Abstract
This paper focuses on the innovation management (or lack of it perhaps) of Higher Education as a sector, highlighting examples of practice from industry and private providers that suggest the university needs to start engaging in this agenda if it is to remain a sustainable entity beyond 2025. The paper presents five scenarios for the future of Higher Education underpinned by drivers of funding, the ownership and exploitation of ‘research’, the provision of good ‘teaching’, and the potential missing link of social innovation development. By refocusing on facilitating social innovation, the university can find a new means of adding value to society that will sustain its existence beyond 2025.
Highlights
The history and legacy of universities can make them resistant to change. Notions such as academic freedom, academic identity, and the nature of research have allowed those employed within the Academe to develop a privileged view from what is often metaphorically known as ‘the Ivory Tower’, i.e. the scientific canons established within the academic peer review process, the process of achieving graduation, and the professed production authority of ‘wisdom’ and ‘truth’
Universities have to be as rigorous in their approach and strategies to innovation as they are to their research and teaching if they are to adopt this mandate [2], and failing to adapt and adopt will see institutions losing their future student and research base to those who are demonstrating success in this area. It is becoming increasingly important for universities to identify their distinctiveness from other higher education (HE) providers in the future, and being the home of research and innovation through the research degree process may have established this position in the past, but this may not be enough to sustain them in the future [3]
Chesborough recognizes the need for external sources of knowledge in developing innovative ideas so that organisations do not become too inwardly focused in a process of open innovation [29]
Summary
The history and legacy of universities can make them resistant to change Notions such as academic freedom, academic identity, and the nature of research have allowed those employed within the Academe to develop a privileged view from what is often metaphorically known as ‘the Ivory Tower’, i.e. the scientific canons established within the academic peer review process, the process of achieving graduation, and the professed production authority of ‘wisdom’ and ‘truth’. For example, is important, in some regions of the world, such as Latin America where contributing to democratic process and
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