They do need a more advanced kind of capability for change.
As we embark on another working year, I’ve been reflecting on the challenges and opportunities facing universities in 2026. And yes, me being me it’s turned into a 1,700 word theory of change piece… there is also a conceptual model, and I have some practical ideas about implementation, which I’ll save to share later if they’re useful. But here’s the introductory piece.
Universities: facing disruptive change and increasing pressure to change
The higher education sector is now thoroughly familiar with the ‘universities are facing disruptive change’ narrative. Today, that narrative is most often associated with the sudden ubiquity of generative AI; before that, it was the pandemic. The underlying concern, however, remains the same: the business sustainability of universities. Other pressures in Australian higher education include policy-led financial constraints and shifting funding models, and intensifying institutional competition from within the sector and elsewhere. Taken together, these pressures don’t just strain university finances. They shape institutional decision-making, risk tolerance, and the kinds of educational trade-offs universities feel compelled to make.
This disruption narrative is often conflated with a related but distinct one: that higher education itself needs to change. This second narrative points to growing mismatches between what universities do and offer and what their stakeholders expect. In 2025, the decline in social license and erosion of public confidence and trust were key issues for the sector, driven by perceptions that universities have become overly corporatised and out of touch with community concerns. Some of the criticisms relate to universities’ difficulties keeping up with an increasingly diverse student population, meeting evolving learning needs, and catering to rapidly changing workforce skill requirements.
How can our students be more adaptable if we aren’t?
Across roles and initiatives that I’ve pursued in my career, there is a recurrent theme: leading and enabling change within institutions, with the overall aim of supporting learners to become more future- and change-capable. For instance, at my current institution I’ve worked with educators to embed work-integrated learning at every level of every undergraduate course; I’ve infused career development learning into the curriculum with positive impact on student engagement, retention, success and graduate outcomes; and most recently, I’ve been using data to personalise learning and student support within and beyond the curriculum.
Much of this work has involved connecting parts of the institution that do not naturally collaborate, partnering with industry, community, educators, and learners themselves, and working across entrenched silos and legacy processes in pursuit of transformation. Across these initiatives, the common challenge has been less about persuading individuals to change (although stakeholder engagement has been centrally important), and more about enabling universities to act coherently and responsively. Within universities we’ve all had innumerable ‘process wagging the dog’, ‘computer says no’, ‘ivory tower syndrome’ and ‘fiefdom mentality’ experiences that militate against change.
At a higher level, what I have noticed through my experiences is that to develop future-and-change capable learners and graduates who will be successful in their lives and careers, you need future-and-change capable educators, and in turn future-and-change capable institutions (and a policy context that enables all of the above). Put another way, it is very difficult to teach students to be proactive and adaptable when their educational experiences, programs, processes, structures and environments they encounter are reactive and rigid.
Change resistance: Not the enemy, necessarily
Universities are often described as change-resistant, and this is usually framed as a criticism. Actually, and this may seem to run counter to what I’ve just said – bear with me – I think that some change resistance in higher education can be a good thing.
Commitments to educational quality, consistency, and accountability are essential. Quality assurance requirements play a legitimate and necessary role in maintaining trust in higher education. Too much change leads to exhaustion and confusion.
Here’s where the nuance comes in. I’d argue that universities need to build our capability to know when (and how) to flex, and when (and how) not to. In many ways, we’ve erred on the side of non-change for a long time. Over time, layers of bureaucracy and administrivia have accumulated – often in response to past risks or policy pressures – without being revisited or tested against their ongoing value. I suggest that some of these structures are no longer proportionate to the quality aims they were designed to serve, yet they continue to shape what is possible, how quickly institutions can move, and where effort is expended. A good example here is course development and accreditation processes, which can sometimes be so glacially slow that once finally approved, a new course immediately needs to be redesigned to be relevant.
There is an important difference here between principled resistance, grounded in educational quality, equity, and accountability, and inertial resistance that persists simply because systems are difficult to change. In this sense, selective resistance is not a liability but a contributor to public trust and social licence, signalling that universities do not abandon core values in the face of every new pressure.
The deeper problem isn’t resistance to change, but that universities are not sufficiently future-and-change capable. Future-and-change capability is a distinct institutional capability, infused into all of our core activities at every level of the institution, that shapes how universities navigate uncertainty over time.
This isn’t another call for university agility, innovation, or cultural change alone. It is an argument about the fundamentals of institutional design – about embedding adaptive capacity into governance, systems, and everyday decision-making. It is a set of institutional capabilities embedded in structures, processes, and ways of working. A future-and-change capable university can make good, informed decisions with the future and the present in mind at every level of the institution, to change and adapt where needed or stay put when this is the best course of action.
Reactive, sustaining and transformative change
Universities can and do change. However, much change in universities remains reactive and mostly unexamined, triggered by external shocks and requiring extraordinary actions and measures. From the inside, reactive change can feel like a sudden sideways lurch: priorities shift, funding is reallocated, roles and structures are reshaped. The aim of reactive change is not transformation. It is usually about returning to a viable version of the status quo. Over time, this reactive pattern erodes staff trust, depletes morale, and weakens institutional memory, making subsequent change harder rather than easier.
Universities also pursue what might be described as sustaining change: proactive, incremental improvements intended to enhance existing practices, programs, or systems. While these initiatives are frequently well-designed and evidence-informed, they are less often structurally protected. Unlike routine continuous improvement, sustaining change often challenges existing power arrangements, resource allocations, or performance metrics, which can make it more vulnerable. When priorities shift, leaders move on, or funding and policy settings change, sustaining change initiatives can stall or disappear, sometimes irrespective of their impact or value. Often, what is missing is structural protection: stable funding, formal governance ownership, embedded roles, and alignment with core institutional processes.
It seems many of our institutions struggle to do any form of change particularly well. Reactive change is exhausting, disruptive and sometimes frightening for those affected. Sustaining change can be fragile and difficult to maintain over time. Change often seems to be something universities endure, rather than something they are structurally equipped to navigate, learn from, and build upon.
The deeper problem is not that universities resist change, but that they lack the capability to decide – deliberately, proportionately, and in time – when and how to change and when not to, and then to carry those actions through.
There are, of course, institutions that have pursued more substantial transformations successfully, including new models and modes of delivery, large-scale pedagogic change, deeply data-informed approaches to curriculum and student support, short-form credentials, and co-ordinated tertiary offerings across vocational and higher education. What makes these examples compelling is that these are instances where, despite universities’ change resistant and risk averse reputations, they have taken larger risks proactively in pursuit of meaningful change.
Also, we find in many of these innovations evidence that institutions have sought to meet sector policy priorities and business sustainability imperatives concurrently, while keeping core ideas around HE values, identity and purpose at the forefront (which might also, incidentally, help rebuild our social license). Success here takes courage and outstanding leadership, along with the right enabling conditions.
What is future-and-change capability? (AKA I finally get to the point)
But my thinking keeps returning to how higher education institutions (and the sector as a whole) can start to become more future-and-change capable in an ongoing way. Innovation cannot be a one-off project or even a periodic endeavour for universities, as disruptors, change pressures and opportunities continually emerge. Yet for many institutions, there remains a significant gap between acknowledging this need and having the institutional capability required to act on it consistently.
Proactive, conscious, deliberate and ongoing approaches to navigating change must become normalised in higher education. This begins with ensuring that we are continually looking around and ahead, experimenting, and connecting meaningfully with our communities, then interpreting what we are seeing. We need to sense-make actively from these experiences and make informed decisions about how to act that are also grounded in who we are and why we exist.
Universities also need to ensure that we have the capability to act – that we are equipped and ready to transform, adapt, or deliberately hold steady, and that we learn from our actions. This means building feedback loops that allow us to assess outcomes, adjust course, and sustain effective change over time, rather than repeatedly resetting in response to each new pressure.
I know that what I am calling for is a huge challenge for institutions and the sector, given the complexity of our internal and external contexts, and the constraints that we face. I also think it’s central to our survival and our ongoing place in society.
It means supporting students and staff to develop their own adaptive capabilities, while also building enabling adaptive institutional structures and processes. We must also recognise that no institution can do this work in isolation. Connecting and collaborating across boundaries – with other institutions, communities, and policy makers – is essential to building and sustaining an adaptive educational ecosystem. For senior leaders, this means shifting some of their attention from each initiative or transformational program to the harder work of building enduring institutional capabilities that allow universities to adapt with integrity and purpose over time.
If higher education is serious about preparing learners for uncertain futures, then the sector itself must become more future- and change-capable. This will never occur through episodic reform, but by building aligned, adaptive capability and action across learners, educators, institutions, and the systems that shape them.
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This piece could be the first in a short series exploring what future-and-change capability could mean for higher education institutions and the sector. As I mentioned up front I have further thoughts about what future-and-change capability involves, what it could look like in practice institutionally and sectorally, and how to surmount the challenges involved in becoming more future-and-change capable.
I’m keen to hear from colleagues about your experiences of institutional change, particularly when it has been effective (or has had effective elements), or where ongoing adaptation has been a feature. Are there examples that you know of from higher education or other highly regulated sectors containing large organisations where continual adaptation is done well? Please get in touch if you’d like.
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NB. I wrote this post as a scholar of higher education, without critique of any particular institution or initiative in mind.
AI use and post development disclosure: I wrote a first draft of this post and asked ChatGPT to edit it critically. I reviewed its changes and additions and threw them all out because (i) it failed to grasp important nuances in the argument and (ii) its contributions were all in its own (very characteristic) writing style, despite my requests that it follow mine.
I wrote a second draft and then asked ChatGPT to critique the 2nd draft paragraph by paragraph, looking for errors in argumentation and editorial issues. I made some minor editorial changes based on its recommendations. I shared this 3rd draft with some close friends and colleagues for their thoughts and made some more changes before publishing. This post is organically me, including any errors or annoying em dashes you see.
