Leadership Foundation

Innovation and Transformation Fund

UUK’s Diamond Report highlighted the significant good practice in enhancing efficiency that already exists in higher education, but also made recommendations in areas that could benefit from enhancement.

Change in the sector is gathering pace and the next two years will be crucial in ensuring that UK higher education is well-placed to meet the educational, societal and economic challenges ahead. Together with Hefce we have initiated this £1m,UK-wide Innovation and Transformation Fund intended to stimulate and support projects that:

• Will equip UK higher education institutions for a period of major transition
• Provide energy and momentum to key strategic themes from the Diamond Report
• Engage with the core academic business of the sector in order to make a real difference
• Unlock knowledge and offer evidence of compelling stories of innovation and change that can be applied collaboratively in a competitive environment

A key to the Innovation and Transformation Fund is in unlocking and making best use of good practice; projects will engage the direct involvement, imagination and commitment of senior leaders in the sector and show awareness of good practice – in the sector and elsewhere – upon which to build.

Funded projects will have a clear benefit to the higher education sector as a whole and take a collaborative approach to enhancing efficiency and effecting transformational change. They must provide evidence of capacity to achieve maximum value from available funding and be able to make a demonstrable difference within a short (up to two years) timeframe and ensure sustainability of outcomes beyond project funding.

The successful first round projects can be found here: Innovation and Transformation projects.

Dr Lesly Huxley, ITF Programme Manager, Leadership Foundation