Alistair Jarvis CBE, Advance HE’s Chief Executive, shares insights from a recent address to Ukrainian university leaders at a British Council event, reflecting on the pressures and leadership capabilities shaping higher education worldwide.
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of university leaders and academics from Ukraine at an event organised by the British Council. It was a sobering and humbling experience. The resilience of those colleagues, who are sustaining higher education under conditions of genuine existential pressure, is remarkable. Yet what struck me equally, as I prepared my remarks, was how the underlying challenges they face resemble those confronting universities in almost every part of the world. The pressures differ in scale and severity, but their nature is recognisably shared.
Drawing on Advance HE’s work with higher education institutions across more than 70 countries, I want to offer a global perspective on two questions: what are the common challenges facing universities today, and what leadership capabilities does the sector need to meet them?
The landscape of challenge
What universities are facing is not a difficult period to be weathered, but a structural shift that demands a different kind of leadership response. University leaders are managing multiple, interrelated pressures simultaneously: financial constraints, technological disruption, regulatory scrutiny, shifting student expectations, and heightened public visibility. These pressures interact and compound one another, and they are requiring institutions to change not incrementally but fundamentally.
Four themes appear with particular consistency across different geographies.
The first is artificial intelligence. Generative AI is already reshaping assessment, curriculum design, workforce roles and institutional credibility. Questions of academic integrity, changing student learning behaviours, workforce capability and the ethical governance of AI are now live concerns for university leaders everywhere, not future ones.
The second is investment in people. High quality higher education cannot be achieved without sustained investment in the professional development of staff, both academic and professional services. The challenges we face, whether digital transformation, changing student needs or evolving employment markets, require staff who think and work differently. That capability does not emerge by accident. It must be developed.
The third is a shared policy priority across many governments: student outcomes. Quality, in the contemporary sense, extends well beyond what happens in the lecture theatre or laboratory. It encompasses graduate employability, student partnership and inclusive teaching. Students should not be passive consumers of education. The most effective institutions treat students as co-creators of their learning experience, and they design programmes that equip graduates as well-rounded, work-ready citizens.
The fourth is global benchmarking. We live and work in a globalised world. Our students will compete in global employment markets; our institutions operate within international research and knowledge communities. It is therefore vital that quality standards, professional recognition and academic approaches are benchmarked internationally. Insularity is no longer an option, if it ever truly was.
Leadership under strain
These challenges are placing considerable strain on higher education leadership. That is not a criticism of the people in post. The sector is full of talented, dedicated individuals. But new challenges demand somewhat different skill sets, and there are capability gaps at every level of leadership and management that deserve honest acknowledgement.
From our experience working globally, certain capabilities stand out as particularly pressing. Leaders need to be able to operate with change and uncertainty as the norm rather than the exception. They need a working understanding of digital transformation and AI, not necessarily technical expertise, but sufficient fluency to make sound strategic and governance decisions. They need stronger financial acumen and commercial awareness. They need to navigate increasingly complex regulatory environments, manage sophisticated networks and partnerships, and understand the needs of a student population that is itself changing rapidly.
Above all, leaders need the ability to drive significant transformation while keeping people with them. Many institutions are implementing structural and educational change, new operating models and partnership arrangements, all while maintaining academic purpose and staff engagement. That is genuinely difficult work, and it requires leaders who can hold the institution together while moving it forward.
A final thought
Universities are only as good as the people who work in them. The most important investment any institution can make is in its own staff. That conviction underpins much of what Advance HE does, and it is the message I wanted to leave with my colleagues in Ukraine, as it is the message I would offer to university leaders wherever they are working.
The challenges are real, and in some contexts they are profound. But they are not insurmountable, and they are, in their essential character, shared. There is both solidarity and practical value in learning across borders.
