An exclusive event from
The collaboration
question
The future shape of UK higher education, and who decides it
Why now
Government wants collaboration. What does the sector want it for?
At September’s Universities UK conference the minister’s message to vice chancellors was blunt: government wants more regional collaboration, some of you are already doing it, so what is everyone else waiting for?
Collaboration is not an end in itself. Ministers want it because they think it saves money. That is not a reason to build a strategy around it. The question that matters is where the value is – for institutions, for the places they serve and for the economy – and what it takes to realise it.
At this event we’ll explore the various models and options for strategic collaboration, where the value lies for each, and what organisations need to put on the table to get long-term value from that collaboration.
Over the next decade universities will do more together, whatever anyone’s preference: shared provision, pooled research strength, regional partnerships and, in some cases, mergers. The useful question is how the sector shapes those arrangements, rather than responding to them as they arrive. Senior leaders are already having this conversation, mostly in private. On 3 November it happens in the open.
What this day is not
No model to sell, no angle to push. Three things to be clear about before you book.
- Not a merger clinic. Merger is on the table as one model among several; it is not the natural endpoint.
- Not a finance conference. Savings may follow from doing this well. They are not where the value starts, and a day built around them would miss it.
- Not a day that assumes collaboration is the answer. To what extent it is, in what form, and whether for your institution the answer is no, are all live questions.
The programme
The order of the day
One day; limited space. From the strategic case, to regional growth, to access and opportunity, to the organisational capacity that makes collaboration stick – with case studies and Q&A throughout, and the policy asks to close. Registration from 8.30; drinks at 17.30. All at the vibrant Impact Hub near Euston.
Confirmed so far
- Vivienne SternChief Executive, Universities UK
- Jane RobinsonPro Vice Chancellor, Business, Partnerships and Place, Newcastle University
- Louise KennyPro Vice Chancellor, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool
- Iain CornishChair of the Board of Governors, Leeds Beckett University
- Poppy ShortPartner, Mills & Reeve
- Vikki StottSenior Strategic Advisor, Scottish Tertiary Alliance Framework
- Nigel BallSocial innovation expert
- Sam SandersHead of Education, Skills & Productivity, KPMG in the UK
- Annette BramleyCo-author, Research Collaboration: creating contexts for success
- John BlakeDirector, The Post-18 Project
- Debbie McVittyEditor, Wonkhe
- James CoePartner, Policy.Partners
More speakers and case studies are announced on this page as they confirm.
View the full programme ↓Hide the programme ↑
Share the programme: collaboration.wonkhe.com/programme
The questions on the table
What the day asks
Question-led. Bring your own position and expect it to be tested.
- What should UK higher education look like in ten years: how many institutions, how networked, and who decides?
- Government wants collaboration because it thinks it saves money. Where is the value for institutions, for places and for the economy, and how do you realise it?
- Collaboration runs from committing to a shared regional agenda to building something new with your resources locked in. Which models are on offer, and which fit your strategy?
- A service contract is not collaboration. What do you have to put on the table before the word means anything?
- Who pays? Partners with deep pockets, capital markets, the public purse, or the next institution in distress?
- What does the sector need from government to clear the structural and policy barriers, and what does government need from the sector in return?
The room
For people who are ambitious for their institutions and their regions
- Heads of institution and executive teams
- Directors of strategy, planning and partnerships
- PVCs, registrars, COOs and the professional service leaders who have to make it real
- Regional network leads, and anyone whose job runs through a combined authority
- Access and participation leads who have looked at the provision map and worried
- Sector bodies helping set out what the sector needs from government
- Anyone who looked at the collaboration question and decided it was somebody else’s job. It is not.
You do not have to be a believer. Bring your doubts: the day is built to interrogate them. Places are limited by space, not ambition.
An exclusive Wonkhe event
Wonkhe is the home of the UK higher education policy debate – read every morning by the people who lead the sector, and trusted to convene its most consequential conversations. Its team and network bring deep experience of higher education policy, analysis and convening – including the Festival of Higher Education, the sector's gathering of debate and ideas.
Policy.Partners is Wonkhe’s sister firm providing strategy, advice and consultancy to institutions and policy actors in the space. Both are practices of Thesis – a house of higher education ideas.
Wonkhe and Policy.Partners have spent the year asking what it takes to be a good partner, and mapping the models of collaboration the sector is actually using. On 3 November, The collaboration question puts that work in the room, for one day.
From the series on Wonkhe
- James Coe, Policy.PartnersLessons in collaboration from Singapore
- Vikki Stott, Scottish Tertiary Alliance FrameworkIf Scotland’s university funding problem is systemic, the response must be too
- Poppy Short and Kate NewmanHigher education can become more collaborative in course provision – but the onus is on institutions to work out how
- Richard Mills and Edward BriggsA field guide to mergers in higher education
Tickets · on sale now
Book your place
One hundred places. Pay by card, or book on invoice – an invoice booking secures your place on the spot. Wonkhe institutional subscribers book at the discounted subscriber rate.
Trouble with the module? Open booking in its own tab ↗ · Booking terms · queries to events@wonkhe.com
The reception · 17.30
The evening is hosted by
The summit closes with drinks among the people the day was built for. The conversation continues – and the follow-up starts here.
policy.partners ↗Hosted in the Knowledge Quarter
The Knowledge Quarter is a partnership of over 80 academic, cultural, research and scientific organisations within a one-mile radius of King’s Cross, London. As an innovation district, it is home to one of the densest clusters of knowledge-based organisations in the world. University partners include UCL, Central Saint Martins, City St George’s, the Courtauld Institute of Art, SOAS, RVC and the University of London.
knowledgequarter.london ↗