Category: innovation

  • The disruptive idea of the university

    The disruptive idea of the university

    by Rob Cuthbert

    “Ideas of the university in the public domain are hopelessly impoverished. ‘Impoverished’ because they are unduly confined to a small range of possible conceptions of the university; and ‘hopelessly’ because they are too often without hope, taking the form of either a hand-wringing over the current state of the university or merely offering a defence of the emerging nature of ‘the entrepreneurial university’.”

    Fifty years on from the Robbins Report, that was how Ron Barnett began Imagining the University in 2013, and it seems that nothing much has changed since then. Stefan Collini had written a much-cited book, What are universities for?, in 2012, which as the Guardian review said (Conrad, 2012) was “heavy on hand-wringing and light on real answers”. Tom Sperlinger, Josie McLellan and Richard Pettigrew wrote Who are universities for? Remaking higher education in 2018, which despite its respectable intentions was more akin to what Barnett called a ‘defence of the emerging nature of the entrepreneurial university’, aiming in the authors’ words to “make UK universities more accessible and responsive to a changing economy.”

    By 2019 Raewyn Connell was taking a rather different tack in The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why It’s Time for Radical Change:

    “… what should a ‘good university’ look like? … Raewyn Connell asks us to consider just that, challenging us to rethink the fundamentals of what universities do. Drawing on the examples offered by pioneering universities and educational reformers around the world, Connell outlines a practical vision for how our universities can become both more engaging and more productive places, driven by social good rather than profit, helping to build fairer societies.”

    Simon Marginson and his colleagues in the Centre for Global Higher Education have pursued a broad programme to conceptualise and promote the idea of the public good of higher education, but in his interviews with English university leaders:

    “Nearly all advocated a broad public good role … and provided examples of public outcomes in higher education. However, these concepts lacked clarity, while at the same time the shaping effects of the market were sharply understood.”

    His sad conclusion was that:

    “English policy on the public good outcomes of higher education has been hi-jacked, reworked, and emptied out in Treasury’s long successful drive to implement a fee-based market.”

    This means that everyday pressures too often drive us back to either handwringing or apologetic entrepreneurialism, or some mixture of the two. Even Colin Riordan, one of the most thoughtful of VCs during his tenure at Cardiff, could not break the mould:

    “What are universities for? Everybody knows that universities exist to educate students and help to create a highly educated workforce. Most people know they’re also the place where research is done that ends up in technologies like smartphones, fuel-efficient cars and advanced medical care. That means universities are a critical part of the innovation process.”

    These ideas sell the university short, and leave their leaders and managers ill-equipped to live the values they need to protect.

    We are entering an era when Donald Trump and Elon Musk seem determined to ‘move fast and break things’, as the Facebook motto once had it. Mark Zuckerberg tried to move on ten years ago to “Move fast with stable infrastructure”, but it seems that Elon Musk didn’t get the memo, as the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ cuts huge swathes through and – as it presumably hopes – out of US government. Whether or not DOGE succeeds we will soon discover, but the disregard for stable infrastructure may well prove fatal to its own efforts.

    People would not normally accuse a university of moving fast, but what some might see as an excessive concern for stable infrastructure perhaps conceals the speed at which universities move to break existing ideas and understandings. The pursuit of truth may be an imperfect way to describe the aim of the university, but as an academic motivation it suffices to explain how one way of understanding will sometimes rapidly give way to another. Yes, we know that some paradigms hang on doggedly, often supported long past their sell-by date by academics with too much invested in them. But usually and eventually, often more suddenly, the truth will out.

    How can universities best protect their distinctive quality, of encouraging open-minded teaching and research which will create the most favourable conditions for learning, individually and collectively? Strategies and academic values have their place, they might even constitute the stable infrastructure that is needed for a university to flourish. But the infrastructure needs to be built on a simple idea which everyone can comprehend. And that simple idea has to be infinitely flexible while staying perpetually relevant – here is one I prepared earlier:

    “Many people can’t shake off the idea that management in higher education is or at least it should be about having clear objectives, and working out what to do through systematic analysis and ‘cascading’ objectives down through the organisation. They want to see the university as a rational machine, and the manager as a production controller, because Western scientistic culture has encouraged them to think that way.

    The best way to deal with that way of thinking is to agree with it. You say: yes, we must focus on our key objective. In teaching our key objective is personal learning, development and growth for students, a process which cannot be well specified in advance. In research our key objective is the generation of new knowledge. So in higher education the key objective in each of our two main activities is the generation of unpredictable outcomes. Now please tell me what your key performance indicators will be.”[1]

    The fundamental test of performance for a university is that it generates unpredictable outcomes. An infinitely flexible, endlessly relevant idea that everyone can understand – and always disruptive. That is why higher education matters – not just training students for the economy, not just innovation in research for economic growth. Universities need to keep generating unpredictable outcomes because that is their unique function as open public institutions, and that is what their wider society needs and deserves.

    Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email [email protected]. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert.

    [1] Text taken from inaugural professorial lecture; Rob Cuthbert, 7 November 2007

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • 25 (Mostly AI) Sessions to Enjoy in 2025 – The 74

    25 (Mostly AI) Sessions to Enjoy in 2025 – The 74


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    South by Southwest Edu returns to Austin, Texas, running March 3-6. As always, it’ll offer a huge number of panels, discussions, film screenings, musical performances and workshops exploring education, innovation and the future of schooling.

    Keynote speakers this year include neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, founder of Ness Labs, an online educational platform for knowledge workers; astronaut, author and TV host Emily Calandrelli, and Shamil Idriss, CEO of Search for Common Ground, an international non-profit. Idriss will speak about what it means to be strong in the face of opposition — and how to turn conflict into cooperation. Also featured: indy musical artist Jill Sobule, singing selections from her musical F*ck 7th Grade.

    As in 2024, artificial intelligence remains a major focus, with dozens of sessions exploring AI’s potential and pitfalls. But other topics are on tap as well, including sessions on playful learning, book bans and the benefits of prison journalism. 

    To help guide the way, we’ve scoured the schedule to highlight 25 of the most significant presenters, topics and panels: 

    Monday, March 3:

    11 a.m. — Ultimate Citizens Film Screening: A new independent film features a Seattle school counselor who builds a world-class Ultimate Frisbee team with a group of immigrant children at Hazel Wolf K-8 School. 

    11:30 a.m. — AI & the Skills-First Economy: Navigating Hype & Reality: Generative AI is accelerating the adoption of a skills-based economy, but many are skeptical about its value, impact and the pace of growth. Will AI spark meaningful change and a new economic order, or is it just another overhyped trend? Meena Naik of Jobs for the Future leads a discussion with Colorado Community College System Associate Vice Chancellor Michael Macklin, Nick Moore, an education advisor to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, and Best Buy’s Ryan Hanson.

    11:30 a.m. — Navigation & Guidance in the Age of AI: The Clayton Christensen Institute’s Julia Freeland Fisher headlines a panel that looks at how generative AI can help students access 24/7 help in navigating pathways to college. As new models take root, the panel will explore what entrepreneurs are learning about what students want from these systems. Will AI level the playing field or perpetuate inequality? 

    12:30 p.m. — Boosting Student Engagement Means Getting Serious About Play: New research shows students who are engaged in schoolwork not only do better in school but are happier and more confident in life. And educators say they’d be happier at work and less likely to leave the profession if students engaged more deeply. In this session, LEGO Education’s Bo Stjerne Thomsen will explore the science behind playful learning and how it can get students and teachers excited again.

    1:30 p.m. — The AI Sandbox: Building Your Own Future of Learning: Mike Yates of The Reinvention Lab at Teach for America leads an interactive session offering participants the chance to build their own AI tools to solve real problems they face at work, school or home. The session is for AI novices as well as those simply curious about how the technology works. Participants will get free access to Playlab.AI.

    2:30 p.m. — Journalism Training in Prison Teaches More Than Headlines: Join Charlotte West of Open Campus, Lawrence Bartley of The Marshall Project and Yukari Kane of the Prison Journalism Project to explore real-life stories from behind bars. Journalism training is transforming the lives of a few of the more than 1.9 million people incarcerated in the U.S., teaching skills from time management to communication and allowing inmates to feel connected to society while building job skills. 

    Tuesday, March 4:

    11:30 a.m. — Enough Talk! Let’s Play with AI: Amid the hand-wringing about what AI means for the future of education, there’s been little conversation about how a few smart educators are already employing it to shift possibilities for student engagement and classroom instruction. In this workshop, attendees will learn how to leverage promising practices emerging from research with real educators using AI in writing, creating their own chatbots and differentiating support plans. 

    12:30 p.m. — How Much is Too Much? Navigating AI Usage in the Classroom: AI-enabled tools can be helpful for students conducting research, outlining written work, or proofing and editing submissions. But there’s a fine line between using AI appropriately and taking advantage of it, leaving many students wondering, “How much AI is too much?” This session, led by Turnitin’s Annie Chechitelli, will discuss the rise of GenAI, its intersection with academia and academic integrity, and how to determine appropriate usage.  

    1 p.m. — AI & Edu: Sharing Real Classroom Successes & Challenges: Explore the real-world impact of AI in education during this interactive session hosted by Zhuo Chen, a text analysis instructor at the nonprofit education startup Constellate, and Dylan Ruediger of the research and consulting group Ithaka S+R. Chen and Ruediger will share successes and challenges in using AI to advance student learning, engagement and skills. 

    1 p.m. — Defending the Right to Read: Working Together: In 2025, authors face unprecedented challenges. This session, which features Scholastic editor and young adult novelist David Levithan, as well as Emily Kirkpatrick, executive director of the National Council of Teachers of English, will explore the battle for freedom of expression and the importance of defending reading in the face of censorship attempts and book bans.

    1 p.m. — Million Dollar Advice: Navigating the Workplace with Amy Poehler’s Top Execs: Kate Arend and Kim Lessing, the co-presidents of Amy Poehler’s production company Paper Kite Productions, will be live to record their workplace and career advice podcast “Million Dollar Advice.” The pair will tackle topics such as setting and maintaining boundaries, learning from Gen Z, dealing with complicated work dynamics, and more. They will also take live audience questions.

    4 p.m. — Community-Driven Approaches to Inclusive AI Education: With rising recognition of neurodivergent students, advocates say AI can revolutionize how schools support them by streamlining tasks, optimizing resources and enhancing personalized learning. In the process, schools can overcome challenges in mainstreaming students with learning differences. This panel features educators and advocates as well as Alex Kotran, co-founder and CEO of The AI Education Project.

    4 p.m. — How AI Makes Assessment More Actionable in Instruction: Assessments are often disruptive, cumbersome or disconnected from classroom learning. But a few advocates and developers say AI-powered assessment tools offer an easier, more streamlined way for students to demonstrate learning — and for educators to adapt instruction to meet their needs. This session, moderated by The 74’s Greg Toppo, features Khan Academy’s Kristen DiCerbo, Curriculum Associates’ Kristen Huff and Akisha Osei Sarfo, director of research at the Council of the Great City Schools.

    Wednesday, March 5:

    11 a.m. — Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun Screening & Q&A: Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for American children and teens, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yet coverage of gun violence’s impact on youth is usually reported by adults. Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun is a 30-minute documentary by student journalists about how gun violence affects young Americans. Produced by PBS News Student Reporting Labs in collaboration with 14 student journalists in five cities, it centers the perspectives of young people who live their lives in the shadow of this threat. 

    11:30 a.m. — AI, Education & Real Classrooms: Educators are at the forefront of testing, using artificial intelligence and teaching their communities about it. In this interactive session, participants will hear from educators and ed tech specialists on the ground working to support the use of AI to improve learning. The session includes Stacie Johnson, director of professional learning at Khan Academy, and Dina Neyman, Khan Academy’s director of district success. 

    11:30 a.m. — The Future of Teaching in an Age of AI: As AI becomes increasingly present in the classroom, educators are understandably concerned about how it might disrupt their teaching. An expert panel featuring Jake Baskin, executive director of the Computer Science Teachers Association andKarim Meghji of Code.org, will look at how teaching will change in an age of AI, exploring frameworks for teaching AI skills and sharing best practices for integrating AI literacy across disciplines.

    2:30 p.m. — AI in Education: Preparing Gen A as the Creators of Tomorrow: Generation Alpha is the first to experience generative artificial intelligence from the start of their educational journeys. To thrive in a world featuring AI requires educators helping them tap into their natural creativity, navigating unique opportunities and challenges. In this session, a cross-industry panel of experts discuss strategies to integrate AI into learning, allowing critical thinking and curiosity to flourish while enabling early learners to become architects of AI, not just users.

    2:30 p.m. — The Ethical Use of AI in the Education of Black Children: Join a panel of educators, tech leaders and nonprofit officials as they discuss AI’s ethical complexities and its impact on the education of Black children. This panel will address historical disparities, biases in technology, and the critical need for ethical AI in education. It will also offer unique perspectives into the benefits and challenges of AI in Black children’s education, sharing best practices to promote the safe, ethical and legal use of AI in classrooms.

    2:30 p.m. — Exploring Teacher Morale State by State: Is teacher morale shaped by where teachers work? Find out as Education Week releases its annual State of Teaching survey. States and school districts drive how teachers are prepared, paid and promoted, and the findings will raise new questions about what leaders and policymakers should consider as they work to support an essential profession. The session features Holly Kurtz, director of EdWeek Research Center, Stephen Sawchuk, EdWeek assistant managing editor, and assistant editor Sarah D. Sparks.

    2:30 p.m. — From White Folks Who Teach in the Hood: Is This Conversation Against the Law Now? While most students in U.S. public schools are now young people of color, more than 80% of their teachers are white. How do white educators understand and address these dynamics? Join a live recording of a podcast that brings together white educators with Christopher Emdin and sam seidel, co-editors of From White Folks Who Teach in the Hood: Reflections on Race, Culture, and Identity (Beacon, 2024).

    3:30 p.m. — How Youth Use GenAI: Time to Rethink Plagiarism: Schools are locked in a battle with students over fears they’re using generative artificial intelligence to plagiarize existing work. In this session, join Elliott Hedman, a “customer obsession engineer” with mPath, who with colleagues and students co-designed a GenAI writing tool to reframe AI use. Hedman will share three strategies that not only prevent plagiarism but also teach students how to use GenAI more productively.  

    Thursday, March 6:

    10 a.m. — AI & the Future of Education: Join futurists Sinead Bovell and Natalie Monbiot for a fireside discussion about how we prepare kids for a future we cannot yet see but know will be radically transformed by technology. Bovell and Monbiot will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on our world and the workforce, as well as its implications for education. 

    10 a.m. — Reimagining Everyday Places as Early Learning Hubs: Young children spend 80% of their time outside of school, but too many lack access to experiences that encourage learning through hands-on activities and play. While these opportunities exist in middle-class and upper-income neighborhoods, they’re often inaccessible to families in low-income communities. In this session, a panel of designers and educators featuring Sarah Lytle, who leads the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network, will look at how communities are transforming overlooked spaces such as sidewalks, shelters and even jails into nurturing learning environments accessible to all kids.

    11 a.m. — Build-a-Bot Workshop: Make Your Own AI to Make Sense of AI: In this session, participants will build an AI chatbot alongside designers and engineers from Stanford University and Stanford’s d.school, getting to the core of how AI works. Participants will conceptualize, outline and create conversation flows for their own AI assistant and explore methods that technical teams use to infuse warmth and adaptability into interactions and develop reliable chatbots.  

    11:30 a.m. — Responsible AI: Balancing Innovation, Impact, & Ethics: In this session, participants will learn how educators, technologists and policymakers work to develop AI responsibly. Panelists include Isabelle Hau of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, Amelia Kelly, chief technology officer of the Irish AI startup SoapBox Labs, and Latha Ramanan of the AI developer Merlyn Mind. They’ll talk about how policymakers and educators can work with developers to ensure transparency and accuracy of AI tools. 


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  • Eight critical questions for the new chief executive of UKRI

    Eight critical questions for the new chief executive of UKRI

    The appointment of a new chief executive for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) could not happen at a more crucial time.

    With public finances under strain, the case for public investment in R&D needs to be made cogently and needs to focus both on addressing the UK’s five government missions and on sustaining the fantastic research asset which the UK university sector represents. The list of issues for the new appointee will no doubt be lengthy, but we put forward the following as a possible shortlist of priorities.

    1. The interface (pipeline) between research councils and Innovate UK

    One of the main goals in establishing UKRI was to ensure a smooth pipeline from the research undertaken by the individual research councils to the industrial/end user base thereby bringing both economic and societal benefit. However, despite years of intent this pipeline seems as obstructed as ever. The fundamental question remains: to what extent is the role of Innovate UK to aid the transition of the outcomes resulting from research council funding versus simply supporting UK-based enterprises in their own research?

    Currently there are disconnects between the research priorities, often defined by government and implemented by the research councils, and the Innovate UK funding mechanism to ensure they are exploited. There are some exceptions here of course: the Creative Industries Clusters was a good example of a joint initiative between AHRC and Innovate UK which did integrate industry demand to local research strengths.

    A key priority for the new chief executive is to join up the pipeline more effectively across the whole range of industry sectors and ensure a very clear role for Innovate UK in partnership with the research councils and the subsequent interface to the National Wealth Fund or British Business Bank.

    2. Articulating and agreeing the balance between UKRI spend on government priorities and investment in the research base of the future

    As we have argued elsewhere on Wonkhe, the nation needs UKRI to fund both the research required by current government priorities relating to industrial strategies or societal challenges, and invest in the broader research base that, in the words of science minister Patrick Vallance, will feed the “goose that lays the golden egg” of our research base and the opportunities of tomorrow.

    Currently, this balance is, at best, hidden from view, suiting neither the needs of government nor the future aspirations of the sector. We urge UKRI to quantify this balance historically and to articulate a proposal to government for moving forward. We also require balance between the budget committed in the long-term to institutes, infrastructure, international subscriptions, and facilities vs. the shorter-term funding into the wider research and innovation community. Balancing these priorities requires a strengthening of the relationship, and open discussion, between UKRI, DSIT and wider government.

    3. Ensuring UKRI is relevant to the government’s regional economic development agenda

    As part of the government’s economic agenda, driving productivity growth in the tier-2 cities outside the South-East and the wealthier places in the UK is key to executing its growth mission. There is a clear tension here in UKRI acting as the key funding agency for public R&D spending driven solely by excellence, and a regional economic development mission, for which additional criteria apply. This tension must be addressed and not ignored.

    The creation of innovation accelerators in which additional funding was provided by government, but UKRI was involved in evaluating the merit of proposals, is a good example of how UKRI can drive change. As the government develops new levers to address and fund regional economic development, UKRI should play a key role in ensuring that this dovetails with the research and innovation base of the nation.

    4. Creating a highly skilled workforce

    As is becoming clear, the number of doctoral students supported by UKRI continues to fall – an issue highlighted, for example, by Cambridge vice chancellor Deborah Prentice in a recent Guardian interview. This is particularly clear in areas which have traditionally relied upon UKRI funding, such as the engineering and physical sciences. The corresponding research effort is in part bolstered by an increase in the number of fee-paying overseas students, but this does little to create the UK-based workforce industry needs.

    UKRI needs to prioritise funding and work with government to find new ways of addressing the skills the nation needs if we are to drive a productive knowledge-based economy. The skills required extend beyond doctoral degrees to include technical professionals and engineers.

    5. Sector confidence around REF as a rigorous, fair process, supportive of excellence

    The HE sector is in financial turmoil, manifested in the unprecedented number of UK higher education institutions currently implementing severance schemes. Ongoing uncertainties over the REF process, from the portability of outputs and the lack of an essential mechanism to ensure a diversity of authors (current proposals have no cap on the number of outputs that can be submitted from any one individual) to the absence of clarity on the people, culture and environment template’s support for excellence need resolution.

    This resolution is required, firstly so that research strategies institutions put in place prior to any census date have time to drive the changes required given that REF is meant to be formative as well as summative; and secondly so that institutions can efficiently deliver their REF returns to a standard and detail a government should expect to provide assurance over the future quality related (QR) spend.

    6. The importance and accountability of QR

    Virtually everyone in the sector embraces the notion that QR is central to the agility and sustainability of the UK research base. This certainty is matched with uncertainty within government as to the value for money this investment provides. If we are to maintain this level of trust in the sector’s ability to derive benefit from this investment, collectively we need to do a better job at showing how QR is central to the agility of our investment in the research outcomes of tomorrow and not simply a plugging of other, non-research related, financial holes. As both assessor and funder UKRI can lead and co-ordinate this response.

    7. Completion of the new funding service (the software needs to work!)

    The joint electronic submission system (Je-S) was outdated and potentially no longer supportable. Its back room equivalent, Siebel, even worse. Their replacement, the new funding service is an acceptable portal to applicants but seemingly still provides inadequate assurances for a system from which to make financial commitments. This shortcoming seems almost incomprehensible given it was an in-house development.

    Moving beyond the essential financial controls it seems to offer little by way of the AI assistance in the identification of reviewers that the software behind the submission systems for many of our research publications has offered for decades. Whether we lack the skills or investment to solve these issues is unclear, but the inefficiency of the current situation is wasteful of perhaps an even more precious resource, namely the time of UKRI staff to add human value to our research landscape. This seeming lack of skills and the systems we require is worrying too to the future REF exercise, even once the framework is known.

    8. Evidencing the effects of change

    Of course the world should and must move on. As a funder of research, it is appropriate that UKRI experiments with better ways of funding, becoming an expert in metascience. Changes inspired by ideology are fine, but it is essential that these changes are then assessed to see if the outcomes are those we desired.

    One example is the narrative CV, a well-meaning initiative to recognise a wider definition of excellence and an equality of opportunity. Is this what it achieved? Do we acknowledge the risks associated with AI or the unintended consequence of favouring the confident individual with English as their first language? While not advocating a return to the tradition of lists CV, we urge a formal reporting of outcomes achieved through the narrative CV using both quantitative and qualitative data and an evidenced based plan to move forward.

    Looking to the future

    We realise that criticism is easy and solutions are hard to find. So in case of doubt, we would like to finish with a call out to UKRI’s greatest resource, namely at all levels its committed and highly professional staff. We know at first hand the dedication of its workforce which is committed to fairly supporting the community, the research they do and the impact it creates.

    The role of chief executive of UKRI provides vital leadership not just to UKRI but to the sector as a whole, and the sector must unite to stand behind the new incumbent in solving the challenges that lie ahead.

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