Discover and share good practice for smarter working universities

Evidencing the benefits of a business improvement project from the start

Following the launch of the University of Strathclyde's Guide to Evidencing the Benefits of Business Process Improvement in July 2015, Nicola Cairns shares an example of how this approach can be seamlessly integrated into existing business improvement projects.

Development of an Academic Intern Scheme

This project will develop a professional development scheme for postgraduates interested in an academic career. This intern scheme is designed to offer an innovative and inclusive way to expose postgraduate taught and research students to wider academic skills, practices and processes, whilst providing an opportunity to see the workings of a higher education institution.

Academic Career Frameworks: Key to Change?

Bournemouth University’s new career frameworks for academics are the subject of a longitudinal study funded by the Innovation and Transformation Fund. Here is a report from 2015 setting out the findings gathered to date.

Developing the next generation – Brunel University

A guidance and good practice resource for the leadership development of early career researchers and academics, based on a research project funded by the Leadership Foundation's Innovation and Transformation Fund.

The P3 Project – People, Performance and Process, Bangor University

A project to bring the questions of people and performance together with lean methodologies has been developed by the Aber-Bangor Strategic Alliance with funding from the Innovation and Transformation Fund.

Schools Planning Framework for Academic Leaders

The Schools Planning Framework project funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, seeks to explore the development of a practical application of a performance management tool, aimed at academic units. The report sets out the findings of the project as a case study based at the University of Lincoln.

Engagement driven approach to process improvement – University of Hertfordshire

This report describes a project to develop an approach to process improvement within Higher Education that focuses on people, acknowledges their different perspectives and uses these perspectives to enhance capability.

Shared services – Jisc shared data centre – case study – June 2015

Jisc has joined forces with Infinity SDC and six anchor tenants to provide a shared data centre for research and education. Potential benefits significant cost savings through aggregating requirements across tenants.

HE Shared Legal – the new shared legal service for UK higher education

HE Shared Legal, the new national shared legal service for the UK higher education sector, is a pilot project borne out of a HEFCE and JISC Advance backed feasibility study conducted in 2010. Since the service was launched on 1 May 2012, it has gained eleven HE subscriber institutions, published more than 170 items of generic guidance, and attended to over 85 individual legal enquiries.

£14.8m cash efficiency savings for NEUPC members

Following the publication of the North Eastern Universities Purchasing Consortium’s (NEUPC) annual report, Maria Langham describes the consortium’s recent achievements and how it plans to support universities in their mission to deliver world-class education in the future.