It was a shorter week this week with the late Spring bank holiday, which meant for many it was half-term. For me I was off to eat some Belgian chocolates in Brussels.
I have visited Belgium quite a few times over the years, we went to Ostend a lot when I was a child. When I did some college trips to Amsterdam in the 1990s, we travelled by coach through Belgium, we also stopped at Bruges, which I am planning to visit again in the future. Last year on the way back from Germany we stopped for a flying visit to Ghent. We had thought about visiting Brussels, but time was against us.
This week I was in Brussels for a couple of in-person meetings. I had caught the Eurostar from St Pancras, having travelled up to London from Weston to Paddington. I find it quite amazing that the train from London to Brussels takes just two hours. Having made my way across Brussels using the metro I checked into my hotel, the Marriott Courtyard EU.
I also did some preparation for the session I am supporting which is taking place at the EUNIS Congress next week in Belfast.
Much of this week was spent continuing working on the third business case for the UUK collaborative project. Lots of research and writing.
I delivered an internal session on the current state of higher education. As the session was online, I decided I would not use slides. In many of the other sessions delivered as part of this people were using slides. I think it makes for a nice change in presentation style not to use slides. I did get a comment that they thought the presentation was hard to follow, though I did think that was because without slides you do need to focus on the presenter.
Had a preparation meeting with my European colleagues in preparation for our meeting next week in Brussels.
This week I chaired two session at Jisc’s Connect More event, one on emerging technologies and the other on podcasting.
The podcasting session was delivered by Mark Childs from Durham with support with a recorded segment by Puiyin Wong from Birmingham.
The initial discussion before the presentation made me go back and look at when I started publishing my elearning stuff podcast. This was back in March 2008. I discovered podcasting when a webpage I had created about wireless zero configuration was discussed as part of an US radio tech podcast. The host of that show had a range of podcasts, and I started listening to them. Reminded me of the complexity of my original podcast workflow from 2011.
The other session I chaired at Connect More was about emerging technologies. I was reminded that emerging technologies are always emerging. The challenge that the sector faces isn’t necessarily about understanding which technologies are emerging, but how institutions can set the foundations to more quickly and easily take advantages of the affordances of emerging technologies.
Did some quick and dirty research into the LLE for an internal colleague in Jisc. The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will transform the post-18 student finance system to create a single funding system. An overview of LLE from UK Government.
This has implications for student mobility across the UK as students will be able to move and transfer between institutions. Also students will be able to take a single module or part of a course. In addition the government are expecting new and smaller providers to deliver a range of level 4 and 5 programmes.
Spent time working on the UUK Collaboration project, in the main researching, developing writing business case 3.
I was in Bristol for our Lead at Jisc Celebration, a leadership programme I completed this year.
Had an internal meeting to discuss future plans for the collaboration work.
This was a shorter week, as not only was there a bank holiday on Monday, but I also took a day’s leave.
On Tuesday I was down in Southampton for a meeting. Though there are many advantages to Teams and Zoom, sometimes participating in an in-person meeting gives you more insights than the online version. There are affordances with digital, so I always consider them just different, rather than one being better than the other. Also, less train travel with an online meeting.
Spent most of the rest of the week working on the collaboration project we are doing with UUK. There were a few administrative meetings as well in my diary.
Friday I had an early start for an NRENs4Education (what I have been called in these weeknotes E in NREN) meeting about a future meeting in Brussels. As a group we have quite high aspirations, but there are many challenges that we face as we look at student mobility across Europe.
The press this week as been full of depressing detail about the financial state of higher education.
I’m a fan of net liquidity days (a measure showing the number of days a university could run for in the absence of any further income). Anything below a month (31 days) makes me sit up and take notice… there’s 10 large-ish universities in that boat including some fairly well-known names.
More than four in 10 universities in England are expecting to be in a financial deficit by this summer, according to new report from the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS, which regulates higher education providers, said universities were closing courses and selling buildings to cut costs, but “significant reform and efficiencies” were needed to turn the tide. It said a drop in international students coming to the UK was the main reason for the worsening financial position. The report found that 117 of 270 higher education institutions (43%) registered with the OfS expected to be in deficit by the end of July – despite course closures, job losses and selling off assets.
This demonstrates once more for the need for the sector to rethink their operating model. This can’t be just about more money, as we do need to consider the impact that (continually) raising fees will have on students, student wellbeing, and future student recruitment.
Spent much of the week working on the UUK Collaboration project with various meetings and events.
I was in London for the UUK’s The University Transformation and Efficiency Summit, where I delivered a workshop on shared services.
HE has many existing shared services. Some are so fundamental it is now hard to imagine the sector without them: e.g. the UCAS admissions service, and the Janet network. Getting a new shared service off the ground feels difficult, but with hindsight successful shared services appear obvious.
Good shared services are built on strong relationships and trust between the parties. They require standardisation and alignment: institutions willing to adapt their ways to working to fit with the wider group. Join this session to meet others and become part of the coalition of the willing, those working together to share services, for the benefit of all.
This session will present findings from the Jisc/KPMG report ‘Collaboration for a Sustainable Future’. It will hear case studies of institutions currently offering their services to other universities, and what they learnt through establishing them.
The workshop went down well, but on the train home I reflected if the real challenge was talking to those institutions who didn’t attend and aren’t engaged with the transformation possibilities that are being discussed as part of the work of the Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce.
As well as presenting in London I also was attending and presenting at the online HE Shared Services and Structural Collaboration Conference.
I delivered a session entitled A Roadmap for Shared Service Collaboration on Data, Digital and Technology.
The starting point: Where does successful tech collaboration exist already in the sector and what are the priority areas for partnership?
Where is there potential for shared procurement and system management that continues to support differentiation?
What are the opportunities for rationalisation through shared digital services?
How can the sector support meaningful transformation through common models, standardisation and central coordination?
What are the next steps from Jisc and the wider sector to drive this agenda forward?
There are some real challenges in moving to an operating model that takes advantage of the potential lower costs and efficiencies in using shared services, but there are also the compromises that have to be made.
This week, what with Easter and taking some leave, meant I was only “in the office” for one day this week. I say I was in the office; the reality was that I was working from home. One reason for that was I was presenting a session at the Smart Campus Insights Brief 2025 Conference.
Abstract: From Smart to Intelligent Campuses: A Roadmap
Designing a truly integrated approach to data-led decision making across an institution
The real prize in supporting connected devices that make intelligent decisions based on real time environmental data
Building the infrastructure and capabilities to join up data sources across a campus
How do we set meaningful goals to support intelligent decision making on campus?
I enjoyed presenting and there was some positive feedback. Across the event as a whole other presenters referenced my talk.
Wrote up my notes from AHUA conference I attended last week and did some administration sorting travel and logistics for next few weeks.
Took some leave this week, so shorter week than usual.
I was spending time preparing and planning for next NRENs4Education – technical solutions meeting with a focus on application and accreditation.
In the next few weeks I have a couple of online presentations, so I was busy with writing and developing presentation for HE Shared Services and Structural Collaboration event and similarly a presentation for Smart Campus Insights Brief 2025.
I drove to Swansea to deliver a workshop at the AHUA Conference on Shared Services. The workshop was productive and insightful.
On Monday I was prepping stuff for the rest of the week. In the main developing and writing activity for UUK Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce meeting. This involved diamonds and scissors.
I spent the day in London on Tuesday, the afternoon was taken up with the UUK Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce meeting, however as I had a two hour online meeting with the HEAnet Group Advisory Forum I spent the morning in the office.
I had some necessary Dovetail admin and Miro admin to do this week. I hadn’t used Miro for weeks and then all of a sudden, I was asked to input to an influx of Miro boards. I do use Miro, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I don’t much like the alternatives either.
We had a discussion about capturing the senior voice and then what do we do with that once we have that. A bit of we can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Spent some time planning a session for AHUA Conference next week, which is taking place at Swansea University.
Recognised the need to plan out E in NREN work I am undertaking in some more detail. It has been agreed that this will continue into 2026.
I am attending and presenting at a couple of online conferences later this month, so spent time planning, developing and writing those presentations. Yes you would be right in thinking there will be lots of photographs.
Noted that the situation in higher education is still not good, and in some sense is getting worse.
As higher education institutions shed thousands of jobs, Times Higher are tracking developments and bringing together latest analysis with resources for affected staff and students.
As a mounting financial crisis grips UK universities, thousands of jobs are being axed across the sector. This page tracks latest updates, exploring the reasons behind the redundancies, how they will affect staff and students, and the long-term impact on higher education and research.
In similar news the sustainability of higher education was discussed at Parliament. Where the Augar report was reviewed as Education Committee learn about university finances
Notably, Augar argued that no university should fail – the impact on local areas and the international reputation of the sector would be too big – and called for “behind the scenes” support for struggling providers. Universities UK’s Malcolm Press argued once again for a transformation fund to support universities in adapting to the current circumstances.
Our work with UUK was mentioned in passing.
Malcolm Press (vice chancellor at Manchester Metropolitan University, at the committee representing Universities UK) emphasised just how hard universities were working to drive efficiencies – highlighting examples of collaboration, and the ongoing Universities UK project in response to the government’s reform agenda.
Made me smile for the end of the week. This from WonkHE on Sussex on taking the position that universities can’t prohibit any speech unless it’s already explicitly banned by civil or criminal law.
“The University would have to tolerate an academic conducting every lecture through the medium of song or mime (noting that freedom of speech protects the manner of speech as well as the content).”
A less busy week, in terms of travelling, but I still went to the Bristol office and then on Wednesday I was up at the University of Warwick.
I finished writing six of the eleven proposals we had been working on for the UUK strand 2 work.
Attended the UUK members meeting at the University of Warwick and supported an activity where they ranked the eleven different proposals. There was some interesting discussions, however the
Spent some time planning a session for UUK Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce
Attended the NREN Technical Solutions Group where we discussed the technical challenges with European-wide student mobility.
I attended the Jisc Careers Fair where I had an UCU stand.
This was a busy week with a lot of travelling across the UK (and then a little beyond as I took Friday as leave and travelled to France for the day).
I was in London at the start of the week, I spent Monday in our London office. It’s always nice to work in another of our offices.
On Tuesday morning I was at a breakfast briefing at the Houses of Parliament. I reminisced that I had been inside in the Houses of Parliament only twice before. Once back in the 1970s when my primary school was threatened by closure and a group of us, pupils, parents, and teachers went to discuss this in parliament. My second visit was in the early 2000s when I worked at at-Bristol (now called We The Curious) and we were meeting some parliamentarians. I actually drove to the Houses of Parliament through the building, and parked underneath.
This was a joint HEPI and Advance HE event entitled Survive or thrive: What should the new operating model be for UK higher education? The panel presented their views about the future, which were diverse and interesting. There followed a short discussion about the presented views.
The UUK Blueprint confirmed the higher education sector is committed to constantly improving its core purposes of teaching, research and civic engagement while also taking a lead on grappling with key global challenges, such as climate change, the spread of artificial intelligence and heightened geopolitical uncertainty. Is the core model of how we do higher education suitable for the unstable world in which we live? Or, if we want to retain the world-class standing of UK higher education, do we need alternative types of leadership, different structures and new approaches that learn from other sectors? And, at the same time, are we thinking enough about organisational design and workforce planning – how are we preparing structures and people for future models? How can institutional autonomy be balanced against the ever-growing list of expectations on leaders, academics and professional services staff?
Personally I came away reflecting that there was a lot of talk about the need for change, there was an appetite for change, but very little on who was going to change and what that change would look like.
Wednesday morning I was in Cambridge delivering a keynote at the HESCA 25 conference.
I was talking about collaboration and shared services.
Thursday I was in Milton Park in Oxfordshire for a team meeting.
Friday I was on leave, and I did something I hadn’t done since the 1980s a day trip to France. DFDS had done a special offer to celebrate 25 years of their Dover Dunkerque route, so a day trip was just £25. Bargain. Exhausting, but a bargain.
news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…
