adapting to disruptive times: emerging models for higher education provision, 3 November 2011
The stated purpose of this joint conference between the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education and the University of London International Programmes was to provide a series of ‘glimpses’ of the pace and type of the change currently being experienced in Higher Education, together with models of adaptation. The intention was to explore disruption and adaptation through the twin prisms of technology and innovation – the challenges of the digital revolution and of developing new delivery models in order to derive new funding streams.
In the first session, Ken Sloan of Serco described the context for HE where the major challenge came from the number of challenges that were being faced at once: shifts in funding, uncertain future demand, HE’s role in national competitiveness, the entry of new players, the pace of and opportunity for technological change, and the changing range of international opportunity and competition. In this context, there were a number of potential responses: business redesign, shared services, use of technology, strategic service partnerships, new venture partnerships and asset management. Using models from a number of sectors, Sloan made a number of points:
- ‘one size should not fit all’ – sticking to one channel of delivery builds in potential for dissatisfaction if it forces people into a particular approach. New user experiences can be designed around user needs rather than institutional capability
- good partnerships rest on an institution having a clear sense of is own goals, and of its own capacity and strength, before looking for a partner to supplement those capabilities in order to achieve the goal
- managing good partnerships would require universities to develop greater depth in skills in a number of areas, not least in the brokering, nurturing and management of relationships (In subsequent discussion, this was broken down into finding and assessing partnerships, assessing and managing risks, managing the ceding of elements of autonomy in the interest of partnership, and fulfilling the function of custodianship by considering the long term impact of partnership decisions being made in the current day).
