No way back: opportunities emerging in a post-Covid world
Over a series of four webinars we continued to explore issues connected with opportunities emerging in a post-Covid world.
Now that the immediate Covid-related public health crisis and the ‘Great Lockdown’ have passed, universities are adjusting to the so-called ‘New Normal’.
Many of these adjustments require genuinely transformational thinking and action. Our webinar series explored some of the most pressing of these issues.
The first webinars in the 2020 series, the Summer Webinar Series, can be viewed here
From crisis to strategy: digital transformation or digital delusion?
Webinar recorded: Wednesday September 30 2020
Pre-pandemic, digital transformation in universities was an aspirational goal. In 2020, at warp speed, it emerged as a necessity for business continuity. The question is no longer “how to build a digital university,” but rather “how quickly can it be done.”
But how can we build a genuinely transformative digital strategy for the long haul? This question was the focus of this webinar programme.
With our partner EAB, a survey on digital transformation prioritisation, investments and implementation progress was taken before the webinar with registered participant, the results of which were used in the webinar.
Diversity and Inclusion: fostering institutional happiness and preventing harassment
Webinar recorded: Thursday October 8 to Friday October 9 2020
The evidence that more equal, diverse and inclusive workplaces are innovative, challenge entrenched thinking and deliver better results than their competitors, is overwhelming. So why do we still have a problem?
Universities excel in challenging conventional wisdom and have often been at the forefront in challenging inequality and discrimination.
Yet their workforces rarely match the diversity of their student bodies, diversity and inclusion initiatives achieve mixed results and as the Me Too Campaign has shown, tackling harassment is definitely unfinished business.
Our programme tackled these and other issues with a focus on: overcoming barriers to a more equal institution; equality and innovation; effective leadership of equality diversity and inclusion; organisational development approaches to EDI; and institutional case studies.
With a line-up of speakers from across Europe, the programme was designed to engage participants with the issues, by involving them in group discussions with a diverse, multi-cultural audience.
The future of international student mobility in a post-Covid world
Webinar recorded: Wednesday October 21 2020
For a generation universities have enthusiastically pursued international strategies. Different institutions have prioritised different dimensions of internationalisation, but international student mobility has been a central feature of almost all institutions’ international engagement strategies.
The early evidence indicates that the impact of Covid on international mobility in many European higher education systems has been minimal. In other systems such as Australia’s, the decline in numbers has been catastrophic.
But as the Covid crisis continues to linger, what is the long term outlook for institutions’ international strategies? Will we quickly slip back to a version of a pre-Covid world? Or will Covid, combined with a heightened awareness of the carbon footprint of international mobility fundamentally change things?
This autumn webinar attempted to canvass these and many other questions. Three panellists briefly spoke to various aspects of the webinar topic, followed by a discussion where panellists responded to comments, questions and observations.
Designing the student experience of tomorrow: three scenarios for a post-Covid world
Webinar recorded: Thursday November 5 2020
What will students’ experience of higher education look like in a world where life expectancy in Western Europe will increase to 100 years?; where embedded education technology will not be the exception, but the norm?; where the average shelf-life of knowledge imparted in a typical undergraduate degree programme will continue to decline, but more rapidly?; where the rates of participation in forms of higher education, will continue to grow?
In collaboration with our partner, EAB, our webinar explored these and other questions through the lens of three potential scenarios based around three institutional ‘ideal’ types.
The webinar was delivered in a lively and engaging way to maximise audience participation by making liberal use of online collaboration tools and strategic story-telling to help refocus our mindsets so that we are fully future-focussed!