Last month the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) published guidance on collaboration in higher education. This clarity about collaboration within the sector has to be welcomed. The law has not been changed, but the clarification can provide reassurance to the sector that looking to work together, sharing services and resources, as well as more formal collaboration is potentially possible. 

When the sector conversation started on collaboration there was some loud voices saying that we couldn’t collaborate because of the legal implications of competition law. The government and sector bodies were pushing the opportunities about working together and some parts of the sector were pushing back, talking about competition and the law. I wrote about this in a week note from February last year.

So, much so, that a discussion was had with the CMA and then the resulting guidance from them was published.

Part of me though does wonder, if the apprehension about collaboration was using the CMA and competition law as an excuse for not looking at collaboration rather than an actual reason not to collaborate. Will the new guidance mitigate that excuse now.

Was the rhetoric from the sector about Competition Law more about using it as an excuse to avoid the discussion and need to collaborate.

Now the guidance has been published, or will we now find that there is another reason why HE can’t collaborate?

Is it because they don’t want to collaborate?

Is it because they don’t know how to collaborate?

I think it’s a bit of both.

I was reminded of my experiences back in the 2000s when I was introducing technology into learning and teaching.

Often staff would tell me why they couldn’t or wouldn’t use learning technologies.

Where is the evidence etc???

When then presented with the evidence, it was then another reason, and then another reason…

Sometimes you had to listen, other times you need to dig a little deeper to understand why a person (or an organisation) doesn’t want to do something. The reason they give, may not be the actual reason why they aren’t going to do that thing.

The reality was, more my problem, I was presenting the introduction of learning technologies as a problem to be solved, the reality was technology was actually a solution, what I hadn’t done, was identified the problem. Learning technologies are a solution to problems, not the problem that needs to be solved.

We need to move away from excuses and obstacles, and move towards opportunities and solutions.

We need to remind ourselves that collaboration and sharing within higher education isn’t the problem we need to solve, it is in fact a solution (and not the only solution) to a (probably not well defined) problem. We need to be clear about the problem, define that problem, and then we can start thinking about possible solutions, one of which may be collaboration and sharing. I recently wrote about bridge building in helping understanding about problems and solutions.

Back in the day when I was designing aspects of the Digital Leadership programme I recognised that helping people to understand the differences between problems and solutions I would use a bridge building analogy.

If we are to work towards solving the solutions to the many challenges the higher education sector is facing then we need to stop just thinking about the problems with potential solutions, but focus on making those solutions work.