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.