The characteristics, roles and selection of vice-chancellors
Glynis M Breakwell and Michelle Y Tytherleigh, Vice-chancellors office, University of Bath.
This report aims to:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Developing collective leadership in higher education
Richard Bolden, Georgy Petrov and Jonathan Gosling, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter
The overall aim of this project was to develop recommendations on how leadership and leadership development could be enhanced, particularly in terms of encouraging collective engagement with the leadership process. In order to do this (a) what is understood by the term 'leadership' by various institutional actors was explored; (b) the processes by which leadership is distributed at different levels within universities (i.e. school, faculty, executive group, etc.) was investigated, and (c) the way(s) in which leadership development (in its broadest sense) contributes towards improved leadership capability for individuals, groups and the wider organisation was examined.
The key focus of this research was on the leadership of the academic work of universities (particularly teaching and research) and an exploration of how strategic direction emerges and is negotiated between varying actors within and beyond the institution.
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Gender balance in Scottish further and higher education
Duncan McTavish and Rachel Miller
This research project was undertaken by the Centre for Public Policy and Management (CPPM), Glasgow Caledonian University. The research was managed by a small group of academic staff in the university with additional support from the Scottish Leadership Foundation. The work was complemented and partnered by other gender in management research carried out in CPPM including an analysis of the small to medium size enterprise sector, parts of Scotland’s public and private sectors, the Public Appointments system, supported by amongst others, the European Union and Scottish Executive.
The higher and further education sectors have expanded considerably in the last decade. There are almost 30% more entrants to higher education than in 1995. Staffing levels have also increased, by almost 20% in HE in the same period but with female employment rising at twice this rate; 57% of fulltime equivalent staff in FE are female. However, women continue to be under-represented as managers and leaders in both sectors and in the general workforce are over-represented in ‘marginal’ employment on fixed term and part time contracts. There is also a pattern of occupational segregation. In 2003, only 13% of Professors in HE were female, only 25% of FE colleges headed by women. Currently in Scotland 16% of University Principals, 15% of Depute Principals and 19% of Universities’ senior management groups are women (*). Such under-representation is a cause for concern: if women are not reaching the managerial grades in proportion to their numbers in the relevant workforce, this represents a skewed and reduced ‘talent pool’ from which future institutional leadership can be drawn. The research is designed to address these issues of gender imbalance and managerial under-representation.
The final report from this project is now available to download - for further details, or to enquire about receiving a printed copy please contact Dr Duncan McTavish.
The role and influence of the secretary in UK higher education governing bodies
David Llewellyn, Harper Adams University College
There is a considerable wealth of governance guidance available to the Secretary, but relatively little is known about the way the guidance is translated, by the Secretary, into governance practice. It is possible, for example, for the Secretary to play a major role in board member induction, the relationship between the executive and lay members, the compilation of the board agenda, papers and recommendations and the enactment of its decisions, all of which have the potential to influence the way in which the Board works and the relationships that underpin the operation of the Board.
The project analyses and determines the ways in which the Secretary of the governing body (described as the HE Board) may influence its work. It investigates:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Professional managers in UK higher education: Preparing for complex futures
Celia Whitchurch, Centre for Higher Education Studies, Institute of Education, University of London.
An increasingly diverse higher education sector, with flatter institutional structures, has had a significant impact on the roles and identities of professional university administrators and managers. As functions such as recruitment and marketing have become more professionalised and as new activities, such as business development, have been added, the concept of the unitary institutional ‘administration’ has become less clear. At the same time, fuzzy boundaries have developed between academic, administrative and management spheres of activity. Generalist administrators and managers, specialist professionals, academic managers, and other academic colleagues increasingly contribute side by side in multi-functional teams, for instance in relation to quality or widening participation initiatives.
This research project reviews:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Human resource management and university performance
David E.Guest and Michael Clinton, Department of Management, King's College London
Human resource management (HRM) has assumed a higher priority in many organisations in recent years largely due to the realisation that people are a key source of competitive advantage for organisations and that effective management of human resources should result in superior performance. There is now an extensive body of research in the private sector to support this second proposition.
Although human resource issues may now be receiving more attention in the higher education sector we have no systematic information about what determines a more or less enthusiastic endorsement of human resource management within a higher education institution, what part is played by the leadership of the organisation and whether a fuller application of human resource management is associated with any of the indicators of superior performance that are used within the sector. The current development of an HR Self-Assessment Tool is a step in the right direction but this has still to be evaluated.
The study therefore:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
UK universities and executive officers: The changing role of pro vice-chancellors
David Smith, Johnathan Adams and David Mount, Higher Education Policy Unit, The University of Leeds and Evidence Ltd
Pro-vice-chancellors (PVCs) are the university’s senior executive managers. They are key members of the senior team, perform a vital role in leading and managing change across their institutions and collectively they form a major recruitment pool for promotion to the role of vice-chancellor / principal.
The apparent increase in both the number and diversity of PVC roles in recent years reflects the growing importance of executive level manager-academics in meeting the strategic challenges for UK HE institutions. Yet the role of PVCs remains under-theorised and has rarely formed a topic for empirical study.
This research addresses this neglect. It documents the evolving role of pro-vice-chancellors as senior executive officers and assesses their centrality to emerging management models in UK universities. The principal themes are:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Effective leadership in higher education
Alan Bryman, Management Centre, University of Leicester
This research examines published evidence relating to leadership in higher education organisations. It is concerned with leadership at all organisational levels, in different sectors of higher education, and also draws upon findings generated from different countries.
There are three main facets to the approach taken:
The research identifies clearly the chief ingredients and models associated with effective higher education leadership and the implications of leadership models for the higher education sector. The illumination of higher education leadership through a systematic examination of the literature and the application of leadership models will have great potential in bringing to light the variety of ways in which leadership practice can be enhanced.
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Glyn Owen, University of Lincoln
A steadily growing share of government activity and funding in England is channeled through partnership bodies such as Regional Development Agencies and the Learning and Skills Council. The current system began to develop in the early 1990s, but reached its current form only in recent years and is still changing constantly.
Higher Education Institutions are frequently called upon to act as partners, or are at least consulted on what should happen. Some HEIs do this very effectively: others have less experience. This project aims to identify and disseminate good practice in the field.
Effective partnership working can bring definite benefits to HEIs such as funding, contracts or increased student numbers, and also helps to meet wider goals such as university commitments to regional or local prosperity. But working in partnership requires time from vice chancellors and other senior managers, some of whom may find economic and social regeneration a relatively new area of work. Balancing the benefits with the (time) costs is difficult.
The project identifies examples of good practice, a literature review is undertaken and several case studies are identified.
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Departmental leadership of teaching in research-intensive environments
Graham Gibbs, University of Oxford; Christopher Knapper, Queen's University of Canada; Sergio Piccinin, University of Ottawa
In research-intensive institutions, the quality assurance and quality enhancement of teaching is usually devolved to departments and excellence in teaching is more likely to derive from departmental leadership rather than from institutional mechanisms. This project involves international comparative case studies of 22 departments, identified as displaying excellence in teaching or successful innovation in teaching, in order to characterise the nature and role of leadership in creating this excellence or innovation. The departments are from an existing network of highly research-intensive universities, including four of the top ten research-ranked institutions in the world, in eight countries.
This project builds on a network of world-class universities that has already been created in order to benchmark how they manage to pay attention to and develop teaching in such a research-intensive environment. The universities are: Oxford, Edinburgh, Sydney, Oslo, Lund, Helsinki, Leuven, MIT, Cornell, Stanford, Princeton and Utrecht. Case study visits focusing on institutional strategies and practices took place in 2004/5 and the PVC (Teaching) and head of educational development (or their equivalent) from the 13 institutions involved met in Oxford in June 2005. Given that these are highly collegial and devolved institutions a key issue that has emerged has been how teaching is developed at the departmental level and the central role of the Head or Chair in this.
The objective of the research is to provide convincing accounts of leadership of teaching in contexts relevant to leaders in research-intensive contexts, and an analysis of the key features in these accounts, so as to provide rich resource material for both national and institutional programmes for the professional development of Heads and Chairs of Department in such institutions.
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
The management of academic workloads: Improving practice in the sector
Peter Barrett and Lucinda Barrett, University of Salford
Within universities staff are the greatest and potentially most dynamic resource available, they are certainly the biggest cost heading. Arguably a university is its staff, which makes it surprising that, despite high levels of stress and intensive efforts to manage quality and finances, the allocation of staff time to activities is often ad hoc and passive. The equitable and optimal allocation of staff time could and should be a significant aspect of leading change and maintaining balance.
Thus, the objectives of this research are as follows:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.
Tom Kennie, Ranmore Consulting Group/Nottingham Business School; Steve Woodfield, Kingston University
What are the most common models of top management structure in UK HEIs? Does an optimum size exist for the top team in an HEI? How are the roles in top teams changing, and why?
Higher education institutions have, in the past 5-10 years, been undergoing significant levels of structural change. The drivers of change are well documented and include; institutional expansion and growth in the scale of institutions, growing competition for resources (particularly research funds), increased levels of collaboration regionally, nationally and internationally, enhanced responsiveness to the needs of business and community groups, and the increasing importance of international and global competitiveness.
In order to respond to these changes HEIs have engaged in varying levels of ‘re-structuring’. Such ‘re-structuring’ has ranged from some minor re-alignment of roles and responsibilities to more radical change involving the creation of new roles and new models of operating.
The key objectives of this project are to:
The report is available to download from the publications page of the website.