Delegates from Advance HE member institutions from around the world met in Birmingham for the 2024 Governance Conference
More than 100 delegates, including colleagues from Australia, Greece, Ireland and Thailand, attended Advance HE’s 2024 Governance Conference, ‘Transformation in HE – governing with humanity’.
Welcoming delegates, Alison Johns, Advance HE Chief Executive, outlined the challenging financial climate for the sector. In the context of the conference title, she discussed engaging students, staff and stakeholders successfully in difficult times. She said, “Decisions that we make will affect people and their lives: students, staff and the communities that we work with…tough decisions will need compassion and humanity to make them stick.”
In the conference keynote – conducted via a Q&A – OfS Interim Chair Sir David Behan, who led the review of the OfS and publication in July 2024 of Fit for the Future: Independent Review of the Office for Students, explored the changing nature of the ‘social contract’ between the state and student, alongside the rapidly changing backdrop of social change, climate change, technical innovation and geopolitical change.
Sir David urged governors to understand their context, and the sector’s need to change for the future – echoing his foreword in his OfS review:
“The challenge for the future of higher (and tertiary) education is how to respond to these global and domestic trends and be ambitious for the sector and the students. New business and operating models will be required in order that higher education providers remain relevant for the local and national UK economy in a rapidly changing world.” [A full report of the keynote will be available shortly.]
Outside the main hall, in interactive workshops and discussions, delegates explored take-outs and lessons from ‘Measuring What Matters’, research commissioned by Advance HE to prompt discussion on how universities present themselves in their annual reports; and the role of the governing body in monitoring performance on the value universities create for their stakeholders and the impacts of universities on sustainable development. Concurrently, other delegates explored the Board’s role in ESG and Sustainability oversight – where Kim Ansell, Advance HE Senior Consultant, Leadership and Governance, led the session exploring some of the outputs of Advance HE’s ‘Member Benefit project’ on this topic.
There was also the opportunity for delegates to discuss the findings from Advance HE’s Diversity of governors in higher education report with the publication’s authors, Florence Reedy and Shona Quinn. The report, published 3 December 2024, found “progress in diverse representation in higher education governance but highlights the need for continued efforts to ensure governing bodies reflect the diversity of staff and student communities”.
The final sessions included perspectives of ‘tackling tricky issues’ in HE in Northern Ireland, Wales and UUK contexts (Dr Orla Corr, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Honorary Treasurer at Queen’s University, Belfast; Dr David Langley, Chief Transformation Officer at Cardiff University; and Step Harris, Director of Strategy UUK); and Dr Teeraachai Chemnasiri, Chair of the Council of Walailak University, Thailand, Professor Thomas Collins a Chair of Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland, and Laura Maska, Managing Director of Aegean College, Greece shared their experiences of governing with humility in difficult times in their context.
Reflecting on the Walailak University delegation’s attendance at the conference, the University’s President, Professor Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, said, “To date, our relationship with Advance HE has focused on teaching and learning, where the Professional Standards Framework has really helped to enhance standards. We wanted to broaden that relationship to explore more about governance and this conference has been extremely interesting and useful in sharing the lessons of governance in difficult times.”
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