Education is often seen as a contrast (or even contest) between being a process of liberal education (with the aim of fostering life-long independent, innovative and creative thinking useful throughout life) and delivering vocational education (immediately applicable skills and competencies, ready for the world of work--"employability").…

The renewal of strategy development and implementation is important in the context of the changing higher education landscape. Changing government policy and the political agenda require a university to engage in careful strategy development and implementation which result in long-term sustainability. The political interest of the government will…

In a rapidly changing external environment, for many universities, restructuring of the academic organisation is the most important leadership challenge. In this article, the author provides an analysis of academic restructuring in UK universities. Using the "Commonwealth Universities Yearbook", he looked at the changes in academic structures…

The authors recognise that there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to implementing business intelligence strategy within universities. Elements of best practice have been taken from a case study of Imperial College, which may be applied across other institutions. The process starts with implementing and developing systems that capture robust data…

Professional managers in UK universities represent an increasingly diverse grouping of staff. As boundaries blur between academic activity and the contributory functions required to deliver that activity in mass higher education systems and markets, their roles have become more fluid. Quasi-academic territories are developing in which professional…

This paper discusses university finances in European countries which derive from the Humboldtian tradition. Such universities are mainly state funded, are independent academically but dependent financially, and have long histories of keeping the power of the state at bay. The most far-reaching, and arguably intended, consequence of government…

This paper explains the strategic importance of internal communications, and offers a simple model for managing the process of effective internal communications. Discussion includes defining internal communications, strategic importance of internal communications, integrating internal communications strategy as a natural part of everyday working…

The 2003 White Paper on higher education brought back into public debate the meaning of the term 'university'. In accordance with its statements that 'excellent teaching is, in itself, a core mission for a university' (DfES 2003a: 54) and 'not every teacher needs to be engaged in 'research' as a narrowly defined activity but might be expected to…

The 2003 UK's government White Paper on the future of higher education (DfES 2003) included the broad statement that 'all students are entitled to be taught well, and to be given the support they need to learn effectively.' But quality teaching--in the sense of quality in the classroom or online--is not the whole story, according to the author,…

This paper discusses the link between teaching and research, with emphasis on how best to manage core business of a higher education institution. The author argues that institutions should seek to integrate these core strategies, and agrees that 'universities need to set as a mission goal the improvement of the nexus between research and teaching'…