Category: Leadership & Management

  • Higher education could make space for many types of leader and ways of leading

    Higher education could make space for many types of leader and ways of leading

    The Global Majority Mentoring Programme, delivered by London Higher, aims to support career progression for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) staff by providing tailored mentoring relationships and learning opportunities for academics and professional services staff.

    I joined the programme as a mentee in 2023–24 while seeking support during my time as head of two merged divisions in the School of Law and Social Sciences. For me, mentoring is an exchange of knowledge and experience, and I was looking for a woman of colour in a leadership role outside my own institution with whom I could turn to for advice on navigating the unique challenges I was facing in confidence.

    The programme was recommended to me by a colleague who recognised that, as the only non-white member of the school leadership team, I faced specific challenges which, although acknowledged by the rest of the team, could only be supported to a limited extent given that the remainder of the team were white. They understood that someone with lived experience of both race and gender might be better placed to offer the kind of support I needed. I was matched with someone in an Associate Dean role who I met with regularly for three months. She validated my experiences especially when I was second guessing myself, she also offered me guidance and advice on navigating career progression and insights on HE headhunters.

    In addition to the mentoring, I also took part in the two-day Learning Leaders Workshop, delivered in partnership with the mentoring programme and the University of Westminster. I approached the workshop ambivalently while hoping it would offer more than the surface-level training I had experienced in the past. Previous programmes had often been underwhelming, failing to meet expectations and lacking depth. One in particular was overcrowded, with more than twenty participants, which made it difficult to engage in the kind of deep thinking that individual and collective inquiry needs.

    Surface pressure

    Reflecting on these past experiences, I began to question the broader purpose and structure of leadership development in higher education. Despite good intentions, many leadership development initiatives in higher education appear to remain disconnected from the structural changes reshaping the sector. And it is not always clear why line managers support staff participation in these programmes when, in practice, there appears to be limited opportunities to apply or build on the learning.

    This concern feels especially pressing now, as the sector undergoes significant transformation, with widespread voluntary redundancies affecting many institutions across the UK. I fear that higher education is losing emerging talent at an alarming rate. While the current focus is largely on financial viability, we may be overlooking a more profound long-term issue, the need to reimagine what leadership in higher education looks like. The urgency of building a future-focused leadership pipeline is growing, particularly as ongoing threats to equity, diversity and inclusion continue to challenge the sector’s values and resilience.

    Amid this context of uncertainty, where many of us are increasingly time-poor and juggling demanding workloads, I hoped the Learning Leaders workshop would offer a more meaningful and impactful experience. Taking time out of our busy schedules for training must feel worthwhile, rather than merely another tick-box exercise to meet 360 performance management targets. To my surprise, several aspects of the workshop turned out to be both unusual and thought-provoking.

    Leadership through lived experience

    Notably, there were just six of us in the room, all women, all from the global majority. Throughout the two days, I found myself reflecting on this. Why is it that I so often see more women than men who feel the need to be “trained up” for leadership? This prompted broader questions about gender, expectations and who is seen as ‘ready’ for leadership roles in our institutions. Women lead in many areas of life, particularly those of us who are parents or and carers. We are skilled problem-solvers, strong networkers, and we manage complex responsibilities every day.

    In my role as Head of Division, I noticed a recurring frustration among female academics who felt that the emotional labour involved in providing pastoral care to students often went unrecognised. There was a shared sense that this responsibility frequently fell to them, with both students and male colleagues appearing to expect them to take it on. Yet we rarely describe care and pastoral work as leadership.

    The programme was not a traditional form of training in any sense. Instead, it offered a series of facilitated sessions that created space for us to reflect, share, and learn from one another’s experiences. Together, we explored how we each learn which was presented in four quadrants – body, heart, mind, and spirit – and how to make the most of this intel within a team setting. This deeper understanding uncovered the strengths within our own leadership styles and helped us consider how best to apply them in our professional contexts. We took time to reflect on how leadership is defined and, more importantly, where it is learned and practised.

    Leadership, we came to understand, is not something taught in a conventional way but rather something that evolves through lived experience. It happens in both personal and professional settings, though we might not always recognise it as leadership in a formal or professionalised sense. The workshop took a holistic approach and illustrated how knowledge can emerge through embodied learning, incorporating philosophical inquiry to uncover deeper insights into our individual and collective strengths. This is when it occurred to me, for the first time, that developing leadership practice is best done in communities of practice.

    By the end of the two days, we weren’t “trained” by the facilitator in any traditional sense. Instead, the leadership wisdom we uncovered emerged from within our own group, the Super Six, which is what we have come to be known as and was brought to light through Keith’s expert and highly unconventional facilitation, which gently led us to that shared discovery.

    Many paths to leadership

    In hindsight, the Learning Leaders workshop gave me the space to actively explore the “what next” and “how next” of leadership. A series of thoughtful one-to-one conversations with one of the Super Six proved particularly impactful. Their questions led me to reflect deeply on new possibilities for academic leadership, including working as a freelance scholar, moving to a different institution, or stepping outside the sector altogether. I have always held a personal principle not to remain in one institution for more than ten years, out of concern for becoming institutionalised and limiting my professional growth. After several thoughtful conversations with my Dean, I came to the difficult but right decision to leave at the end of 2024.

    Since then, I have had the privilege of working with several universities and organisations from teaching, advising, researching and collaborating on projects – all of which have been intellectually energising and impactful. There is no one way to lead, and the Learning Leaders workshop reminded me that there are many paths to leadership, each shaped by context, values and personal experience.

    If there is any advice that I could offer to emerging leaders from global majority backgrounds, it would be to identify a sponsor with decision making power within the institution, a mentor outside of the university for confidential developmental advice and identify role models across different sectors and who do leadership well so you can begin building your own community of practice.

    This article is one of four exploring London Higher’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme – you can find the others here.

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  • Responsible recruitment means fostering diverse leadership potential

    Responsible recruitment means fostering diverse leadership potential

    Unfortunately, it is no secret that the higher education sector has a long way to go when it comes to equity in progression to senior leadership.

    While the number of staff from global majority ethnic backgrounds in universities has nearly tripled over the last 20 years (now c. 24 per cent), HESA data shows that still only 3.8 per cent of black academics in the UK hold the title of Professor, and less than one per cent of all professors in the UK are black. Though there has been an incredible 93.8 per cent increase since 2012–13, still only 30.8 per cent of professors in the UK identify as women. There has been real progress, but it has been slow.

    Recruitment from the inside

    In our position as a consultancy supporting talent development across higher education and wider sectors driven by social purpose, we’re constantly reminded of the barriers faced by global majority candidates in recruitment processes. We see selection bias; we see lack of communication and clarity around promotion criteria; we see challenges in individual confidence and imposter syndrome; we see anxiety around tokenism.

    There’s additionally a risk that diversity is becoming less of a priority in these times of financial challenge, when obvious questions around sustainability come to the fore. With many institutions going through restructures and cost-saving exercises, executive boards are under enormous pressure to justify any new appointments and associated expenditure. The ability to lead change, diversify income streams, and drive growth with limited resources are now constant topics in our conversations with candidates for senior roles.

    In part due to these pressures, recruitment panels seem increasingly less willing to think widely when appointing to leadership roles. There is often an increased sense of perceived risk when considering candidates from other sectors, overseas, or who would be taking a step up into the role, rather than making a sideways move. As domestic funding challenges worsen, international student numbers continue to decline, and operational costs rise across the sector, there’s understandably often a preference for candidates who have “been there, done that.” This has obvious implications for overall diversity in the sector.

    Though there has been some improvement, staff from global majority backgrounds are still disproportionately concentrated in lower-level roles and underrepresented in senior roles across the sector. It is less likely that a candidate from a global majority background will be in a position to make such a sideways move for a senior role. In our search work, we encourage committees to place a greater emphasis on capability and competence, alongside experience, and to consider which essential requirements on the job description might be more flexible than others. We do also see a growing recognition that things have to change and a genuine commitment to strive for greater representation at all levels.

    As headhunters, we have to strike a difficult balance between supporting and challenging the organisations we work with, particularly around such questions of equity of opportunity and perceived risk. We are committed to making a difference on a very practical level, and we work closely with clients and candidates to find ways to make our search processes more equitable. We take time in briefings meetings to really get a feel for the culture of each organisation we work with; we advise on the accessibility of recruitment material; and we structure interview processes so candidates can engage with an opportunity and organisation in multiple fora, for example.

    There is an inherent limitation to the work that we do as advisors on senior appointment processes, however. Through the lists of candidates we bring together for a role, and the way we support candidates and panels through these processes, we can have a direct impact on the individual and organisation, but we often feel that the most positive impact we can have on the composition of senior teams is through our broader leadership development work.

    Insider information

    We’ve been involved in the London Higher Global Majority Mentoring Programme for the last few years. In our annual masterclass with the programme’s participants, we discuss practical topics about engaging with opportunities for development and progress including at the level of CVs and cover letters, navigating informal interviews, internal marketing, and LinkedIn. We aim to demystify the recruitment process and help equip them with some tools to help them move into their next leadership positions. These topics are framed in the context of structural barriers to progression facing individuals from marginalised groups, which often hold candidates back from bringing their authentic selves to recruitment processes.

    We often hear about candidates’ experience of covering parts of their identities in interviews, feeling imposter syndrome when interviewing with a panel of white senior leaders, and concern around being a “token” on a shortlist.

    Several years ago, we developed Aspire, which is a pro-bono programme that supports mid-career professionals from global majority ethnic backgrounds as they work to move into senior leadership positions. The programme runs over six months and explores themes such authenticity and leadership profiles alongside practical approaches to promotion and recruitment. The programme aims to create a space in which participants can share their lived experience and create a community of practice as they look for their next role.

    Launched last year, Board Prospects pairs individuals from historically under-represented groups with non-executive boards. The participants join the board without voting rights for a year, before being appointed as full members.

    Participants across the programmes we work on have reported promotions, external job offers and more – though it is of course impossible to determine exactly how much the specific programme contributed to this success. The most significant impact reported is often the networks created through the sessions, and the sense of empowerment which can develop from a space in which experiences, support, and advice are shared safely. We’ve seen research collaborations, invitations to conferences and more emerge from these communities of practice.

    Our involvement in the Global Majority Mentoring Programme, and our work on our own leadership development programmes, is valuable in helping us shape our executive search work to be as inclusive and equitable as possible. We’ve learnt (and continue to learn) a huge amount from the programmes and their participants. Through hearing about participants’ lived experiences of career progression, we learn more about where we can provide the best support for development, and how we might advise clients on the “sticking points” in recruitment processes which can be especially limiting or off-putting to individuals from underrepresented groups.

    We also recognise that recruiting diverse talent is just one step in building inclusive and equitable organisations. Creating an environment in which staff from marginalised groups can thrive and progress requires a much more holistic approach that seeks to fundamentally change working cultures. Our work with individual institutions, such as the LEAP into Leadership Programme with the University of Greenwich, in which a group of mid-career delegates from global majority ethnic backgrounds are formally paired with a senior sponsor within the institution, has also stressed to us the need to acknowledge and engage with structural barriers and allyship at all levels of an institution if we are to ever meaningfully break down barriers to senior leadership.

    While recognising the huge amount of work that still needs to be done, and the ever-growing challenges facing universities across the UK, we’re hopeful that collaborative schemes like the Global Majority Mentoring Programme, alongside a commitment to challenging and adapting recruitment processes, can ultimately have a real impact in creating more diverse leadership teams which better reflect society and are best equipped to deal with sector challenges.

    This article is one of four exploring London Higher’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme – you can find the others here.

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  • Learning is the defining characteristic of modern leaders

    Learning is the defining characteristic of modern leaders

    Are leaders born to the role? Does one simply come into the world with the charisma, ability to inspire, take tough decisions and communicate well? Or, is it within the ken of any individual to develop themselves as a leader?

    Whether we believe the answer to be one or the other or a combination of both, the bottom line will always remain “learning.” Leadership is a complex business, requiring an equally complex set of skills and these can be developed and honed over time through continuous learning. Even those who are born blessed with the key leadership traits can only become true learning leaders if they are willing to become conscious of their experiences and practice.

    Definitions of leadership are wide and varied. Everyone, it seems, has some idea of what it is and what makes the best leaders. For our purposes we can draw on a simple, and perhaps profound, definition that I picked up from an Ethiopian cohort:

    If you think you are a leader and you don’t have any followers you are just taking a walk.

    And, given the world we are living in, it’s worth adding that true learning leaders will have willing followers, as opposed to those coerced into following whether through fear or manipulation – or even hierarchy for that matter.

    To ask what makes a good leader is therefore to think about the qualities that make someone “followable.” And without much doubt we are looking at the traits of authenticity, courage, empathy, vision and, most of all, someone who can “walk the talk” and follow through on their promises.

    Learning is life

    The Learning Leader course is a reflection of this philosophy; conceived and designed around leaders who want to learn and develop themselves. It is designed for people who are ready to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, but also to explore their own beliefs and values so that they are as consciously authentic as they can be. It takes as a maxim the view frequently attributed to Mark Twain that “continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”

    Learning Leaders is founded on four foundation pillars: learning; leadership; consciousness; change. And it is consciously focused on learning that keeps pace with change, drawing on the Reg Revins formula:

    Rate of learning > Rate of change = Life

    Rate of learning

    The course is intentionally more about facilitation than teaching. It is focused on learning “outputs” much more than teaching “inputs.” We provide frameworks to help participants make sense of the outputs, but these are deliberately simple – though not necessarily easy – and can be adopted at a personal and collective level. In other words they are much less culture bound than other (largely Western) theories and models.

    Most of all we use tools and techniques that create a safe and respectful environment wherein participants feel so comfortable with each other they not only exchange their own experiences and insights but also help each other to explore the deeper meaning of what it is to be a leader in today’s world.

    To have Learning Leaders as part of the Global Majority Mentoring Programme throws up other dimensions relating to culture and diversity. Participants are exclusively from Global Majority backgrounds and are more conscious than most of their diversity. It is interesting, too, that the dominant profile has been a female one.

    We could all readily agree that leadership in this modern, fast changing, complex world should always be open to learning, indeed, it is learning or the ability to learn in a conscious way that is a defining characteristic of the modern leader.

    Consciousness raising

    Over two days participants worked through multiple course elements including change framework, philosophical inquiry and practising disagreement, a “walk the talk” exercise and a reflection instrument. But a key collective “Aha!” moment arose from an exercise to explore individual learning leader styles. That was a moment where all of us, myself included, found a new way to look at diversity: not just as a “nice” thing to do but as an essential strengthening underpinning to all that we do.

    The assessment of learning leader styles begins with introducing a learning cycle model. We emphasise at this point that our world has become a place where “Plan-Do” is dominant and that this, more visible, element is what organisations like to encourage and reward. This has come at a cost to “Reflect-Think” and consequently to our ability to learn. This helps to frame where our focus will be and why. The participants will have a rare chance to really indulge in some quality individual and collective reflection and thinking.

    By segmenting the cycle into four quadrants we find that we have four different areas that accommodate or position leadership learning styles or preferences.

    • Body (between Plan and Do) – learning from experience and being aware of our behaviour.
    • Heart (between Do and Reflect) – learning from emotion and being aware of our instinctive intelligence.
    • Mind (between Think and Plan) – learning from knowledge and being aware of our ego.
    • Spirit (between Reflect and Think) – learning from wisdom and being aware of our beliefs.

    With the use of a short questionnaire, we are able to identify our leadership learning styles and the relative position on the cycle. This is a good visual to discuss further what having a particular approach might mean for an individual and to explore the consequences of our collective preferences. The below diagram illustrates where different people might position themselves on the various quadrants.

    Having someone in each quadrant gives us a more complete learning group. I like to see things get done offering practical insights. M and Z remind the group how important it is to be aware of our feelings and be open to creativity and new ideas. S and J require that questions are asked, and sense is made before rushing onto the next thing. Finally, we have N who also likes to make sense but who is unlikely to procrastinate too long and can help a group converge learning into a decision and way forward.

    Provided we become and remain conscious of this diversity it becomes a real strength in any group or team. Only when we are unconscious can differences lead to division, fragmentation and misunderstanding. Without this awareness learning is non-complimentary and will erode respect and trust.

    Having looked at our complimentary styles we applied this insight into all that we did for the rest of the two day course. For example, participants enhanced the effectiveness of the “walk the talk” exercise when they paired up with a complimentary style and experienced new perspectives, insights and ideas. But most of all we could see graphically how diversity is always a strength (especially in a leadership team) when we are conscious of ourselves and others’ approaches and preferences.

    That this is the real and positive message from any EDI initiative. With the consciousness of a Learning Leader we could never be divided! I am already looking forward to next year’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme cohorts and to enjoy the diversity and experience the profound insights that come out of this potent mix of leaders.

    This article is one of four exploring London Higher’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme – you can find the others here. Keith would like to extend special thanks to the University of Westminster and Dr. Randhir Auluck, Head of School, Organisations, Economy & Society at Westminster Business School without whose vision, not to mention organisational skills, this Learning Leaders course would not have seen the light of day.

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  • Higher education leadership requires multiple versions of yourself

    Higher education leadership requires multiple versions of yourself

    To lead in higher education feels much like inhabiting a shifting identify.

    One moment you are a strategist expected to speak in spreadsheets and scenario plans. The next, you are a listener, empathetic, calm, human, supporting a student in distress. You leave that conversation only to enter a room full of staff in which morale is flatlining and you are now a motivational figure, expected to energise and inspire. Finish all these, and it’s not even 10am! Before the day is over, you are potentially answering questions from university leaders who want metrics, mitigations and certainty.

    If it feels like you’re performing multiple, sometimes conflicting roles across a single day, it is really because you are. And the deeper truth is that it is not a flaw – it is simply the job.

    Increasingly, leadership in universities demands what feels like a professionally sanctioned form of adaptive multiplicity. I use the phrase carefully to name a reality that many senior leaders know intimately but rarely articulate. The constant emotional and intellectual switching, the need to adjust tone, style, even the way you put your values in practice depending on the room you are in, creates a kind of managed fragmentation. Over time, this potentially leaves many leaders with a nagging internal question: who am I really in this job, and how many versions of me are left?

    Flex and strain

    This phenomenon has intensified as the sector has grown more complex, even in the short period of time of the last 15 years since I joined academia.

    Universities are now sites of competing expectations. Students see themselves as clients, citizens and many times co-creators of their learning – most of the time, all at once – and they rightfully expect to be treated accordingly. Staff expect authentic leadership that values their autonomy, but also want decisive action when systems stumble. Senior teams expect accountability, agility and strategic execution, while external bodies, in their usual “supportive approach”, demand ever increasing levels of compliance, assurance and visible grip.

    Each of these communities needs something different from their leaders. They do not all speak the same language, and thus leaders become translators, switchboards and even shape-shifters. It is not performance in the sense of fakery but it is code-switching as a leadership survival strategy.

    But even though this capacity to flex and adapt is a strength and should be firmly encouraged, it is also a source of strain. You learn to adapt so well, so naturally, that you risk forgetting what it feels to be still. You begin to filter your words so frequently that spontaneous speech starts to feel dangerous. You work hard to be authentic in different spaces but wonder whether your authenticity looks different depending on who is watching. And while you may pride yourself on being emotionally intelligent, you notice that your own emotional reserves deplete faster than they can replenish.

    This kind of labour (emotional, relational, cognitive) is almost entirely invisible in institutional language. It doesn’t appear on strategic plans or in KPIs and metrics. It is not listed in job descriptions or annual reviews. How could it even be? It is not something that can be easily defined.

    But, somehow, it is the glue that holds teams, cultures and people together. When a leader gets the tone wrong in a difficult moment, it can take weeks to rebuild trust. When they get it right, there is often no visible outcome because good leadership so often manifests as the evident absence of crisis. This is a key leadership paradox: when you do this work well, very few notice. When you falter, everyone does.

    Shifting registers

    The multiple selves of leadership are, in many ways, shaped by the multiple identities of the university itself. Higher education is a place of intellectual freedom, but also of bureaucratic machinery. It is a workplace, a community, a brand and a battleground for values. In this context, leaders are asked to be both deeply human and relentlessly strategic. You must lead with your heart while justifying decisions with data. You must be decisive without being authoritarian, empathetic without appearing weak and consistent without being rigid. All leaders will tell you it is a delicate calibration and no two days are the same.

    The benefits of this kind of psychological pluralism are real though. Leaders who are able to shift between registers can build bridges between otherwise disconnected parts of the institution. They are more likely to hear what’s not being said and they are better equipped to hold space for complexity, to manage contradictions without defaulting to simplistic solutions. In short, they are able to lead courses, curriculum areas, departments, schools, faculties, campuses or universities that are themselves fractured, plural and dynamic. But none of this is possible without deep self-awareness. Without a strong internal compass, an anchoring sense of purpose and principle, adaptive leadership risks becoming reactive or hollow.

    In my own leadership journey, across multiple roles, I have come to both respect and rely on this kind of multiplicity. It has certainly challenged me; it can be uncomfortable and exhausting to change shape so often. But it has also been one of the most professionally rewarding experiences of my life. I have learned more about people, influence, systems and purpose than I could have ever imagined. The act of switching roles deepened my empathy, sharpened my judgement and forced me to become a more deliberate values-led leader. The very difficulty of the work is in many ways what makes it so meaningful.

    What leadership in higher education increasingly requires is not just charisma, but presence. The ability to think carefully before acting, to sit with ambiguity rather than force resolution, and to adapt without losing coherence are not signs of weakness but more a mark of maturity. These are not qualities that always show up in leadership frameworks but they are often what hold institutions together when pressure mounts. In a sector where trust is easily lost and change rarely pauses, the capacity to lead with both flexibility and integrity has become more essential than ever.

    Don’t panic

    For anyone stepping into, or considering, a formal leadership role in higher education (at whatever level!) I would suggest this: know that the title does not prepare you for the internal work.

    You will be stretched in ways no leadership framework fully captures. You will need to hold contradiction, manage ambiguity and shift gears constantly. And this will be not just between meetings and conversations, but sometimes within the same sentence. It is demanding, to put it lightly, often invisible work and it can be lonely.

    But it is also deeply rewarding, transformative and full of purpose. Especially if you approach your leadership role with humility, clarity of values and a willingness to learn, unlearn, and then adapt some more. And while I believe everyone in HE is already a leader, whether they hold a title or not, those who accept formal leadership positions, regardless of the level, carry a particular responsibility – not to have all answers but to cultivate the space in which people can thrive. It is not about becoming someone else but about learning how to show up differently without ever losing who you are, what values define you.

    There is also a deeper cultural discomfort at play. History, and most frameworks, tend to favour the idea of singular leadership identity. But in a sector where the demands are multiple and shifting, I feel consistency is rarely a strength. True leadership authenticity in our sector lies not in being the same person in every room, but in being consistent in your values even as you adapt your delivery. It means having a clear sense of what matters, educationally, ethically, institutionally, and allowing that to shape the different selves you need to inhabit.

    And this is not about abandoning coherence – it is about redefining it. Leadership in HE is not a single performance, repeated daily; it is a catalogue of performances. Those who do well – again, regardless of the level which they are at – understand that they will be read differently by different audiences, and that this is not only inevitable but highly necessary. The most successful leaders are those who can integrate their different selves into a single, strategic identify, not fixed, but rooted in the same core values that act as a driving force.

    So if you, as a leader in higher education, sometimes feel like you are playing a cast of characters like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor, do not panic. You are not alone, and you are not doing it wrong. You are doing what the job requires. You are developing a professionally disciplined multiplicity.

    Not a flaw, but a capacity. Not a weakness but a way through huge complexity. It is this ability to hold multiple selves in tension, without losing sight of the core values uniting them, that defines successful leadership in HE today. And that, just maybe, is the most authentic thing of all.

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  • Dundee’s troubles and the state of the sector

    Dundee’s troubles and the state of the sector

    “Dundee University’s reputation soars,” shouted the front page of the Courier in 2004. Making the most of a rise in the league tables, the then university secretary highlighted the institution’s commitment to excellent learning and teaching, its outstanding research and its contribution to the local community.

    Fast forward 21 years and more recent press coverage has been less positive – the university’s desperate financial situation, rapid departures by senior staff, emergency government funding, threats of large-scale job losses and very painful sessions before the Scottish parliament education committee.

    A hard-hitting report by former Glasgow Caledonian principal Pamela Gillies put the blame on “poor financial judgement, inadequate management and reporting, poor monitoring of the financial sustainability KPI, a lack of agility in responding to a fall in income by the University leadership and weak governance in relation to financial accountability by the University Court” compounded by the “top-down, hierarchical and reportedly over-confident style of leadership and management” and “a culture in which challenge was actively discouraged.”

    The 64-page document is excoriating in its condemnation of senior officers and the university’s governors – a view shared by the select committee, where MSPs expressed their criticism in the strongest possible terms. Later events – including the departure of the interim finance director after a week in the job – have only made the agony worse.

    The financial collapse at Dundee inevitably raises questions for the rest of the HE sector in Scotland and the UK as a whole. Are the same weaknesses present in other institutions? Is higher education in crisis? And how should governments and the sector respond?

    Governance and management

    Before going any further, I must declare a personal interest – I was the university secretary quoted in the 2004 press article and I have retained an abiding affection for the University of Dundee since leaving in 2008.

    I also chaired the group that produced the latest revision of the Scottish Code for Good Higher Education Governance in 2023 – a document which Professor Gillies deems fit for purpose, provided institutions follow it carefully. However, implementing the code of governance, excellent as it is, will not be enough – we all need to learn lessons from the Dundee story and make sure that our own universities are protected from a similar fate. To that end, we ought to engage in an open discussion about what has happened and consider it from every angle.

    So far, the criticism has focused on the failings of Dundee’s senior managers and governors. In response, they have accepted that they should have spotted the financial problems earlier and taken avoiding action. That way, as one officer put it to the committee, they could have dealt with them “under their own steam”.

    Senior managers and the university court should certainly have been aware of the worsening financial situation in the second half of academic year 2023–24. Student recruitment fell in September 2023 and again in January 2024; meanwhile the international market was contracting and the UK government looked set to implement unhelpful policy developments as part of its anti-immigrant agenda.

    At that stage, the university’s executive board should have been keeping an eagle eye on the monthly management accounts, freezing all but essential staff recruitment and paring back expenditure. The failure even to recognise there was a financial deficit until October 2024 was a critical lapse.

    Reflecting on this, all universities will now be examining their systems, processes and culture to make sure they do not fall into the same trap. The sense of urgency will be especially acute in institutions which are running deficits – a plight that now affects many HEIs previously considered immune to such challenges. In Scotland, the cabinet secretary for education has urged the sector to address the problem of “unsustainable jobs” – apparently giving the green light to further staffing reductions.

    University courts and councils will be assessing governance arrangements and exploring how to strengthen financial scrutiny; some will also be reviewing the way they interact with their vice chancellors and senior teams. In doing this, they should ensure that senior officers and trade union reps are enabled to challenge heads of institutions and bring any concerns they have to the governing body.

    Model issues

    All of this is sensible, but the debate so far has largely ignored some fundamental points. Most importantly, the sector needs a different financial model – it cannot survive by placing ever greater reliance on the international student fee account. In England, the UK government has at least allowed the home undergraduate fees cap to increase in line with inflation but Holyrood has not made a similar move, and nor is it likely to before the 2026 Scottish election.

    The lack of funding will mean further retrenchments and cost-cutting in estates and IT budgets; unpalatable options such as delaying the national pay uplift or cancelling academic promotions rounds may also come into play. Against this background, Scotland’s politicians must step up – we need to treat university funding as a national problem which deserves an enduring solution, preferably identified through a review supported by all parties.

    Returning to Dundee, there is a reason why that university was so badly hit that goes beyond mistakes made by senior management. For at least 30 years, Dundee has been a powerhouse of life sciences research, with a special focus on cancer and tropical diseases. A glance at the 2021 REF results for biological sciences bears this out – there is Dundee, ranked number two behind the Institute of Cancer Research, ahead of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and many other universities with much greater resources.

    This is an extraordinary story – a relatively small, provincial university taking on and beating some of the greatest and best-funded institutions in the world; in the process, Dundee’s researchers have benefited humanity, not just in this country but also across the global south. Sir Alfred Cuschieri, Sir David Lane, Sir Philip Cohen, Cheryll Tickle CBE, Sir Pete Downes, Sir Mike Ferguson – the list of top biomedical scientists whose careers have flourished at Dundee is hugely impressive.

    However, this achievement comes at a price – even 20 years ago, Dundee struggled to generate surpluses which would protect the institution against a rainy day. As everyone knows, research funding simply does not cover the cost of the work it is supposed to support – universities have to cross-subsidise scientific endeavour with endowments, donations and international student fees.

    The challenge is even greater when much of your funding is from charities, which pay a lower overhead than government research councils. That left Dundee in an especially vulnerable position when the international student recruitment market began to contract in 2023–24 – a problem not shared by other universities with a fraction of Dundee’s research activity.

    Given what has happened, it is right that universities conduct self-audits and make certain that their own houses are in order. The Scottish government and the funding council should also seek assurance that Scotland’s HEIs are effectively led and managed. But the deeper question of how the sector should be funded still needs to be addressed, and quickly.

    As part of this we should recognise that world-class research of the kind nurtured in Dundee is something to be cherished; we should all back the recovery effort on Tayside. For my part, I believe strongly that the university will remain a powerhouse of research and excellence in learning and teaching for decades to come. With the right support, Dundee’s reputation will soon soar again.

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  • Technical professionals can offer more than support

    Technical professionals can offer more than support

    UK universities are under financial strain. As institutions look to restructure, reduce costs and rethink delivery, there’s a clear need to make better use of the talent that already exists within them.

    Technical professionals – highly skilled, deeply embedded and often misunderstood – are key to this. While often grouped under ‘professional services’, technicians occupy a distinct space in the university workforce. Their work spans research, teaching and operations, often in highly specialised or safety-critical environments. Recognising this distinction isn’t about drawing divisions, it’s about making sure roles are properly understood, supported and used to their full potential.

    At a time when universities must become more agile, efficient and sustainable, the contribution of technical professionals has never been more important.

    Technicians as problem-solvers in a time of reform

    Too often, technical teams are brought into conversations late, after decisions have been made, spaces reallocated, or budgets set. But these are the people who manage the infrastructure, operate the systems, and know what’s really happening on the ground.

    At the University of Nottingham, we’ve taken a different approach, bringing technical leaders into strategic planning early. This is already helping us avoid duplication and develop smarter, more joined-up technical support across the institution. By involving technical leaders from the outset, we’re able to align services more effectively and make better-informed decisions about how we support research and teaching activity.

    These aren’t just operational wins. They’re strategic enablers, unlocking resource savings, reducing risk and supporting more sustainable delivery of core activity.

    Smarter sharing, greater efficiency

    One of the clearest opportunities lies in how we share and manage resources, whether research labs, creative studios or teaching equipment. Technical professionals are central to this.

    We understand how facilities work, how to optimise them, and how to adapt usage models across disciplines. In some institutions, this has led to the creation of “research hotel” models – shared lab spaces managed by technical teams, improving access and utilisation while reducing the need for new investment.

    Nationally, the UK Institute for Technical Skills & Strategy is supporting this through initiatives like the ITSS Capability Showcase, which maps institutional technical facilities and strengths and promotes collaboration across the sector. It’s a model that supports smarter decisions – both within and between institutions.

    A distinct role in shaping what comes next

    Technical professionals sit at the intersection of research, teaching, innovation and operations. They lead facilities, deliver teaching, train students, and increasingly contribute directly to research outputs – from papers and software to exhibitions and datasets.

    In the face of restructuring, universities have a chance to rethink how these roles are supported. Fragmented structures and inconsistent career pathways don’t just affect individuals – they weaken our ability to plan for the future.

    A more strategic approach brings clarity, fairness and future-readiness. It supports succession planning, skills development, and the protection of specialist knowledge. It also helps retain exceptional people – many of whom could thrive in industry, but choose to stay in universities because of their commitment to education and discovery.

    The opportunity now

    Technical professionals aren’t simply support staff. They’re a distinct group within the wider university workforce – working at the intersection of research, education, innovation and operations. Their roles are different from those in professional services but not separate. Both are essential, and both must be recognised for their unique contributions.

    At a recent Technician Commitment event held at Queen’s University Belfast, representatives from institutions across the UK shared practical and strategic actions they believe could help universities weather the current financial crisis. Ideas ranged from income generation through technician-led consultancy and external training, to resource efficiency via equipment sharing and pooled maintenance contracts. Delegates highlighted the importance of breaking down institutional silos, promoting cross-disciplinary technical training and enabling technicians to access internal funding schemes.

    There was also a strong call for structural advocacy – recognising technicians as research enablers and challenging default organisational models that position technical teams within professional services by default. The message was clear: technicians are not a cost centre. They are a strategic asset in how universities respond to financial and operational challenges.

    In a sector facing difficult choices, the opportunity is to harness the full breadth of talent available. Technical professionals are ready – not just to support change, but to help lead it.

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  • Universities struggle to recognise leadership beyond the academic template

    Universities struggle to recognise leadership beyond the academic template

    In the shifting terrain of higher education, the figure of the “pracademic” has become increasingly prominent.

    Straddling the worlds of theory and practice, pracademics bring external insight into the academy along with a restlessness about how knowledge is produced, shared, and valued.

    They offer universities the opportunity to widen their epistemic horizons, but in doing so, they expose the inherent tensions in how academic leadership is defined and performed.

    The rise of the pracademic

    Pracademics rarely fit the established leadership templates; instead, they model heterodox approaches, navigating ambiguity, drawing from diverse methodologies, and unsettling conventional hierarchies. Arguably, this is not an accidental disruption, but a generative one. Pracademics challenge the orthodoxy of university life, and in doing so, they invite us to rethink the paradoxes that shape leadership in higher education.

    As institutions seek to embrace diversity and interdisciplinarity, many still struggle to accommodate those whose career paths have not followed the traditional orthodox academic trajectory.

    For second-career academics and pracademics, leadership can feel like swimming against the tide. Their experience and outlook can enrich higher education, but too often their value is under-recognised and under-leveraged. To lead in a heterodox community of contradictions, we must not only tolerate difference but structure our systems to nurture and embed it.

    This leads to the question: are today’s universities ready for leaders who do not fit the mould? As Jill Dickinson and colleagues noted in a Wonkhe article, some academics are seen as more proper than others.

    Not fitting the mould

    University ecosystems are not tidy places. They are heterodox ecosystems populated by the idiosyncratic, the idealistic, the quietly radical, the wildly inconsistent. This is perhaps their greatest strength, but also perhaps their greatest challenge.

    For those of us asked to lead within these environments, the traditional managerial playbook may not suffice. Our colleagues are not staff in the conventional sense. They are academics and professionals, each with their own epistemologies, rhythms, and values.

    It may be tempting to assume there are defined academic personalities. A shorthand often emerges: the aloof theorist, the star researcher, the endlessly enthusiastic educator. But these caricatures are too narrow. In reality, we work alongside colleagues who are motivated by very different things. Autonomy, impact, status, security, social justice, or simply the deep and personal satisfaction of learning. Some are collaborative; others prefer to work in isolation. Some want to change the world; others just want to understand it. To lead effectively in this landscape is not to standardise, but to navigate. Thoughtfully, deliberately, and with care.

    Increasingly we share this space with those whose paths into academia were far from linear. As a self-identified pracademic, I followed that linear progression, culminating in a PhD in entrepreneurship in my mid twenties before taking a right turn and transitioning into a career in industry and consultancy. Re-entering the academy many years later, I found myself in an environment which confused, frustrated and excited in equal measure. A world that both welcomed and resisted difference. As a pracademic I sought to blend my experience of industry with my academic credentials and apply this to teaching and scholarship. I thought this would be a straightforward career move, but it has been less than easy. I am not alone in this. I have several colleagues who have travelled similar paths. This is not a new phenomenon, and is highlighted in a previous Wonkhe article by Jacqueline Baxter.

    Where do pracademics fit?

    The academy is not against us; it simply does not yet know how to include us. And at times, we are not sure how to include ourselves. Recruitment, induction and promotion systems often presume conventional trajectories and narrow definitions of success. CVs weighted towards delivery, leadership and impact can sit awkwardly alongside expectations for peer-reviewed outputs and theoretical depth.

    The result is unease.

    Heterodox colleagues from non-traditional backgrounds are welcomed for their distinctiveness but expected to assimilate. Over time, they become weary; their fresh perspective blunted by institutional habits. And so we risk losing them. Or worse, we fail to attract pracademics in the first place.

    This would represent not only a loss of individual talent, but arguably it is a structural failure to evolve. In an era that prizes engagement, interdisciplinarity and real-world relevance, universities cannot afford to cling to a single model of academic identity. Heterodox colleagues are not silver bullets, but they are essential to the richness and resilience of the sector.

    The compliance trap

    Despite the diversity of perspectives and epistemologies, our systems often reward sameness; uniformity in careers, outputs and leadership behaviours. Interdisciplinarity is celebrated rhetorically but stifled procedurally. Innovation is encouraged but only when it conforms to measurable outcomes. Leadership frameworks borrowed from corporate life bring useful tools, but they are not neutral.

    These models often fail to accommodate heterodox approaches, undervaluing forms of leadership that thrive on difference, improvisation, and autonomy. Performance metrics and standardised objectives often marginalise the creative, the hybrid and the experimental.

    If we value diversity and heterodoxy, we must accept that excellence takes many forms: some measurable, others intuitive; some harmonious, others deliberately disruptive. We need frameworks that flex, processes that adapt, and cultures that embrace the very contradictions they generate.

    Herein lies the paradox: universities demand diversity to survive, yet they reward conformity to preserve reputation. They seek innovation but measure it through established norms. This tension is not a flaw, rather it is the condition of the heterodox university. The question is whether our leadership structures are capable of holding that contradiction.

    This reflects the recent call for a new leadership framework in HE, to address the shifting landscape, the advancements in technology, social and regulatory change. Leadership “is now a crucial component in the higher education sector’s efforts to successfully navigate current challenges”.

    Leading with empathy

    So what might leadership look like in this context? It means creating the conditions in which individuals can flourish. It is stewardship not control. It involves being comfortable with ambiguity and openness to challenge. It involves intellectual empathy: understanding how colleagues think, not only what they do and recognising the inherent value in other academics. It is about creating the conditions in which others can flourish, even when their values or methods differ from our own.

    University leadership can carry a heavy emotional load. The balance of advocacy with accountability; innovation with institutional demands; scholarship with scheduling. We were not trained for this; we stepped in because we care. We want to fix what frustrates us; to create space for ideas; to support people we believe in. Through listening we discover a form of leadership that builds a shared capacity and nurtures potential even in those who are manifestly different from ourselves.

    Permission to lead differently

    In spite of all the challenges, there is real opportunity. The best leaders I have worked with were not necessarily the most strategic or the most visible. They were the ones who listened well; who noticed when someone was struggling; who quietly, or even loudly, championed a good idea even when it wasn’t their own. They had the confidence to admit when they did not know the answer to something, and the humility to let others shine.

    Leadership of this kind may be less celebrated in glossy strategy documents, but it is deeply generative.

    We need, perhaps, to give ourselves permission to lead differently. To resist the false dichotomies. To stop trying to fix people and instead start asking what might enable them. To see conflict and contrast not as a threat, but as evidence of a living, thinking, thriving, modern institution. Above all, we must remind ourselves that leadership is not something done to others, it is something enacted with them.

    This is not leadership as compliance. It is leadership as contribution. And it is time we gave ourselves permission to practise it.

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  • Higher education leadership is at an inflection point – we must transform, or be transformed

    Higher education leadership is at an inflection point – we must transform, or be transformed

    At a recent “fireside chat” at a sector event, after I had outlined to those present some details of the transformational journey the University of East London (UEL) has been on in the past six years, one of those attending said to me: “Until UEL has produced Nobel Prize winners, you can’t say it has transformed.”

    While I chose not to address the comment immediately – the sharp intake of breath and rebuttals that followed from other colleagues present seemed enough at the time – it has played on my mind since.

    It wasn’t so much the comment’s narrow mindedness that shocked, but the confidence with which it was delivered. Yet, looking at the ways in which we often celebrate and highlight sector success – through league tables, mission groups, or otherwise – it is little wonder my interlocutor felt so assured in his worldview.

    Value judgement

    This experience leads me to offer this provocation: as a sector, many of our metrics are failing us, and we must embrace the task of redefining value in 21st century higher education with increased seriousness.

    If you disagree, and feel that traditional proxies such as the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to an institution should continue to count as the bellwethers for quality, you may wish to pause and consider a few uncomfortable truths.

    Yes, the UK is a global leader in scientific excellence. But we are also among the worst in the OECD for translating that science into commercial or productivity gains. The UK is a leading global research hub, producing 57 per cent more academic publications than the US in per capita terms. Yet compared to the US, the UK lags significantly behind in development and scale-up metrics like business-funded R&D, patents, venture capital and unicorns.

    Universities have been strongly incentivised to increase research volume in recent years, but as the outgoing chief executive of UKRI Ottoline Leyser recently posited to the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology committee do we need to address this relatively unstrategic expansion of research activity across a range of topics, detached from economic growth and national priorities? Our global rankings – built on proxies like Nobel Prizes – are celebrated, while our real-world economic outcomes stagnate. We excel in research, yet struggle in relevance. That disconnect comes at a cost.

    I recently contributed to a collection of essays on entrepreneurial university leadership, edited by Ceri Nursaw and published by HEPI – a collection that received a somewhat critical response in the pages of Research Professional, with the reviewer dismissing the notion of bold transformation on the basis that: “The avoidance of risk-taking is why universities have endured since the Middle Ages.”

    Yes. And the same mindset that preserved medieval institutions also kept them closed to women, divorced from industry, and indifferent to poverty for centuries. Longevity is not the same as leadership – and it’s time we stopped confusing the two. While we should all be rightfully proud of the great heritage of our sector, we’re at real risk of that pride choking progress at a critical inflection point.

    Lead or be led

    Universities UK chief executive Vivienne Stern’s recent keynote at the HEPI Annual Conference reminded us that higher education has evolved through tectonic shifts such as the industrial revolution’s technical institutes, the social revolution that admitted women, the 1960s “white heat” of technological change, and the rise of mass higher education.

    Now we are on the edge of the next seismic evolution. The question is: will the sector lead it, or be shaped by it? At the University of East London, we’ve chosen to lead by pressing ahead with a bold transformation built on a central premise that a careers-first approach can drive success in every part of the university – not on precedents that leave us scrambling for relevance in a changing world.

    Under this steam, we’ve achieved the UK’s fastest, most diversified, debt-free revenue growth. We’ve become an engine of inclusive enterprise, moving from 90th to 2nd in the UK for annual student start-ups in six years, with a more than 1,000 per cent increase in the survival of student-backed businesses. We’ve overseen a 25-point increase in positive graduate outcomes – the largest, fastest rise in graduate success – as well as ranking first in England for graduating students’ overall positivity. We use money like we use ideas: to close gaps, not widen them. To combat inequality, not entrench it.

    So, let me return to the Nobel Prize comment. The metrics that matter most to our economy and society, the achievements that tangibly improve lives, are not displayed in glass cabinets – rather those that matter most are felt every day by every member of our society. Recent polling shows what the public wants from growth: improved health and wellbeing, better education and skills, reduced trade barriers. Our government’s policy frameworks – from the industrial strategy to the AI strategy – depend on us as a sector to deliver those outcomes.

    Yet how well do our reputational rankings align with these national imperatives? How well does our regulatory framework reward the institutions that deliver on them? Are we optimising for prestige – or for purpose? We are living at a pivot point in history. The institutions that thrive through it will not be those that retreat into tradition. They will be those that rethink leadership, rewire purpose, and reinvent practice.

    Too much of higher education innovation is incremental; transformational innovation is rare. But it is happening – if we choose to see it, support it, and scale it. I urge others to join me in making the case for such a choice, because the next chapter of higher education will be written by those who act boldly now – or rewritten for those who don’t.

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  • University governance needs more imagination

    University governance needs more imagination

    University governance is not broken – but it does need to change.

    There are places where governance is not working very well. There are places where it is working exceptionally well. And in most cases the governance system works in the same way it always has but with a different and deeper set of issues.

    It may be that the resilience of “business as usual” is not a sign of stability – but a sign of a wider dysfunction.

    University governance is built with committees, a senate (usually), and a council. Information can flow up and down the chain with no more urgency than a stream trickling down a hill. The idea of a university being a deliberate (or slow) decision maker is not a design fault – but the entire purpose of the system.

    The challenge is that the moment we are working in is highly unpredictable. This means that the slowness inherent in the governance of universities is a barrier to making timely decisions. In turn, the lack of speed kills. If universities cannot make decisions quickly then they will be forever fighting yesterday’s battles as even bigger challenges come over the horizon.

    It is true that university governance can be slow. It is also the case that governance is no more than the collective will of people, accepted practice, navigating within a system which is continually changing because of the people and practices within it.

    It is not that governance is fundamentally broken – but that in places, it has not caught up with the world we are in or the issues we are dealing with. The institutional governance memory has largely been about growth, and now it is about changing shape, and in some cases contraction.

    And it is struggling to catch up for three main reasons. Intra-organisational dynamics, regulatory pressure, and a lack of experience and guidance in responding to this particular crisis.

    People

    The relationship between the vice chancellor and the chair of council is a critical one and one that can make or break the quality of governance. Usually, not a policy is passed, a major programme commenced, or in the most detail orientated a contract signed, without the permission of one of these two people.

    That critical relationship cannot be to act, consciously or otherwise, as gatekeepers – and instead needs to work to sharpen the focus of the wider discussion and decision making on the art of the possible in responding to the greatest aspirations and the most sizable threats.

    Sometimes the funnel of chair and vice chancellor contracts the necessary information, context and ambition rather than flipping the funnel around to allow a wider and richer understanding of the specific problem and the potential answers to it.

    A trend across the sector is that the strain placed on organisations is placing significant pressure on this relationship. Sometimes this pressure is forcing the chair and vice chancellor ever closer together and making them engage like never before. On the other hand, this pressure can spill into real disagreements and arguments.

    Neither excessive closeness nor distance is helpful for good decision making. One allows governance by relationship above process which can lead to decisions being too narrow or having considered too few sides. The distance makes issues fraught and honest conversations difficult.

    The role of the registrar has never been more crucial in this dynamic. They are the third leg of the stool that can facilitate private conversation but crucially, particularly now, can turn debates into issues that can be fed into the university governance system with a structure and purpose that reaches beyond the vice chancellor and chair in isolation. The registrar, or equivalent, is too often perceived as clerking or secretariat – rather than a function and role that can influence culture.

    The idea isn’t that governance should be conflict free, but that systems are robust enough to turn conflict into decision. In times like these strongly held disagreement is inevitable, sometimes it is even good as it shows things are being deeply felt, but governance cannot function where personal relationships dominate a governance system. The future is one which – as you might expect us to say – ever more deeply engages the registrar as the translator of discussion into decision.

    Regulators and regulation

    Governments and regulators have not been helpful in enabling the evolution needed in university governance. On the one hand, there is a reflexive defence to non-intervention because universities are autonomous institutions. And to be fair, when regulators and governments do something universities do not like it is also a defence they reach for. Autonomy is true at an institutional level but regulators seek to impede institutional autonomy all of the time through sector wide regulation.

    Taking Covid as an example, the Office for Students introduced a range of temporary market stabilisation measures which covered, amongst a range of other matters, “matters that may affect or distort decision making by prospective or current students in respect of their choice of higher education provider or course.” It isn’t enormously helpful that the regulatory environment can sometimes feel like either no intervention or extreme intervention.

    The space that is interesting is what does regulatory stewardship look like – neither the laissez faire of institutional failure nor the clunking foot of, well, boots on the ground.

    The overriding temptation is to introduce more regulation in a period where the sector is struggling. The logic is that universities are exposed to greater risk and the way to protect students from risk is to build boundaries around what universities can and cannot do.

    The problem is that universities do not have the resources to cope with any more regulatory burden. In fact, owing to the financial pressures they are under, universities have less resources than ever to deal with new regulatory burdens. This isn’t about the bonfire of the redtape, or a chainsaw as some world leaders prefer, but it is about an informed debate about how to sharpen the focus of an enormous regulatory burden.

    Introducing new regulation increases the chances that universities will fall foul of new regulations but that hardly seems like the point. There should be as much energy in reducing red-tape as there is in creating it in order to give universities the space to breathe. The sector is having to reduce its size and it can’t function with a regulatory burden designed for a time when it was much bigger.

    The effect of this would also be to free up the regulators time to focus on a narrower range of issues. The obvious rebuke is which things should any regulator spend less time on. The question, though helpful, misses the wider point that regulatory burden is created as much by approach as by the areas regulators choose to spend their time on. OfS Chief Executive Susan Lapworth made the case back in 2022:

    Your autonomy shouldn’t be a theoretical idea that you mobilise defensively to ward off regulation. It should be a living, active practice that you use to make your own decisions with confidence. So I’m encouraging you to think about whether the idea of self-directed autonomy might be a useful way to think about how you respond to regulation.

    Three years on, it’s fair to say that governing bodies often do not feel like they have sufficient insight into what the regulator believes to be the appropriate exercise of that autonomy. For example, it would be enormously useful for the OfS to provide an annual summary of the key issues they are dealing with – a bit like the OIA’s annual report on trends and outcomes.

    Reducing regulation, revealing potholes, and more clearly differentiating between issues of governance and those of leadership will help. It is also important to be clear that at times the sector has been caught in a trap of doing the same activity and expecting different results.

    Partners

    Even in the most extreme circumstances the sector now finds itself in radical discussions couched in terms of partnerships with the people that the sector has always worked with. It might be that some of the answers to the current crisis are not within the sector.

    There is an opportunity to explore partnerships with different kinds of public and private organisations. Traditionally, in universities, these have grown up within schools and faculties as research or teaching partnerships. It’s less frequent that senior leaders and their governing bodies seek out partnerships of mutual convenience to address a challenge.

    Now would seem to be the time to look at whether there may be partnerships with private providers on pre-degree teaching, PBSAs on addressing housing shortages, local authorities on a place-based marketing campaign, the local chambers of commerce on brokering land assets, and so on.

    Again, the challenge in realising this work is a governing one. Universities just have less muscle memory of trying to building these kinds of strategic partnerships – more imaginative partnerships require a different set of approaches.

    The first is absolute clarity from governing bodies regarding the problems they are trying to solve – and the discipline to stay within those core priorities. It is not enough to say that the problem is cash shortage caused by recruitment challenges. The deeper question is which qualifications are recruited to, the types of programmes on offer, and how clearly the link between income and programmes can be defined. Only then is it possible to look at which partners might be worth working with.

    The other challenge is that the regulatory environment is not always amenable to partnership. There is the issue of CMA compliance, where providers are reluctant to enter sensible conversations for fear of falling foul of regulations. A simple guide on the framework for who universities can work with in what circumstances would go far. Clearly, the current situation where the CMA is obligated to maintain the rules of a market which isn’t functioning properly is far from ideal.

    Breaking not broken

    People, regulation, and new partners are the three ingredients to move the university governance cycle on. It is easy to say universities need outside direction and internal commitment to meet the moment we’re in – but harder to pull off in practice.

    What universities have in their favour is that they have structures and processes that have been tried and tested. Now is the moment to adapt them.

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  • Higher education governance needs the conflict between academic and business imperatives to be successful

    Higher education governance needs the conflict between academic and business imperatives to be successful

    The sector’s financial challenges have shone a spotlight on governance effectiveness in higher education in England.

    When the incoming government tasked the Office for Students (OfS) with directing more of its energy towards financial sustainability in the summer of 2024, it was only a matter of months before director of regulation Philippa Pickford put forward the view that the sector needed “a conversation” about governance, specifically about how robustly boards had tested some of the financial projections they had been prepared to sign off.

    That signal of concern about governance has clearly manifested in the corridors of the Department for Education (DfE), if these words from the Secretary of State to the Commons Education Committee in May are anything to go by:

    The government is clear that there needs to be a focus on and improvement in providers’ governance. Planning and strategy development within higher education providers, including financial planning, should be supported by the highest standards of governance to ensure realistic planning, robust challenge and the development of sustainable business models.

    The sector has not been unresponsive to these cues – Advance HE in partnership with the wider sector is (taking the conversation metaphor literally) curating a “big conversation” about governance and the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) has pledged to review the higher education code of governance – which for a large number of institutions acts as a reference document for compliance with OfS’ conditions of registration on governance.

    The implicit underpinning premise from OfS and DfE is fairly stark: the government is disavowing any responsibility it might have to come up with a financial settlement that would shore up higher education finances while retaining the current delivery model; nor is it especially keen to have to deal with institutional bailouts arising from institutional inability to manage the changed funding landscape. The strong signal is that it is up to higher education institutions to work out how to survive in this environment – and if boards are not up to the task of finding the answers then it’s the boards that need reforming.

    Business acumen

    I read this communication as part of a discursive stand off between government and the sector in which the lines between the role of government and role of individual institutions in securing the future of higher education is contested. Within that context, the validity of the implied criticism – that boards are insufficiently businesslike and strategic – needs to be interrogated.

    There was a fascinating piece on The Critic last week by University of Buckingham academic Terence Kealey bemoaning the rise of the managerialist board. In Kealey’s analysis, when the balance of power in governance tilted towards the Senate – the governing body of academics – the institution thrived, as evidenced by strong performance in NSS and a financial surplus. But when the Council flexed its muscles, the university faltered, dropping in the league tables and spending more than it brought in.

    Kealey’s core argument – that academics are best placed to steward the core higher education mission of excellent teaching and research – picks up a longer standing critique of higher education governance that perceives organisational strategic objectives as articulated by institutional boards and executive teams as frequently in opposition to the academic endeavour, being far too concerned with financial efficiency, performance management, reputation/league tables, and capturing market share. Echoes of aspects of this critique appear in the recent Council for the Defence of British Universities’ proposed code of ethical university governance, which urges boards to adhere to high standards of transparent, principled, and public-spirited conduct.

    At the other end of the spectrum, the criticism of higher education governance – including sometimes from governors themselves – is that boards are insufficiently businesslike, fail to articulate long-term strategic objectives that will secure the institution’s sustainability, and have limited entrepreneurial spirit that would allow the institution to adapt to adverse headwinds. A more moderate version of this criticism argues that it is very difficult to convene the diverse skillset that could allow for effective board oversight of the wide range of activities that higher education institutions do.

    Thinking about activities like academic and knowledge exchange partnerships, the creation of new campuses or the erection of new buildings, or civic and international engagement, all of these have the the academic endeavour at their core but are mostly about deploying the knowledge and reputational assets of the institution to generate additional value – and they each carry complicated associated legal and regulatory compliance expectations and reputational risk. It’s not clear that developing those strategies and managing those risks and expectations coheres well with academic professional practice – though some academics will obviously have a keen interest and want to develop knowledge in these areas.

    The worst of both

    There has always been an expectation that higher education institutions need to be simultaneously academically excellent and sufficiently business savvy to make sure the institution remains financially stable. Both academic and institutional governance can fail – the latter often more spectacularly and with greater reputational impact – but the impact of academic governance failure is arguably greater overall both on the long term health of the institution and on the lives of the staff and students affected.

    So you could argue that it’s odd and/or problematic that the sector has witnessed the erosion of the power of senates and academic boards as part of a wider set of trends towards a more executive style of higher education leadership, the rise of metrics, league tables and more managerial approaches to institutional performance, the intensification of regulatory expectations, and the steady withdrawal of direct public funding from the sector. It’s telling that under the current regulatory regime in England institutional boards have had to master new expectations of oversight of academic quality, on the presumption that all institutional accountability should sit in one place, rather than being distributed – suggesting that quality is now seen as part of the wider business imperative rather than a counterweight to it.

    But simply pivoting the balance of power back to senates and the academic community doesn’t necessarily address the problem. It’s possible, I suppose, to imagine a relatively benign or at least predictable funding and regulatory environment in which some of the pressing strategic questions about institutional size and shape, partnerships, or external engagement are answered or moot, and in which knowledge stewardship, academic excellence, and (one would hope) student learning experience are the primary purpose of higher education governance.

    But even if that environment was plausible – I’m not sure it has ever existed – it doesn’t really address the more existential contemporary questions that governments and the public seem to be putting to higher education: how does the country see, and experience the value of all this knowledge stewardship and academic excellence? To realise that value and make it visible in more than an ad hoc way – to be institutionally accountable for the systematic manifestation of public value from academic knowledge – requires knowledge and professional practice beyond individual teaching and research excellence. And, more prosaically but equally importantly, buildings, infrastructure, and systems that create the environment for effective knowledge stewardship. Without a functioning institution there can be no knowledge stewardship.

    There’s a reason, in other words, even if you strip out all the neoliberal value propositions from higher education governance, why higher education institutions need a “business” arm and associated governance structures. And that’s before you confront the actual reality of the current situation where the funding and regulatory environment is neither benign nor predictable – and the need for effective external relationship-building and systematic collaboration is greater than it has been in decades.

    On the other hand, some of the business decisions that are made to secure financial sustainability or long term institutional success put the academic imperative at risk. Rapid growth in student numbers, redundancy programmes, departmental or services cuts or new strategic partnerships can compromise quality, as we have seen in a number of recent cases. There may be mitigations or the impact may be worth the reward, but there can be no meaningful strategic decision without being able to weigh up both.

    Yet where we have ended up, I fear, is in the worst of both worlds – institutional boards that are neither sufficiently academically robust to have a grip of academic excellence nor sufficiently strategic and entrepreneurial to ensure institutions are able to thrive in the current higher education landscape. This is no shade to the immense talent and knowledge of the individuals who take up roles as higher education governors – it is a structural critique.

    Creative tension

    Where I end up is with the question – if there is really an inbuilt tension between the academic and business imperatives of higher education institutions, what would it look like for that tension to be a productive one in higher education governance rather than a source of toxicity?

    I suspect – though I’ve not (yet) asked – many vice chancellors and their executive teams would argue that in their individual experience and team skillset they manifest both academic and business imperatives – that in fact, it is their job to reconcile these two aspects of institutional leadership in their daily practice, decisions, and communications.

    Yet if that reconciliation of two competing imperatives is the job of leadership, arguably it’s not going all that well. While this experience is by no means universal, it’s clear that at times both academic and professional staff can feel sidelined and disempowered in the tug of war for day to day resource – but also at a deeper level for a recognition of their purpose and contribution to the higher education endeavour. Each can feel subordinated to the other in the institutional hierarchy – yet while there are outliers on both sides I’d put money on the majority of individuals on both sides accepting and embracing the value and contribution of the other. Yet at the same time the real tensions and contradictions that manifest in the pursuit of the two parallel imperatives are deeply felt by staff yet not always acknowledged by leadership.

    What if the job of leadership and boards of governors was not to seek to reconcile academic and business imperatives, but to actively manage the conflicts that arise at times? Where strategic questions arise related to either opportunities or risks, boards need to understand the perspective of both “sides” before being able to judge whether the executive team’s decisions are appropriate. And for institutional staff (and students, to the extent they have a role in institutional governance) there needs to be confidence that the governors have the skills and understanding of the value and importance of both imperatives and the relationship between them – so that there is the trust that decisions have been made in the most effective and transparent way possible.

    There might even be a case for institutions to convene internal business strategy boards as part of the governance structure as a counterweight to academic boards – actively empowering both equally as sites of knowledge, expertise and influence – and potentially reducing the strategic burden on institutional boards through creating a more transparent and maybe even more democratic or at least representative forum for internal governance of strategic business development.

    It seems likely that the next academic year will see the higher education sector in England move on from “conversations” about governance into something more systematically developmental, whether that’s via the mechanism of the CUC’s review of the Higher Education Code of Governance, or a policy agenda from one of the sector bodies. This is one of those areas where the sector can help itself with government by taking a lead on reform.

    Yet there’s a risk that the financial pressures on the sector lead to too close a focus on the strategic business imperatives and not enough on the academic excellence imperative. Institutions need both to be successful, and boards and executive teams – as well as any reviewing organisation – need to give deep consideration to how those can – even if not always peacefully – coexist.

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