Category: SFC

  • From going it alone to sharing university research and innovation services

    From going it alone to sharing university research and innovation services

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock, readers are likely to be very aware of the current financial challenges facing universities across the UK.

    The situation is no different in Scotland where several Scottish universities have reported an adjusted operating deficit position for academic year 2023–24 – although it’s important to note that this position can also reflect the stage of the institution’s investment cycle or actions being taken to restructure as well as reflecting the current year financial performance of an institution.

    These are difficult times for the sector. But a silver lining, if there were one to be found, could be that challenging times present an opportunity to do things differently. Approaches that would have previously been deemed too complicated to undertake can find themselves on the table because they have the potential to drive essential efficiencies and promote sustainability.

    Looming large

    With 18 universities receiving Scottish Funding Council (SFC) core funding for research – “Scottish QR”, the Research Excellence Grant (REG) – the Scottish system is of the size and scale where SFC can regularly have discussions with every vice principal for research. These discussions help us better understand the state of play and the pressures and challenges being faced.

    When we most recently spoke with vice principals, as you’d expect, financial sustainability loomed large. Challenges are having a real impact on how many institutions are considering their R&I activity.

    One of the things we heard is that an increasing number of institutions are exploring sharing back-office services between institutions to create efficiencies.

    This makes sense. Scotland is a small country with a largesse of universities, all of which undertake world-leading research as determined by the REF. We’re also a country of concentrated geography with many of our institutions focused in the same places.

    While these are moves in the right direction for sustainability, there are benefits from things happening sooner rather than later, given that there’s no quick fix for university finances. Here SFC has a role to play, by helping catalyse activity.

    This is the thinking behind the funding opportunity we launched this week – a new R&I Shared Services Collaboration Fund.

    Getting together

    The fund will allow Scottish universities to apply for funding to develop sustainable models and steps to implement sharing services, including but not limited to sharing tech transfer offices (TTOs) and research offices. It will allow:

    • The consolidation of existing distinct functions by replacing them with a single shared function.
    • Institutions with smaller research portfolios to work with larger institutions to gain access to expertise and capability that they don’t currently have.
    • The creation of shared capacity between groups of institutions where limited functions currently exist but new shared capability would drive efficiencies.

    It will kick-start longer-term collaboration by supporting the initial costs of change, enabling institutions to navigate the difficult proof of concept stage and de-risk the exploration of new approaches in a financially constrained environment.

    Our intention is to precipitate and fund a different way of working, investing in change which will enable the change to carry on.

    A total of £3m will be available over academic years 2025–26 and 2026–27 with grants of between £250,000 and £750,000 on offer through open competition. Grants will help to promote system sustainability by supporting increased inter-institutional operational collaboration.

    As well as promoting financial viability, where grants are focused on the sharing of technology transfer office (TTO) services, the fund will increase Scotland’s research commercialisation pipeline by expanding access to key facilities across institutions.

    This provides an opportunity to further Scottish government innovation ambitions as outlined in the National Innovation Strategy. University research commercialisation is central to the strategy and ensuring that world-leading research from across all of Scotland’s universities can be successfully commercialised requires access to critical expertise. The UK government’s spin-out review, published in November 2023, also highlights the value of shared technology transfer expertise across universities.

    And it’s not necessarily just about sharing research offices and TTOs – we’re interested in other proposals for sharing R&I services which meet our criteria.

    Small but mighty

    We’re under no illusions that the R&I Shared Services Collaboration Fund will solve or even make a significant dent in the financial challenges currently being faced by universities. No, doing that will require multi-factored activity across many stakeholders.

    But we hope that this funding will go some way to promoting sustainability and making Scotland’s small but mighty research system function in a way that reflects the opportunities of scale and collaboration we have on our doorstep.

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  • How do you get from skills planning to effective learning provision?

    How do you get from skills planning to effective learning provision?

    For countries, regions and organisations across the UK and globally linking learning and skills has been a perennial problem. Employers and governments talk about skills gaps and shortages and look to education and skills providers to plug them. If it were that simple, gaps would be plugged already – so what gets in the way? And how might we create the conditions to overcome challenges and build a system that works?

    Through the Regional Tertiary Pathfinders programme the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) worked alongside enterprise and skills partners and colleges and universities to take a “learning by doing” approach to finding out how Scotland’s tertiary education and skills system can be made more responsive, more integrated, and better able to support regional economies.

    Seven pilot projects operating in the North East and South of Scotland helped us do just that, providing a real-world opportunity to learn from their work to deliver quick improvements. We are grateful to all the people in colleges, universities and regional organisations that have been involved along the way.

    The projects are delivering changes in their curriculum, course offer and marketing materials which will have positive impacts for learners, improving the information on which they base their choices, smoothing and supporting learner journeys and pathways, and enabling them to progress into key areas of employment in the region or beyond.

    Working regionally and as part of the programme, the education partners involved – three colleges, three universities and a tertiary institution – have been able to test how best to deliver ‘“next level” collaboration and together determine how best to achieve a shared local understanding of issues and needs.

    The programme has also enabled us to test what collaboration across the two halves of tertiary provision might look like. Too often people think tertiary means merging colleges and universities – it might, but there are other models. We’ve been able to see new forms of shared governance develop, pursuing a greater emphasis on a systems approach which moves to lower, blur or remove some institutional boundaries.

    Learning from experience

    As one of the Pathfinder participants told us: “Defining what is different about the approach is important, it’s not just a talking shop; it’s about getting things done and meeting the needs of our young people and industry and for the region.”

    The programme has been rich and multidimensional, providing insights at a project, regional and system level. I can only provide a flavour of the learning here with much more specific and practical learning contained in the reports, videos and other resources published on the Scottish Funding Council’s website.

    At a programme and system level the factors for success have been:

    Creating the right conditions for collaboration. It is important to have the right governance structures to facilitate effective collaboration with clear roles and responsibilities for development and delivery. It is also crucial that senior leaders provide the authorising environment for the work and are seen to be actively involved and supportive.

    Working together differently. This was made possible by focusing on joint curriculum development, shared resources, and regional agreement on shared priorities. It enabled institutions to collaborate to create more effective learner pathways, courses and information products. Examples from the programme demonstrate how deeper, sustained partnerships between colleges, universities, and employers contributed to more dynamic and responsive education models, providing benefits to both learners and the regional economy.

    Different models of collaboration. Formal institutional agreements emerged and provided long-term stability, while informal partnerships allowed for flexibility and adaptability in responding to emerging regional demands – and both provided opportunities for collaborations to grow and deepen into new curriculum areas.

    Skills planning partnerships operating to influence the successful development of learning provision. It is vital that there is a clear and coherent approach to accountability so there is clarity about the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders within existing regional and local partnership planning fora in developing and delivering regional skills priorities and associated provision.

    Improving communication channels and formalising responsibilities ensures all partners understand their contributions to skills planning, enabling more effective alignment between educational pathways and regional economic needs. To enable more cohesive skills planning across sectors and partnerships, educational institutions should be empowered to lead skills responses – effectively using their brokering role to plan across multiple local authority areas and partnerships within a region.

    Supporting long term success

    Spreading and sustaining impact will be important as we move from programme to business as usual. Some key features which support both project and longer-term success include:

    Inter-regional collaboration: A consistent feature across all projects was the collaboration between institutions in different localities, aligning their programmes and resources to serve the broader region. This approach has not only reduced duplication but also created more cohesive learning pathways. Expanding this model to other sectors and regions offers the potential to improve coordination, ensuring consistent and accessible educational opportunities across local authorities.

    Recognising the role of the project co-ordinator: The project co-ordinator played a critical role in ensuring project success by facilitating collaboration, engaging the right stakeholders, and maintaining continuous progress. The success of this role demonstrates its potential to be scaled and adapted for use in other projects, ensuring smooth facilitation of partnerships and sustained momentum in multi-institutional collaborations.

    Data sharing and collaborative analysis: Several projects benefited from data-sharing agreements that allowed institutions to analyse application and enrolment data together. Shared analysis helped align recruitment strategies, improve learner outcomes, and enhance marketing efforts. The model of using shared data to drive collaborative insights and decision-making can be scaled to other institutions, sectors, or regions, offering a framework for improving alignment between educational programmes and market needs.

    Cross-institutional dialogue at multiple levels: A key feature of projects was regular dialogue between senior leaders, heads of departments, and professional service teams (including recruitment, admissions, and marketing). This dialogue enhanced collaboration at multiple levels, ensuring that institutions were aligned in their goals and activities. The multi-level dialogue model can be adopted by other institutions aiming to build closer working relationships across departments and leadership levels.

    Sustaining collaboration

    My list for enduring skills partnerships includes:

    • Developing a shared understanding of how to work together within the learning, skills and economy regional planning structures.
    • Avoiding over-reliance on individual relationships, which can be put at risk due to staff turnover. Take a systems-based approach instead – there is a role for the Scottish Government and SFC in creating the conditions for the system to work effectively.
    • Recognising there is an institutional cost associated with co-ordination and appropriately resource the partnership element of the work.
    • Having a dual focus on doing things together and maintaining the relationships that underpin joint delivery.
    • Obtaining meaningful buy-in from leaders at all levels, to enable and encourage staff to take the time required to build relationships and explore opportunities for deeper collaboration.
    • Discussing and agreeing attitude to risk – how open are partners to exploring and testing innovative solutions?
    • Including regular review points (as built into the Pathfinders programme) where partners step back and review, reflect and adapt together.
    • Facilitating better liaison with employers. For example, encourage more industry engagement in curriculum for a wider range of work-based learning opportunities.
    • Improving data sharing, e.g. Create central data sharing agreements to reduce institutional burdens, and have overarching tracking data for all.
    • Continuing to ask the questions:
      1. How far will our proposals meet learner, employer and societal needs?
      2. To what extent will they enable us to cope with increasingly tightening budget settlements?

    A project lead told us: “What makes the approach successful is being really clear about what we’re trying to achieve; using action plans for delivery means people own the actions and the outcomes; they can see that the outcomes will make a real difference to learners, college staff, employers and employees and make life easier for business providers in the region.”

    We want colleges and universities across Scotland to be inspired by what we’ve learnt through this programme and to use the Pathfinders resources to see what is possible. I hope the lessons learned (things to do, and things to avoid!) can be used to roll out a new approach more widely. The Pathfinders are an example of policy making as bottom-up, action-based research.

    The full suite of Pathfinders reports is now available Regional Tertiary Pathfinders – Scottish Funding Council.

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