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Designing together: what co-creation teaches us about human-centred innovation in higher education

By Bo Kelestyn

Lessons from working and publishing with students

In higher education (HE), we often ask students for feedback after the most important decisions have already been made. We ask whether a module worked, whether an event was useful, whether a policy was clear, or whether an initiative landed well. These questions matter. But they also reveal a limitation: students are often invited to evaluate their experience largely designed by others.

Co-creation begins from a different premise. It asks what might happen if students were involved earlier, not only as respondents or representatives, but as people capable of framing problems, imagining alternatives and producing knowledge about HE itself.

Through my work on Designing Together, a student-staff co-creation initiative focused on human-centred educational innovation, I have come to see co-creation not simply as a method for improving student experience, but as a practice of belonging, agency and shared authorship. When students help design, test, refine and communicate ideas, they are not only contributing to better educational provision. They are also experiencing what it means to be taken seriously as members of a learning community.

This matters because belonging is often treated as an outcome: something to be measured, improved or delivered through institutional interventions. But co-creation has taught me that belonging can also happen in the process itself. It can happen in a workshop, around a shared table, in a Padlet comment or Vevox word cloud, in an informal conversation, or in the moment when a student sees their idea shaping a project, publication or decision. Belonging is not only something universities design for students. It is something students and staff can shape together.

Four lessons have stayed with me.

1. Genuinely listen and “keep the door open”

Listening sounds simple, but in practice it requires intentional design. It is not enough to invite students into a room once, ask what they think, and consider the work done. Students need multiple ways to contribute, including ways that are informal, low-pressure and ongoing.

As a Director of Student Experience, I used Padlets and shared Teams spaces that allowed students to offer informal feedback, add ideas asynchronously and build on one another’s thoughts. This is a contrast to the often preferred surveys that make responses invisible once you click ‘submit’. I created a ‘Heard it on the Grapevine’ Padlet, for example, where students could post things they heard from other students and ‘fact check’ information about the programme, marks or policies before they become toxic rumours. As a Course Director, I set up small funds for student-led projects, signalling that ideas could move beyond discussion into action. As a lecturer, I carve out 10-15 minutes of ‘corridor time’ after teaching for informal conversations, creating space for trust, humour, uncertainty and relationship-building, all the things that rarely fit neatly into a student-staff liaison committee agenda, but often make meaningful collaboration possible.

Keeping the door open is important because students do not always know what they want to say at the exact moment we ask them. They may need time to reflect. They may want to see whether staff are genuinely listening before they speak candidly. They may have ideas that emerge only after a workshop, a conversation with peers, or an experience elsewhere in the university. Not to mention a whole spectrum of cultural differences, neurodiversity needs, and life circumstances that shape this too.  

A human-centred approach to co-creation recognises this. It treats listening not as an event, but as an infrastructure: a set of habits, spaces and relationships that make it easier for students to keep contributing.

2. Think joyful and win-win

Co-creation should be serious in purpose, but it does not need to feel heavy. Some of my most generative student-staff work happened when the atmosphere was creative, welcoming and energising. Small details like music, colour, and good food matter. Using pens, cards, prompts and materials that invite people to think with their hands as well as their heads. Or designing activities that feel purposeful (intentionally low tech) but also enjoyable. And, importantly, choices that show we have paid attention. “Pizza for students” has become almost a shorthand for engagement, but it is worth asking students what would actually make a session feel welcoming. The answer may be different from what we assume. In one of the student-led projects, for example, we got crepes and bubble tea, instead of pizza and Coke, and University-branded teddies instead of the usual Amazon/Love2Shop vouchers. This fundamentally reshaped that student-staff dialogue.

Joy is not a superficial add-on. It changes the quality of participation. When students feel relaxed, curious and valued, they are more likely to take creative risks. They are more likely to move beyond complaint into possibility. They are more likely to feel that they have not just given something to the institution but taken something away for themselves.

This is why co-creation should be win-win. Students should leave with more than the feeling of having been consulted. They should develop confidence, language, networks and skills. Applying design thinking to co-creation helps to boost problem-solving, collaboration, communication, teamwork skills, and even sustainability competencies. Staff should also learn, not only about student experience, but also about their own assumptions and biases. Good co-creation is mutually developmental. It creates value for the project, for the students, for staff and for the wider learning community.

3. Asking “what do you need?” is not enough

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that simply asking students what they need, although an important question, does not always produce the most inclusive or imaginative outcomes. The same goes for staff. This is not because we do not know our own experiences. We do. But direct questions can put people on the spot. They can privilege those who are already confident, articulate or familiar with institutional language. They can also lead to familiar answers, repeated frustrations, or what can feel like a “moan fest”. Not because we like being negative, but because the format invites critique without necessarily creating the conditions for reimagining.

Human-centred design-led co-creation is powerful because it changes the nature of the conversation. Rather than asking students to arrive with fully formed solutions, it creates a process through which ideas can emerge. Design thinking and facilitation tools such as scenarios, mapping activities and prototyping exercises help us move from experience to insight, and then from insight to possibility. They also make participation more inclusive: no one has to have the perfect answer immediately, and ideas can be built collectively.

This is where co-creation becomes more than consultation. It allows students and staff to reframe the problem together. What I have observed is that sometimes what first appears to be a request for more information is actually a need for belonging. I learnt this from the work of Professor Radka Newton, who often cites Disney’s ‘What time is the 3 o’clock parade?’ thinking. Sometimes what sounds like a complaint about communication is really about trust. Sometimes the most useful idea appears halfway through an activity, sparked by someone else’s comment, a visual prompt or a moment of shared recognition.

Human-centred innovation depends on this kind of emergence. It does not assume that the problem is already known. It creates the conditions for better questions to surface.

4. Close the feedback loop. Then open it again

One of the quickest ways to damage trust in student-staff partnership is to ask for input and then disappear. Students need to know what happened next. What was changed? What was not changed? Why? What is still being explored? Where did their contributions go?

Closing the feedback loop is a known challenge, but we should not hide from it because it communicates mattering and respect. It shows that student labour has been recognised. It also helps students understand the complexity of institutional change: the constraints, trade-offs and timescales that are often invisible from the outside.

But co-creation should not be imagined as a neat linear process: ask-listen-act-report back-finish. It is better understood as a cycle. Communicate, share, update and ask again. Return to students with prototypes, drafts, early findings or emerging decisions. Invite them to challenge what has been interpreted from their contributions. Make visible where their ideas have shaped the work.

I find this cyclical approach is especially important when working and publishing with students. Authorship is not just about whose name appears on a paper or blog. It is about how ideas are generated, developed, represented and credited. Writing and publishing with students requires explicit conversations about roles, expectations, confidence, time and recognition. It also requires care. Academic writing can be unfamiliar and intimidating, but it can also be a powerful site of belonging when students see that their experiences and interpretations are part of knowledge production.

In this sense, co-creation is not only a way of designing better educational initiatives. It is a way of changing the relationships through which HE understands itself. For me, the central lesson in projects like Designing Together is that students do not only belong in the university as learners, consumers or sources of feedback. They belong as thinkers, makers, collaborators and authors. When we create the conditions for genuine co-creation, we invite students to help shape the educational futures they are part of. If we believe those futures are to serve our students, we should be designing with, not for or to.

From the work of Susie Wise, we know that invitation is a moment of belonging and must be designed with care. It needs open doors, joyful spaces, inclusive methods and honest feedback loops. It needs staff who are willing to listen without defensiveness, share power without abandoning responsibility, and treat student insight as knowledge rather than anecdote, or worse, “a storm in a teacup”.

Co-creation will not solve every challenge in HE. But it can help us practise a more human-centred form of innovation: one rooted in relationship, imagination and shared purpose. Perhaps its greatest promise is not simply that it helps students feel they belong. It is that it invites us all to help make our universities places worth belonging to.

Dr Bo Kelestyn PFHEA FEEUK is an Associate Professor at Warwick Business School, where she teaches and researches at the intersection of design thinking, education, and digital innovation. 


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Private international foundation courses, and what they say about university leadership

by Morten Hansen

My research on the history of private international pathway providers and their public alternatives shows how some universities have stopped believing in themselves. Reversing this trend requires investment in their capabilities and leadership.

The idea that universities have stopped believing in themselves as institutions that can take on the challenges of the day and find solutions that are better than those developed by private rivals echoes a point recently revived by Mariana Mazzucato. Mazzucato explains how private firms often are portrayed like lions. Bold animals that make things happen. The public sector and third-sector organisations, on the contrary, are too often seen as gerbils. Timid animals that are no good at developing new and innovative solutions.

Skilled salesmen convinced some universities that private companies are better than universities at teaching and recruiting for university preparatory programmes. The inbuilt premise of this pitch is that universities are gerbils and private providers are lions. One university staff member explained what it felt like meeting such salesmen:

“The thing that sticks most in my mind is the dress. And how these people sat differently, looked differently, spoke differently, and we felt parochial. We felt like a bunch of country bumpkins against some big suits.” (University staff)

The lion-gerbil pitch worked in institutions across England because universities were stifled by three interlocking practices of inaction: outsourcing capability development; taking ambiguous stands on international tuition fees; and refusing to cooperate with other universities.

Outsourcing capability

Universities are increasingly outsourcing core aspects of their operations, such as recruiting international students. While university leadership is often characterised as conservative, my research suggest that this trope misses something critical about contemporary university leadership in English higher education. The problem with the term ‘conservative’ is that it implies that leadership is risk-averse, and comfortable projecting past power structures, practices and norms into the future. This does not correspond to historical developments and practices in the sector for international pathways.

The University of Exeter, for example, submitted incorporation documents for their limited liability partnership with INTO University Partnerships only six years after the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000 was passed, which marked the first time in England’s history that this legal setup was possible. They took a big leap of faith in the private sector’s ability to recruit students for them, and after doing so invested time and resources helping INTO to further develop its capability. They even invited them onto their campuses. It is hard to overstate how much these actions diverged from historical practice and thus ‘conservative’ leadership.

What was once a highly unusual thing to do, has over the last two decades thoroughly normalised—to the extent that partnering with pathways now seems unavoidable. One respondent from the private sector explained this change in the following way:

“In 2006, ‘07, ‘08, ‘09, ‘10, the pathway providers were, if you like, the unwelcome tenants in the stately home of the university. We had to be suffered because we did something for them. Now, the relationship has totally moved. It’s almost as if they roll out the red carpet for the pathway providers” (C-suite)

The far more conservative strategy would have been to lean into the university’s core capabilities – teaching and admissions – and scale this up over time. Yet that is precisely what my respondents said ‘conservative’ university leaders were unwilling to do: they did not believe the university could manage overseas recruitment by themselves. As argued by former Warwick VC Nigel Thrift, this timidity is not unique to the recruitment of international students, but also extends to their engagement with government agencies. University management by and large “has done as it has been told. It hasn’t exactly rolled over and played dead, but sometimes it can feel as though it is dangerously close to Stockholm Syndrome” (Thrift, 2025, p3).

Ambiguous stands on international fees have deepened the current crises

There is no law in England that compels universities to charge high international students fees. By setting them as high as possible and rapidly increasing the intake of international students, universities de facto offset and thus obfuscated the havoc that changing funding regimes wreaked on university finances. This has contributed to what Kings’ Vice Chancellor Shitij Kapur calls the ‘triangle of sadness’ between domestic students, universities, and the government.

Had universities chosen to stand in solidarity with their international students by aligning their fees more closely to the fees of home students, then the subsequent crises in funding would have forced universities to either spend less money, or make it clearer to the wider public that more funding was needed, before building up the dependencies and subsequent vulnerabilities to intake fluctuations that are currently on full display. These vulnerabilities were exacerbated by overoptimistic growth plans, and university leadership not always fully understanding the added costs that came with such growth. In an example of this delayed realisation, one Pro-Vice-Chancellor explained to me what it felt like to partner with a private foundation pathway:

“At the time you are signing up for these things, there is euphoria around because they are going to deliver against this business plan, which is showing hundreds of students coming in. International student is very buoyant, you sign up for a 35-year deal. So, everything is rosy. If you then just take a step back and think ‘so what am I exposing the university to?’  …  because in year seven, eight, ten, fifteen whatever, it can all go pear-shaped, and you are left then with the legacy building.” (Pro-Vice-Chancellor)

By seeing fee setting as a practice, that is, something universities do to their own students rather than something that is inflicted by external (market or government) powers, we make visible its ideological nature and implications. The longer history of international fees in Brittan was thus an important site of ideological co-option; it was a critical juncture at which universities could have related in a more solidaric manner towards their students.

Unwillingness to cooperate on increased student acquisition costs

You might, at this stage, be wondering: what was the alternative? The answer is in recognising the structure of the market for what it is: efficiently recruiting and training a large number of international students requires some degree of cooperation between universities. My research, however, suggests that universities have often been unwilling to cooperate because they see each other chiefly as competitors. This competition is highly unequal given the advantage conferred to prestigious universities located in internationally well-known cities.

The irony is that many universities nevertheless end up – perhaps unwittingly – cooperating by partnering with one of the few private companies that offer international foundation programmes. These private providers can only reach economies of scale because they partner with multiple universities at the same time. One executive explains how carrying a portfolio of universities for agents to offer their clients is precisely what gives them a competitive advantage:

“The importance of the pathways to the agents is that they carry a portfolio of universities, and the ambition is that you have some which are very well-ranked and academically quite difficult to get into. And, you try and have a bottom-feeder or two, which is relatively easy to get into academically. The agent is then able to talk to its clients and say, look, I can get offers into these universities. Some of them are at the very top. If you are not good enough there, then you might get one in the middle and I’ve always got my insurance offer for you. […] what the pathways do is that they provide a portfolio that makes that easier.” (Private Executive)

A public consortium with pooled resources and that isn’t shy about strategically coordinating student flows would have functioned just as well, and the Northern Consortium is living proof of this. The consortium in fact inspired Study Group to get into the pathway business themselves. The limited growth of the Consortium, relative to its private rivals, is equally proof of missed chances and wasted opportunities.

Could the gerbil eat the lion?

Private providers can use and have used these practices of inaction to pit universities against each other, over time resulting in lower entry requirements and higher recruitment costs. In this climate, public alternatives such as in-house programmes struggle to survive. Once invited in, pathway companies are also well positioned to expand their business with their partner universities in other ways, deepening their dependence. As one senior executive told me:

“Our aspiration is to say that the heart of what we are is a good partner to universities. They trust us. […] for some of our core partners, we bring in a lot of revenue. And, that then puts us in a really good position to think about the other services that we can add of value.” (Private Executive)

The economic downside of relying on these ‘good’ partners is the expensive and volatile market dynamics that follow. As long as universities are trapped by the notion that they are chiefly competitors best served by outsourcing capabilities to sales-oriented firms and leaving international students to pick up the bill, there is limited hope for any genuine inter-university collaboration and innovation. This limits the public potential for scaling an economically viable and resilient market in the long-run.  As a sector, HE has the know-how, experience, capital, and repute to do this. It’s just about getting on with it!

Morten Hansen is a Lecturer in Digital Economy and Innovation Education at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London.


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Why doesn’t higher education make a difference?

by Amir Shahsavari and Mohammad Eslahi

This blog is based on research reported in Shahsavari, A, & Eslahi, M (2025) ‘Dynamics of Imbalanced Higher Education Development: Analysing Factors and Policy Implications’ in Policy Reviews in Higher Education.

Our study addresses the paradox of expanding higher education, particularly in Iran, failing to translate into substantial societal impact. We adopted an interpretive research paradigm to explore participants’ experiences and perspectives, emphasising qualitative inquiry. Specifically, we applied a basic qualitative research approach, focusing on thematic data analysis to understand underlying meanings and patterns. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 23 professionals from Iran’s higher education system, including executive experts and academic scholars. The data was analysed using qualitative theme analysis with the thematic network approach. It highlights the interplay of internal and external factors driving this imbalance and offers practical recommendations for policymakers and university administrators. The study identifies multiple external and internal factors contributing to the imbalanced development of Iranian higher education.

External Factors:

  1. Conflicting Political Discourse: Political divisions create inconsistent policy directions that hinder higher education reform. The resulting instability restricts universities from pursuing coherent strategies for social development.
  2. Deficient Decision-Making Structures: Inefficient policy frameworks restrict universities’ ability to align with national development goals. This limits their capacity to engage in long-term planning, research commercialization, and innovation.
  3. Lack of Social and Cultural Cohesion: Weak societal integration reduces higher education’s ability to contribute to social progress. Universities struggle to connect their knowledge outputs to broader societal needs without a shared cultural framework.
  4. Low Demand for Science and Technology in the Economy: Limited integration of scientific advancements into economic sectors hinders universities’ relevance. Weak industry-university linkages prevent research outcomes from driving innovation and economic growth.
  5. International Sanctions: Economic constraints and restricted access to global knowledge networks impede higher education progress. This isolation limits opportunities for research collaboration, technological exchange, and funding access.

Internal Factors:

  1. Limited Engagement with National and Local Ecosystem Needs: Universities lack meaningful interaction with regional industries and communities. This disconnect limits their ability to address localized development challenges.
  2. Insufficient Attention to Territorial Advantages in Development Planning: Universities often fail to leverage local strengths and opportunities, weakening their contribution to regional economic development.
  3. Weak Endogenous Creativity: Overreliance on Western educational models stifles innovative academic approaches. As a result, Iranian universities struggle to develop unique solutions suited to local challenges.
  4. Promotion of Emigration: University environments inadvertently encourage student and faculty migration, reducing local impact. This trend diminishes the human capital available to drive national innovation.

This study contributes new insights by highlighting the interplay between external political pressures and internal university strategies. While previous studies have emphasized government interventions and economic constraints, this research reveals the disruptive effects of conflicting political ideologies and weak social cohesion. Additionally, the study expands on the “quadruple helix” model by illustrating the absence of place-based leadership and strategies as critical gaps in Iranian higher education. The study also introduces a framework for integrating participatory governance models into university decision-making processes, enhancing institutions’ responsiveness to societal needs. The study emphasizes three key strategies for improving higher education’s societal impact:

  1. Promoting National Dialogues via Universities: Encouraging open dialogue among academic leaders and policymakers can bridge ideological divides, fostering consensus on long-term educational goals. This step is vital to mitigate political interference and improve strategic planning for university development. Higher education can contribute to national stability and long-term planning by positioning universities as mediators in political debates.
  2. Increasing Science and Technology Demand: Policymakers should enhance economic incentives for scientific research integration. Encouraging industrial partnerships and market-driven research will amplify universities’ role in economic growth. By creating a more dynamic innovation ecosystem, universities can expand their influence on industry practices and economic modernization.
  3. Developing Science and Technology Diplomacy: Expanding diplomatic ties to bypass sanctions can enhance Iranian universities’ access to global scientific collaboration, fostering innovation and knowledge exchange. Such efforts include developing partnerships with international research centers and increasing participation in global academic networks.

The study to address internal factors recommends:

  • Expanding participatory teaching models, such as service learning, to connect universities with community development. These models empower students to engage with social challenges directly, enhancing their sense of responsibility and practical skills.
  • Aligning government support for universities based on regional strengths, promoting competition, and enhancing educational quality. By linking funding models to regional priorities, universities can better tailor their strategies to local economic and social needs.
  • Supporting creative teaching and research initiatives to foster academic innovation. This includes incentivising faculty to develop unconventional teaching methods and interdisciplinary research projects.
  • Encouraging initiatives that promote national pride and social responsibility among students and faculty, mitigating emigration trends. Universities can strengthen students’ connection to local development through values-based education and encourage talent retention.

The study highlights a critical limitation: its participants were drawn solely from the supply side of the science and technology ecosystem (university faculty and administrators). Future research should include stakeholders from the demand side, such as industry leaders, policymakers, and civil society representatives, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of higher education’s role in societal development. Exploring the interplay between social values, economic incentives, and political frameworks would provide deeper insights into higher education’s transformative potential.

This research underscores the need for a holistic approach to higher education reform. By addressing internal and external challenges, policymakers can create an educational landscape promoting social, economic, and political progress. Universities must evolve beyond expanding access to higher education and focus on fostering creativity, engagement, and accountability to enhance their contributions to society. Developing partnerships with industry, embracing participatory governance, and promoting inclusive dialogues will empower universities to become key drivers of social and economic transformation.

Amir Shahsavari is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. His academic interests lie in higher education policy, academic management and planning, and teaching and learning, mainly focusing on higher education studies in Iran. Drawing on his research, he seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing Iranian universities to inform policy and improve educational practices. am_shahsavari@sbu.ac.ir

Mohammad Eslahi holds a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Tehran, Iran, specializing in Educational Administration and Planning. His research interests focus on the economics of higher education and the economics of university research. He is a lecturer and research assistant at the University of Tehran, actively contributing to teaching and scholarly endeavors in these fields. Eslahi.mohammad@ut.ac.ir


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Surviving and thriving in HE professional services

by GR Evans

This blog was first published in the Oxford Magazine No 475 (Eighth Week, Hilary term, 2025) and is reproduced here with permission of the author and the editor.

Rachel Reeds’ short but comprehensive book, Surviving and Thriving in Higher Education Professional Services: a guide to success (Routledge, 2025), is both an instruction manual for the ‘professionals’ it was written for and an illuminating account of what they do for the academics and students who benefit. However, Reeds is frank about what is sometimes described as ‘trench warfare’, a ‘tension’ between academics and ‘everyone else’, including differences of ‘perceived status’ among the staff of  ‘higher education providers’.

Her chapters begin with a survey of the organisation of ‘UK higher education today’. Then comes a description of  ‘job or career’ in ‘professional services’ followed by a chapter on how to get such a post. Chapter 4 advises the new recruit about ‘making a visible impact’ and Chapter 5 considers ‘managing people and teams’. The widespread enthusiasm of providers for ‘change’ and ‘innovation’ prompts the discussion in Chapter 6.

Reeds defines ‘Professional Services’ as replacing and embracing ‘terms such as administrators, non-academic staff or support staff’. In some providers there are not two but three categories, with ‘professional services’ sometimes described as ‘academic-related’ and other non-academics as ‘assistant’ staff. Some academics are responsible for both teaching and research but there may also be research-only staff, usually on fixed-term externally-funded contracts, which may be classified on the sameside of the ‘trench’ as academics. The ‘umbrella carriers’ of ‘middle management’ and ‘dealing with difficult things’ provide matter for Chapter 7. In Chapter 8 and the conclusion there is encouragement to see the task in broader terms and to share ‘knowledge’ gained. Each chapter ends with suggestions for further reading under the heading ‘digging deeper’.

The scope of the needs to be met is now very wide. Government-defined ‘Levels’ of higher education include Levels 4 and 5, placing degrees at Level 6, with postgraduate Masters at 7 and doctorates at 8. The Higher Education and Research Act of 2017 therefore includes what is now a considerable range of ‘higher education providers’ in England, traditional Universities among them, but also hundreds of ‘alternative providers’. Some of these deliver higher education in partnership with other providers which have their own degree-awarding powers, relying on them to provide their students with degrees. These all need ‘professional services’ to support them in their primary tasks of teaching and, in many cases, also research.

Providers of higher education need two kinds of staff: to deliver education and research and others to provide support for them. That was noticed in the original drafting of the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992 s.65, 2 (b) which approved the use of (the then significant) ‘block grant’ public funding for:

the provision of any facilities, and the carrying on of any other activities, by higher education institutions in their area which the governing bodies of those institutions consider it necessary or desirable to provide or carry on for the purpose of or in connection with education or research.

In what sense do those offering such ‘services’ constitute a Profession? The Professional Qualifications Act of 2022, awaiting consideration of amendments and royal approval, is primarily concerned with licence to practise and the arrangements for the acceptance of international qualifications. It is designed to set out a framework ‘whereby professional statutory regulatory bodies (PSRBs) can determine the necessary knowledge and experience requirements to work in a regulated profession (for example nursing or architecture)’. It will permit ’different approaches to undertaking’ any ‘regulatory activity’ so as ‘to ensure professional standards’This is not stated to include any body recognising members of the Professional Services of higher education.  Nor does the Government’s own approved list of regulated professions.

The modern Professional Services came into existence in a recognisable form only in the last few decades.The need for support for the work of the ‘scholars’ got limited recognition in the early universities. When Oxford and Cambridge formed themselves as corporations at the beginning of the thirteenth century they provided themselves with Chancellors, who had a judicial function, and Proctors (Procuratores) to ensure that the corporation stayed on the right side of the law. The office of Registrar (Oxford) and Registrary (Cambridge) was added from the fifteenth sixteenth century to keep the records of the University such as its lists and accounts.

The needs to be met expanded towards the end of the nineteenth century. Oxford’s Registrar had a staff of five in 1914. The Oxford and Cambridge Universities Commission which framed the Act of 1923 recommended that the Registrar’s role be developed. The staff of Oxford’s Registrar numbered eight in 1930 and forty in 1958. By 2016 the Registrar was manager to half the University’s staff.

The multiplication of universities from the 1890s continued with a new cluster in the 1960s,  each with its own body of staff supporting the academics. A body of University Academic Administrative Staff created in 1961 became the Conference of University Administrators in 1993. The  resulting Association of University Administrators (AUA) became the  Association of Higher Education Professionals (AHEP) in 2023. CUA traced its history back to the Meeting of University Academic Administrative Staff, founded in 1961. Its golden jubilees was celebrated in 2011 in response to the changing UK higher education sector. It adopted the current name in 2023.

This reflects the development of categories of such support staff not all of whom are classified as ‘Professional’.  A distinction is now common between ‘assistant staff’ and the ‘professionals’, often described as ’academic-related’ and enjoying a comparable status with the ‘academic’.

The question of status was sharpened by the creation of a Leadership Foundation in Higher Education (LFHE) in 2004, merged with AdvanceHE in 2018.  This promises those in  Professional Services ‘a vital career trajectory equal to research, teaching and supporting learning’ and, notably, to ‘empower leaders at all levels: from early-career professionals to senior executives’ That implies that executive leadership in a provider will not necessarily lie with its academics. It may also be described as managerial.

Reading University identifies ‘role profiles’ of four kinds: ‘academic and research’; ‘professional and managerial’; support roles which are ‘clerical and technical; ‘ancillary and operational support’. The ‘professional and managerial’ roles are at Grades 6-8. It invites potential recruits into its ‘Professional Services’ as offering career progression at the University. The routes are listed under Leadership and Management Development; ‘coaching and mentoring’ and ‘apprenticeships’. This may open a ‘visible career pathway for professional services staff’ and ‘also form part of succession planning within a team, department or Directorate or School where team members showing potential can be nurtured and developed’.

Traditional universities tend to adopt the terminology of ‘Professional Services’. Durham University, one of the oldest, details its ‘Professional Services’ in information for its students, telling them that they will ‘have access to an extensive, helpful support network’. It lists eleven categories, with ‘health and safety’ specifically stated to provide ‘professional’ advice. York University, one of the group of universities founded during the 1960s, also lists Professional Services. These are ‘overseen by the Chief Financial and Operating Officer’ and variously serving Technology; Estates and Facilities; Human Resources; Research and Enterprise; Planning and Risk; External Relations; student needs etc. The post-1992 Oxford Brookes University also has its Professional Services divided into a number of sections of the University’s work such as ‘academic, research and estates’. Of the alternative providers which have gained ‘university title’ Edge Hill (2006) lists seven ‘administrative staff’, two ‘part-time’, one described as administration ‘co-ordinator’, one as a ‘manager’ and one as a ‘leader’.

Reeds’ study draws on the experience of those working in a wide range of providers, but it does not include an account of the provision developed by  Oxford or Cambridge. Yet the two ancient English Universities have their own centuries-long histories of creating and multiplying administrative roles. The Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge similarly distinguish their ‘academic’ from their other staff. For example St John’s College, Oxford and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge list more than a dozen ‘departments’, each with its own  body of non-academic staff.

In Oxford the distinction between academics and ‘professional’ administrators is somewhat blurred by grading administrators alongside academics at the same levels. Oxford’s Registrar now acts ‘as principal adviser on strategic policy to the Vice-Chancellor and to Council’, and to ‘ensure effective co-ordination of advice from other officers to the Vice-Chancellor, Council, and other university bodies’ (Statute IX, 30-32). Cambridge’s Registrary is ‘to act as the principal administrative officer of the University, and as the head of the University’s administrative staff’ and ‘keep a record of the proceedings of the University, and to attend for that purpose’ all ‘public proceedings of the University’, acting ‘as Secretary to the Council.’

The record-keeping responsibility continues, including ‘maintaining a register of members of the University’, and ‘keeping records of matriculations and class-lists, and of degrees, diplomas, and other qualifications’. The Registrary must also edit the Statutes and Ordinances and the Cambridge University Reporter (Statute C, VI). The multiplication of the Registrary’s tasks now requires a body offering ‘professional’ services. ‘There shall be under the direction of the Council administrative officers in categories determined by Special Ordinance’ (Statute c, VI).

Oxford and Cambridge each created a ‘UAS’ in the 1990s. Both are now engaged in ‘Reimagining Professional Services’. Oxford’s UAS (‘University Administration and Services’, also known as ‘Professional Services and University Administration’) is divided into sections, most of them headed by the Registrar. These are variously called ‘departments’, ‘directorates’, ‘divisions’, ‘services’ and ‘offices’ and may have sub-sections of their own. For example ‘People’  includes Childcare; Equality and Diversity; Occupational Health; Safety; ‘Organisational Development’; ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘international Development’, each with its own group of postholders. This means that between the academic and ‘the traditional student support-based professional services’ now fall a variety of other tasks some leading to other professional qualifications, for example from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Chartered Management Institute or in librarianship and technology.

Cambridge’s UAS (Unified Administrative Service), headed by its Registrary and now similarly extensive and wide-ranging, had a controversial beginning. Its UAS was set up in 1996 bringing together the Financial Board, the General Board, and the Registry. Its intended status and that of its proposed members proved controversial. Although it was described as ‘professional’, the remarks made when it was proposed in a Report included the expression of concerns that this threatened the certainty that the University was ‘academic led’. This prompted a stock-taking Notice published on 20 June 2001 to provide assurance that ‘the management of the University’s activities, which is already largely in the hands of academic staff, must also continue to be academic-led’ and that the ‘role of the administration is to support, not to manage, the delivery of high-quality teaching and research’.  But it was urged that the UAS needed ‘further development both in terms of resourcing and of organization’. The opportunity was taken to emphasise the ‘professionalism’ of the service.

With the expansion of Professional Services has gone a shift from an assumption that this forms a ‘Civil Service’ role to its definition as ‘administrative’ or ‘managerial’. ‘Serving’ of the academic community may now allow a degree of control. Reeds suggests that ‘management’ is a ‘role’ while ‘leadership’ is a ‘concept’, leaving for further consideration whether those in Professional Services should exercise the institutional leadership which is now offered for approval.

In Cambridge the Council has been discussing ways in which, and with whom, this might be taken forward. On 3 June 2024 its Minutes show that it ‘discussed the idea of an academic leaders’ programme to help with succession planning by building a strong pool of candidates for leadership positions within the University’. It continued the discussion at its July meeting and agreed a plan which was published in a Notice in the Reporter on 31 July:

to create up to six new paid part-time fellowships each year for emerging academic leaders at the University, sponsored by the Vice-Chancellor. Each fellow would be supported by a PVC or Head of School (as appropriate) and would be responsible for delivering agreed objectives, which could be in the form of project(s).

‘In addition to financial remuneration’, the Fellows would each receive professional coaching, including attendance on the Senior Leadership Programme Level 3. Unresolved challenge has delayed the implementation of this plan so far.

The well-documented evolution and current review of Professional Services in Oxford and Cambridge is not included, but the story of Professional Services told in this well-written and useful book is illustrated with quotations from individuals working in professional services.

SRHE member GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.

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The disruptive idea of the university

by Rob Cuthbert

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

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

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

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

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

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

His sad conclusion was that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert.

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


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New Higher Education Institutions in England: A real chance to innovate?

by Katherine Emms

The 2017 Higher Education and Research Act (HERA) enabled new and innovative HE providers to enter and establish themselves, with the aim of diversifying the HE sector. The HERA reforms enabled institutions to apply to register as HE providers, obtain their own degree awarding powers (DAPs) and finally secure university title and status through a supposedly more streamlined and flexible process overseen by – the then new body – the Office for Students (OfS). At this unique time when many providers have been seizing this opportunity to enter the market, the Edge Foundation wanted to capture the experiences of setting up and developing new HEIs in England. Our subsequent research therefore aimed to explore how vision, pedagogies and approaches to learning are being developed, and what are some of the challenges these HEIs are experiencing in establishing themselves.

To investigate this we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews focusing on six newly established HEIs across England. At the time of the interviews some were in the process of recruiting their first intake of undergraduate students, while others were in their first few years of programme delivery. We spoke to founders, directors, senior leadership team members and those involved in setting up a new university and developing the first programmes. Policymakers were also interviewed.

We found that all the new HEIs set out clear and purposeful visions for their establishment. Many regarded the opportunity as a chance to break the mould of the traditional HE landscape and to help provide solutions to some global issues through preparing students sufficiently for a varied portfolio career in a complex world. Some HEIs were responding to more local needs, whether that be local skills shortages or offering HE opportunities for young people in their locality to help tackle local economic issues and widen participation.

Across many of the institutions’ organisational structures, administrative and academic processes, and physical spaces, they looked to break away from normalised HE structures. For instance, admissions policies and procedures aimed to move away from academic grades as the primary judgement for admitting students. Instead they consider personal attitudes and the potential of the applicant important. They assessed this through use of broader admission measures eg interviews and submission of ‘selfie’ videos. The scalability of such approaches however is uncertain as applications to the new HEIs grow. One of the reasons behind these approaches was to ensure they widened participation to more disadvantaged and diverse groups of students who may struggle to have previously entered HE.

For their staff body, new HEIs wanted to ensure that they recruited not just pure academics but also those with a background in industry. In order to recruit the right staff, they went beyond standard interviewing processes for recruitment, instead using a broader set of methods, such as running a test class. They were particularly looking for engaging and excellent teachers who also have the ethos, creativity and impetus for working in a start-up environment.

All the new HEIs in this research took non-traditional approaches to programme design and delivery, particularly by not relying on lectures and exams to teach students. Instead they wished to use more student-centred approaches to learning and make connections to the real-world through pedagogies such as problem-based learning, whereby students work primarily in teams to tackle issues whilst drawing on knowledge from multiple disciplines. Employers and external partners also are key role players in the design and delivery of these new HEIs, from designing the curriculum to offering real-world and authentic projects for students to work on. Importantly students also interact with these employers whether that be through presenting their ‘product’ from the team projects to the employer or through such interactions as expert lectures or work placements. A disinterest in traditional pedagogies and enthusiasm for external collaboration were understood as key to ensuring the authenticity otherwise suggested to be lacking in some existing HE provision.

Setting up a new HEI was not an easy feat, with participants reporting a number of challenges including funding and attracting new students. One particular challenge was the registration process and navigating the regulatory system. The process from registering as a HE provider to gaining DAPs was often seen as a slow and, for some, complicated process. Furthermore despite the impetus behind the Higher Education and Research Act (2017) endorsing ideas of innovation, new HEIs felt that external factors restricted the degree to which they could truly be ‘innovative’. For instance, the regulatory frameworks that new HEIs had to work within to register as a provider were based on assumptions about the traditional model of a university. One provider described the experience as ‘trying to fit a square peg into a round hole’. Likewise, some new HEIs discussed similar restrictions applying when working in partnership with existing universities, meaning they were restricted within the parameters of their awarding university. In both cases, some new HEIs stated that this led to mission-drift or a watering down of their ‘innovative’ approaches. 

Nevertheless, these new HEIs were ambitious and keen to achieve their visions through wielding and deploying unorthodox means, whether that be reimagining organisational structures and processes or combining pedological practices that would not necessarily be considered innovative by themselves, such as problem-based learning, interdisciplinary teaching and learning and student-centred teaching. But through presenting these practices together or in different combinations and in new contexts HEIs made ambitious attempts to generate different student outcomes.

The HEIs featured in this research were still in the early stages of conception or delivery. It is difficult therefore to judge their success as HEIs. It is yet to be seen whether many of their current practices, such as their innovative and personable approach to recruitment, are manageable when student applications and intake grows, or whether relationships with employers can be sustained and courses kept up to date. For the new HEIs of today, many of them consider the markers of their success will be in their student numbers over the coming years and the success of their graduates once they enter the workplace. Yet, despite the attention of policymakers looking to clamp down on “low-value degrees”, we may need to look beyond graduates’ salaries as a marker of success and instead delve further into learners’ experiences of HE, innovative and otherwise.

Katherine Emms is a Senior Education and Policy Researcher at the Edge Foundation. You can read the research New Higher Education Institutions in England: A real chance to innovate? here.


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Redefining cultures of excellence: A new event exploring models for change in recruiting researchers and setting research agendas

by Rebekah Smith McGloin and Rachel Handforth, Nottingham Trent University

Research excellence’ is a ubiquitous concept to which we are mostly habituated in the UK research ecosystem.  Yet, at the end of an academic year which saw the publication of UKRI EDI Strategy, four UKRI council reviews of their investments in PGR, House of Commons inquiry on Reproducibility and Research Integrity and following on from the development of manifesto, concordat, declaration and standards to support Open Research in recent years, it feels timely to engage in some critical reflection on cultures of excellence in research. 

The notion of ‘excellence’ has become an increasingly important part of the research ecosystem over the last 20 years (OECD, 2014). The drivers for this are traced to the need to justify the investment of public money in research and the increasing competition for scarce resources (Münch, 2015).  University rankings have further hardwired and amplified judgments about degrees of excellence into our collective consciousness (Hazelkorn, 2015).

Jong, Franssen and Pinfield (2021) highlight that the idea of excellence is a ‘boundary object’ (Star and Griesemer, 1989) however. That is, it is a nebulous construct which is poorly defined and is used in many different ways. It has nevertheless shaped policy, funding and assessment activities since the turn of the century. Ideas of excellence have been enacted through the Research Excellence Framework and associated allocation to universities of funding to support research, competitive schemes for grant funding, recruitment to flagship doctoral training partnerships and individual promotion and reward.

We can trace a number of recent initiatives at sector level, inter alia, that have sought to broaden ideas of research excellence and to challenge systemic and structural inequalities in our research ecosystem. These include the increase of impact weighting in REF2021 to 25%, trials of systems of partial randomisation as part of the selection process for some smaller research grants, e.g. British Academy from 2022, the Concordats and Agreements Review work in 2023 to align and increase influence, capacity, and efficiency of activity to support research culture and the recent Research England investment in projects designed to address the broken pipeline into research by increasing participation of people from racialised groups in doctoral education.

At the end of June, we are hosting an event at NTU which will focus on redefining cultures of research excellence through the lens of inclusion. The symposium, to be held at our Clifton Campus on Wednesday 28 June, provides an opportunity to re-examine the broad notion of research excellence, in the context of systemic inequalities that have historically locked out certain types of researchers and research agendas and locked in others.

The event focuses on two mutually-reinforcing areas: the possibility of creating more responsive and inclusive research agendas through co-creation between academics and communities; and broadening pathways into research through the inclusive recruitment of PhD and early career researchers. We take the starting position that approaches which focus on advancing equity are critical to achieving excellence in UK research and innovation.

The day will include keynotes from Dr Bernadine Idowu and Professor Kalwant Bhopal, the launch of a new competency-based PGR recruitment framework, based on sector consultation, and a programme of speakers talking about their approaches to diversifying researcher recruitment and engaging the community in setting research agendas. 

NTU will be showcasing two new projects that are designed to challenge old ideas of research excellence and forge new ways of thinking. EDEPI (Equity in Doctoral Education through Partnership and Innovation Programme) is a partnership with Liverpool John Moores and Sheffield Hallam Universities and NHS Trusts in the three cities. The project will explore how working with the NHS can improve access and participation in doctoral education for racially-minoritised groups. Co(l)laboratory is a project with University of Nottingham, based on the Universities for Nottingham civic agreement with local public-sector organisations. Collab will present early lessons from a community-informed approach to cohort-based doctoral training.

Our event is a great opportunity for universities and other organisations who are, in their own ways, redefining cultures of research excellence to share their approaches, challenges and successes. We invite individuals, project teams and organisations working in these areas to join us at the end of June, with the hope of building a community of practice around building inclusive research cultures, within and across the sector.

Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin is Director of the Doctoral School at Nottingham Trent University and is Principal Investigator on the EDEPI and Co(l)laboratory projects. 

Dr Rachel Handforth is Senior Lecturer in Doctoral Education and Civic Engagement at NTU.


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Pandemic and post-pandemic HE performance in Poland, UK and Ukraine

by Justyna Maciąg,  Mateusz Lewandowski, Tammi Sinha, and Tetiana Prykhodko

This is one of a series of position statements developed following a conference on ‘Building the Post-Pandemic University’, organised on 15 September 2020 by SRHE member Mark Carrigan (Cambridge) and colleagues. The position statements are being posted as blogs by SRHE but can also be found on The Post-Pandemic University’s excellent and ever-expanding website. The original  statement can be found here.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have had to change their delivery and ways of working at incredible speed. The disruptive innovation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is having profound impacts on all stakeholders of HEIs. This study reports on the results of the project which has brought together 3 perspectives from Poland, the United Kingdom and the Ukraine. The purpose was to evaluate and compare the performance of Universities during this period. Performance is understood as assessment of support given by a University to its stakeholders in the following spheres: organisational, technical, technological, competency and social. This study will contribute to better understanding the context of value creation by Universities during the pandemic and post-pandemic period.

We took the perspective of HEI stakeholders into consideration (students, academics and administrative staff). Their opinions and comments were collected by interviews in the form of an online questionnaire with some open questions. We intended to give them a space to share their perspectives, emotions and feelings caused by the lockdown. The questions carried out thematic analysis around the following issues: 1) organisational (planning and communication); 2) technical, (platforms available, teaching methods); 3) technological, (bandwidth, equipment); 4) competency (your own learning and comfort with online learning); 5) social conditions (your environment for study) of higher education experience within the current COVID-19 pandemic and follow up research post-pandemic. The surveys started in the middle of June 2020 and continued till October 2020. Sampling followed the snowball method. Participants were self-selecting with links shared for the online Microsoft forms and Google questionnaires. 

We collected 396 questionnaires, 296 students, 100 university staff and academics (240 in Poland, 133 in Ukraine, 24 in UK). We would like to thank all of our participants for their contribution and candour.

First we would like to start with some qualitative analysis of students and staff responses in the questionnaire. The open questions were used to diagnose their experiences related to measures taken by Universities during lockdown. They were also asked to highlight the most and the least effective  solutions offered. We decided to use an Ishikawa Diagram to analyse the possible causes for their most and least solutions identified. We analysed the factors around the COVI19  problem in order to provide insights and possible solutions for an effective and thriving  ‘post-pandemic University’.

We grouped responses under headings showing below in the Ishikawa Diagram.

Chart 1 Ishikawa Diagram

There are some obvious similarities between these countries and some differences. We draw a conclusion that in each country the situation was similar, the teaching-learning process was transferred into our Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), and staff started remote or hybrid work (both academics and admin staff). The difference was notably the mechanism of this change: in the UK it was deemed more incremental change, in Ukraine and Poland the change was more radical. The proof of this is that in the responses in Poland and Ukraine respondents indicated several solutions which aren’t coordinated and supported by the Universities (i.e. using a social media for teaching-learning process, lack of integration of different e-learning platforms). Whereas in the UK many Universities used VLEs as ‘business as usual’. 

The common themes identified for research in investigated countries were the expectation of support in different areas, not only in a teaching-learning process, but also in equipment (provision, repairs), financial aid, mental sphere, and competence development etc. The findings implied that the expectations of the students and staff support needs were not fully met at this time. Universities were in survival mode and the change management process was lacking in many areas.

Next, we analysed the background given by quantitative analysis of University performance in the technical, competence and organisational sphere (evaluation was carried out using a 5-point Likert scale). The results of research in each country are shown on Chart 2.

Chart 2 Evaluation of the support given by university during lockdown (Poland, Ukraine, UK)

We also investigated the need of support and help provided during the pandemic period studied. The results are presented in Chart 3.

Chart 3 Percentage of respondents who declare that they need support or help

The results of research showed that ‘University’ is mentioned the most, as the expected supporter for students and staff, both academics and administrators. The importance of social support also has appeared in our results. People are looking for assistance among colleagues, thus creating a proper, strong internal social relationship is valuable for them. 

Table 1 The frequently mentioned sources of support

Our key conclusion from this work, at this time, is the importance of support and setting expectations of what support is available in HEIs. We  draw a key finding that the understanding of value delivered by ‘the University’ has to change, and leave behind the neoliberal concept of value for money. We need to expand the understanding of value, taking into account the necessity of tolerance perceived inefficiencies within the university. University staff and students have had to adapt very quickly, and use all of their skills and tenacity to deal with this situation. Creating and co-creating value within universities has always been challenging, however the creativity of staff and students has pulled this sector through it. We have all had to become disruptive innovators.

Justyna Maciąg, PhD,  and Mateusz Lewandowski, PhD, are lecturers and researches in the Institute of Public Affairs at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. 

Tammi Sinha, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Operations and Project Management, Director of the Centre for Climate Action, University of Winchester UK. Tetiana Prykhodko is Head of the Program of Analysis and Research,  City Institute at Lviv, and a PhD student at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine.

Marcia Devlin


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Reconsidering university education. Again

by Marcia Devlin

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to higher education being moved en masse to remote and online learning in a compressed timeline. Limited returns to on campus learning are evident in Australia depending on disease outbreak levels and health advice in local areas, but the bulk of current university learning continues via digital means for now. This shift has challenged universities and educators to think about how best to facilitate digitally-mediated learning. We also have an opportunity to reconsider university education a little more broadly.

The pandemic is occurring in the context of: increasing global political tensions; shifting economic powers; prevailing societal inequalities; significantly changing social norms; and climate change and environmental and ecological damage that puts our very existence as human beings at risk. Higher education is occurring in the same context.

Having a keen eye on the grand challenges and wicked problems of our times, and on our global context is – or should be – central to the purpose of a university and to its core activity of education. We’re probably all too busy and exhausted from the demands of coping with the pandemic to think this through carefully right now but I have begun to wonder whether we should at least try to make a start. Questions in my mind include: Why do universities exist? Do our purposes need to be tweaked or redefined What should we be doing while we wait for things to return to ‘normal’? Do we want things to return to ‘normal’? If not, what are we doing about changing the course of history?

In 2016, Schleicher suggested we needed to prepare graduates for jobs that have not been created, to use technologies not yet invented and to solve new social problems that have not yet arisen. The potency of ideas like these seems to have been heightened as we watch global movements of various kinds take place and we choose which ones to support and which to resist.

The rapid and ongoing development of new knowledge drives our knowledge-based world. Since it is no longer possible to offer students everything they need to know for the future, some innovative educators have conceptualised new pedagogies that leverage modern technologies to engage and interact with current and emerging knowledge. These new pedagogies help students to find, analyse, evaluate and apply what is relevant to them at the time and for the task or question at hand. These
new ways of educating have at their core an increased sharing of power between educator and student. Methods and approaches deployed include discussion groups, peer assessments, using social media and feedback opportunities including students supporting students. Not a lecture in sight. Or if so, it’s pre-recorded and offered as optional background digital material.

These future-focused pedagogies are a lot about educators about becoming innovative and entrepreneurial in the face of our collective large-scale, complex problems as a globally connected set of societies and economies. They are about developing in students the spirit of risk-taking, creative problem-solving and learning from failure so that learners can: be prepared for a complex world; purposefully make judgements and decisions; base these judgements and decisions on changing situations, evolving, incomplete evidence and unpredictable situations; manage their own learning throughout life; and contribute to creating their own futures.

And now all of the above needs to be done online, at least for the moment.

In 2018, the UK Joint Information Systems Committee outlined the required digital capability of educators as incorporating: ICT proficiency; information, data and media literacies; creation, problem solving and innovation ability; the ability to communicate, collaborate and participate, a commitment to learning and development; and an understanding of identity and wellbeing in the digital space.

Simple? Hardly.

And impossible for even the most outstanding educator to undertake and achieve on their own, even with the plethora of existing and new resources on offer to help improve online teaching and learning.

To do all that is required, for the future that is so much more uncertain than it was even a few short months ago, university educators will increasingly need to collaborate. Collaboration with peers in team-teaching, with external associates who bring up-to-date industry, workplace and professional understanding and with librarians, educational designers, digital systems experts, students and work integrated learning specialists will be increasingly necessary to effectively design, build, teach and assess useful university courses.

As the pandemic effects paradoxically appear to shrink and expand time concurrently and many of us begin to think deeply about why we are all here, I’d suggest the fundamental purpose of higher education needs an airing and some re-consideration. We have the necessary resources, incentives and best minds to do this work – it’s a matter of turning our attention to it now.

Marcia Devlin is a former University Senior Vice-President and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, current Adjunct Professor and was named as one of The Educator Higher Education Top 50 educators for 2020.