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Supporting and enhancing academic governance

16 Jan 2023 | Advance HE A new project “to identify practical ways in which governing bodies are already carrying out academic governance and to identify ways to further strengthen this."

Advance HE is working with Universities UK and GuildHE to deliver the ‘Academic Governance project’. The project is a collaboration that will bring the sector together to explore good practice in academic governance and to disseminate the findings.

The aim is to support or enhance governors’ understanding of their role in academic governance, dovetailing this with their corporate governance responsibilities.

The project will lead to the updating of the framework for Academic Governance so that governing bodies can use it to assess their own effectiveness.

Dan Tinkler, Advance HE Governance Development Manager explains, “Through a series of roundtables in March we will explore the areas which are increasing the requirement for governors to understand and effectively receive evidence-based assurance about “student outcomes” in the context of their national regulatory requirements.

“We are delighted to be working with GuildHE and Universities UK to deliver this important work. I’m confident that highlighting and sharing good practice will strengthen academic governance as knowledge and understanding of the challenges takes root.”

Each roundtable, which will be chaired by a member of Advance HE's Governance Strategic Advisory Group, is specifically designed for one of these three groups: governance professional; for members of senate and student representatives; and for Chair and for Deputy Chairs of Audit and Risk.

Dr Alex Bols, Deputy CEO GuildHE said: “Expectations are increasing on governing bodies to seek their own assurances that standards are being maintained and to enable governors to have a more interactive role in this. This series of round-tables will seek to identify practical ways in which governing bodies are already carrying out this role and identify ways to further strengthen this." 

Chris Hale, Director of Policy, Universities UK, said, "Governors have a central role in protecting the value of degrees and ensuring the sector's excellent global reputation remains. We are delighted to be working with Advance HE to strengthen how governing bodies scrutinise quality and standards. These roundtables will be an opportunity to share the latest innovations from across the UK. This work follows UUK and GuildHE’s commitment in July 2022 on degree classification levels."

The webinars dates are as follows:

  • Governance Professionals, 7 March

     
  • Members of Senate/Student Reps, 9 March

     
  • Chairs and Deputy Chairs of Audit and Risk, 14 March.

Find out more about the project here.

The project is part of Advance HE’s Member benefit series.

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