Dr Lorna Jean Edmonds, executive advisor , University of Ottawa

Forging a singular approach to higher education strategic research planning and trend analysis

By Dr Lorna Jean Edmonds

The success of any institution — public or private — is almost always defined by the quality of its organizational and strategic planning. Historically, academic institutions, particularly in Canada, have been the exception to this rule. The challenge isn't that institutions lack strategic plans — they have too many.

In an environment where the university tenure model has traditionally given each faculty member a licence to set their own research agenda, the university is encumbered with an environment of multiple plans. And these may not necessarily be mutually exclusive and synergistic.

To remain current and be ‘best of breed in all aspects of their business", integrated planning and trend analysis must become a central preoccupation. Cultivating leadership, sustainability, and ultimately, institutional survival requires a coherent planning model which is fluid, highly adaptable, integrated and inclusive of knowledge-based strategies for targeted areas of intensity, excellence, competitiveness and impact.

It is also about articulating the university's distinctiveness and contributions to Canada and the world's growth, development and sustainability. Universities need to know and listen to what it is that their faculty are doing. Faculty need to be guided in their research choices by the strategic directions of their institutions — all with a common purpose of bringing value and profile to academic pursuits and contributions.

Critical planning imperatives

Three critical factors currently drive the planning imperative for universities worldwide: e-technology, globalization and the knowledge economy. Collectively, these have triggered a disruptive environment in which there is a heightened expectation of higher education playing a key role in advancing the nation's stability, growth and prosperity.

The fact is that higher education is a focal point for the innovation agenda. Universities must increasingly identify and then focus on the areas and objectives where they possess significant capacity, and in which they are actively engaged and can exercise impact and foster innovation.

For university-led research, the implications of these imperatives are significant and known but remain largely unapplied in terms of truly integrated planning activity. For example, how often have major areas of research within universities emerged in the absence of associated and aligned training programs, particularly at the PhD level? Far too often is the likely response.

A starting point for institutions is to better understand current capacities. They need to align these with emerging developments in higher education and major national, global and now ‘universal' directions and trends in which they currently lead or wish to play a leading role. Key to this process is identifying unique clusters of research and nuggets of emerging and unexplored areas.

For example, what university is leading in introducing the next frontier in science and scholarship such as the alignment of advances in space technology with the imperative to explore space relations and culture? With the recent announcement of space journeys to Mars planned for 2023, the shift from globalization to ‘universalization' is just a matter of time – a concept that sci-fi literature (the humanities) has been writing about for ages.

building institutional awareness

Integrated planning and trend analysis need to be undertaken as part of a process of building institutional awareness of relevant and particularly near-term opportunities that build distinctiveness. This in turn must be translated into the creation and testing of novel models, partnerships and structures that are more enabling and compelling in a context that provides financial diversity and security.

This must occur alongside the development of new platforms and networks for increasing internal and external engagement. It requires futuristic visioning, including exploring new paths and unchartered territories in S&T and approaches to social and cultural innovation, while ensuring that elements of traditional inquiry that have served universities for centuries are safeguarded.

Access to data that speak to institutional capacity and distinctiveness is essential. Institutions also need to know more precisely how they are having an impact on the broader academy and in the broader public community; know with whom they are doing research; and equally, where their students go following graduation.

critical steps

Some specific considerations in developing effective planning processes include the need for the development of:

• Clearly articulated sets of descriptors that profile capacity and distinctiveness.

• Advanced IT infrastructure that can support data analytics, data and information exchange and branding through advanced communications.

• Standard university on-line profiles/CVs for faculty and graduate students that report on descriptors and follow their career paths.

• The creation of a single university strategy that integrates research, education and the president's vision during her/his leadership tenure.

• Transformational shift of the institutional planning office from data support and advice to driving institutional strategy and trend analysis.

These are all essential elements of a new phase of evidence-based planning and decision making for universities of all types; from arts and humanities institutions which pride themselves on critical thought, to those deeply invested in discovery and applied research in advanced manufacturing or space relations and innovation. Such planning requires a whole new approach to collecting and managing institutional information along a single axis.

Given the breadth and depth of the challenges and opportunities now upon us, it is no longer viable to have multiple strategic plans developed in isolation —a lesson now being applied by some of the world's most successful international institutions. How better to keep Canada and research firmly entrenched in the innovations economy than to know your enterprise and have ONE plan.

Dr Lorna Jean Edmonds is the executive advisor to the VP research at the University of Ottawa.