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The winter issue of ENGAGE features news and articles that reflect the currents of transformational change running through the higher education system. Last autumn saw publication of UUK’s ‘Diamond Report’ on efficiency and effectiveness. Professor Ian Diamond talks about its implications and potential next steps for the sector in the interview on p6. One next step is already in hand: the Future Proofing Higher Education: Leading Transformational Change conference on Wednesday 25 January 2012 will see the launch of a £1m Innovation and Transformation Fund initiated jointly by the Leadership Foundation and Hefce to drive forward some of the report’s recommendations (p4). Key to this will be unlocking learning from existing good practice as well as providing a catalyst for innovation. As reported on p14, Ewart Wooldridge, Chief Executive of the Leadership Foundation, recently queried whether the higher education sector is reaching a ‘Wapping moment’ akin to the transformation experienced by the print industry in the 1980s. Responses to such transformation feature in this issue, with Kim Shutler-Jones emphasising on p10 the need for HEIs to ensure a clear focus on the human dimension, with strategies for individual as well as organisational wellbeing and constructive engagement with staff. Wendy Purcell and Caroline Chipperfield (p12) provide a case study from Plymouth University on the importance of developing leadership adapted to navigating the ‘choppy seas’ ahead. And lest we forget, with recent, predominant discourse on money and markets in higher education, that these are not primary motivating factors for many of us in the sector, Paul Blackmore and Camille Kandiko describe the findings of a Leadership Foundation project exploring academic motivation and the concept of ‘prestige economies’ in the centre pages. On the agenda for 2012 are some significant challenges but also some real opportunities, not least via participation in Change Academy 2012 (p9) and the Innovation and Transformation Fund. Read more.
Last updated: 25 January 2012