Thought of the fortnight: ‘‘What are your boldest predictions for the HE sector in 2025?’

“We will see some breakaway organisations starting to offer a collaborative educational shared services model whereby their lectures and modules are shared online between institutions through an efficient library catalogue of teaching and educational resources, but tailored seminars, assessment and student service ‘add ons’ are the distinguishing institutional feature”

“The debate on student number caps will become increasingly important and, while that may pose a threat for some institutions, it may have some collective sector benefits. It perhaps starts to redefine the idea of a HE market”

“Questions (potentially in the public eye) about whether the impact on students of efficiency measures is reasonable and proportionate will become more pronounced. This could lead to some interesting OIA casework, new approaches to student impact assessments on change initiatives and some interesting policy debate”

“I hope we will see the start of more tangible and substantive change from the new government in and around the tertiary education space as they settle into their context and build the connections with the networks they need to deliver change.”

“I think we will see some sizable jumps in workforce transformation. The increased prominence of technology, the need for efficiency, and the concerns about low productivity across all industries all mean that organisations will need to deliver more with less. The only way you can achieve that is by changing how you deliver! I really hope HE can be at the forefront of that”

“It looks like the migration away from social media will continue at pace as there is growing concern about the quality of information, the adverse implications of engaging with some of these platforms for personal data and intellectual independence and a reluctance from some to contribute to the wealth and power of a small group of private individuals. In many respects that feels like a good thing but lots of our communications work, community building, marketing, PR etc has evolved to utilise these platforms and if we do see migration away from them we may need to consider alternative tools and resources quickly.”

“Governance will need to become more agile to balance both the exploration of critical strategic questions (about size, mission differentiation, research and teaching balance, new partnerships etc) along with managing the response to immediate financial pressure and risk. I do believe the sector is equipped for that change but we need to be purposeful about it.”

“We will see both further bad news about struggling institutions, and remarkable stories of creativity, transformation and turnaround.”