open, public and objective approach to advocacy from senior leaders within the sector for other institutions and leaders within the sector – basically, shining a light on the good stuff and value that is delivered by another institution. Behaviours that show understanding, value and advocacy for different missions, models of operating and institutional strengths. Advocacy approaches that support respectful, coherent and collective decision-making across the full diversity of our sector. I do not dispute that there are pockets of such advocacy activity taking place across the sector, but it does feel a tricky concept and perhaps not widely practiced. What are the barriers to such an approach becoming more commonplace?
I suggest that the top barrier relates to nervousness from institutional leaders in relation to market competition and the disclosure of commercially sensitive information. To be blunt, it’s hard to trust the competition. The need to chase student numbers makes advocacy for the “opposition” extremely challenging for many of us. This is underlined by the fact that my trusted informal “inner circle” of mutually supportive VCs is made up of colleagues from different regions and/or totally different provider type, where competition is not an issue.
So what would it take to unlock a spirit of advocacy by sector leaders?
Well, I speak for myself when I know that I need to better appreciate the value that individual higher education providers bring, whether that be on a local, regional, national or global scale; I need to better understand where different providers “fit” in the higher education ecosystem and how, in turn, all providers work together to deliver what our nation needs.
However, that conversation demands that I step out of my own comfort zone to genuinely understand synergies and differences across our sector, and advocate for those synergies and differences rather than myopically focus on my own organisation in isolation. I admit, it is hard to shine a light on and advocate for the great stuff happening elsewhere, especially when I want the world to know about what my own university is achieving and contributing.
As university leaders, if we genuinely believe that higher education is critical to addressing the challenges faced by not only individuals and communities but also our nation and our planet, then we need to think of the sector as a collective and as a “system” of interlinked and interdependent providers. Our system is wonderful in its diversity but could garner even more impact through intentionally public approaches to provider recognition, celebration and support from organisational leaders.
As we start the new year, it’s time for some adventures in advocacy. This will demand that as leaders we invest time in building relationships and garnering trust, beyond our comfort zone. I challenge myself in embracing the inconvenience of becoming a better advocate for those providers that may not be immediately relatable, but who play their part in transforming lives, communities and in providing opportunity for all.
If we all commit to a new year adventure in advocacy, we will have a great platform on which to build a sector truly ready for reform and transformation through respectful and supportive collaboration and partnership.