Led by Prof. Richard Hill

Universities (particularly their managers) talk a lot about innovation.

“We need to innovate”

“This is innovative”

“Our environment fosters innovation”

And this is what people outside academia would expect from a university. Lots of bright, enthusiastic people, in the same space, working together, innovating.

As an academic manager I am wary of how being innovative is something that might be quantified as a ‘performance indicator’. This prompted me to reflect on my experiences of working with academic staff, and I have come to the conclusion that while there might be targets to recognise, negotiate and manage, it is essential that the emphasis should be on developing a culture of innovation. This culture emerges when the following characteristics are evident:

1. Diversity of thought – we must embrace difference and use it as a catalyst for action.
2. Growth mindset – universities are full of hard-working people, but it is a resilient mind that enables the persistence and self-belief to keep plugging away.
3. Encouraging risk-taking – we should learn from start-ups; fail fast and learn.
4. Sensitive communication – effective communication is the lubricant for dissemination of ideas between colleagues and external stakeholders.
5. Agility – an ability to ‘duck and dive’ in response to external pressures, but also opportunities to innovate at all levels, especially systems within universities.
6. Collaboration – perhaps collaboration is talked about more than innovation in universities, but it is the ability to work together across boundaries (often political) that results in a tangible outcome.
7. Efficient workflows – we need to learn from the Software Engineering profession; automate the tedious, error-prone processes, and focus on quality enhancement, so that we can invest more time on learning and teaching innovations.
8. Supportive leadership – perhaps the most important. The foundation stone upon which the enablers can be built. But leadership is not just about the hierarchy and titles. Successful academic departments are awash with empowered academics who lead in different ways.

The challenge, therefore, is how can we create such a culture.

Innovation is rife within the curriculum. I see it all of the time. Academics working with students in interesting ways, creating things, exchanging ideas and becoming new versions of themselves. And it’s easy for staff to become weary of constant demands for innovation.

However, building a culture of innovation is not necessarily about focusing on more innovation. That is the danger of those pesky performance indicators.

A culture of innovation is more about creating the conditions for innovation, rather than the innovation itself.

I’d like to see more of this thinking within management and leadership, and it is incumbent upon academic staff to consider how they might use management positions within Higher Education Institutions to effect the change that we desire. How might the experience of innovating with our students inform a new outlook for university leadership?

But it’s not all down to the managers and leaders either.

How can we transfer the benefits of learning and teaching innovations to university systems and practices?

If we can crack this, the innovation performance indicators shall only be reporting success.

Richard writes ‘The Productive Academic’ newsletter on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/profrichardhill/) and also maintains a blog at https://profrichardhill.com.

Biography

Professor Richard Hill is Head of the Department of Computer Science, and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Computing, at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Richard advocates using the processes of research to design and deliver innovative curricula, and he has led the transformation of several large portfolios in the field of Computing education. Richard received a National Teaching Fellowship in 2022 recognising his inclusive approach to academic leadership and he is also an Advance HE Principal Fellow. Richard also has interests in academic development and servant leadership, and he has published a guide (https://tinyurl.com/coaching-academics) to using a coaching approach with academic staff. He also maintains a blog and newsletter about academic productivity at https://profrichardhill.com.