Ian Dunn, provost at Coventry University: ‘There’s a fine line between maverick and innovator’
The whole model of teaching and learning in HE needs to change, says Ian Dunn, provost at Coventry University. In our regular series of conversations in which university leaders share their insights on innovation in HE with Nic Newman, Ian also explains why ‘professor as sole trader’ makes university innovation more complex, offers advice to founders and reveals why sorry is no longer the hardest word.
Every quarter, Emerge and Mary Curnock Cook bring together Emerge’s network of university leaders to share insights and experiences on a burning issue within the sector — most recently the shift to digital assessment — and meet up-and-coming tech companies tackling that issue. Mixing these forward-thinking HE leaders with founders of fast-growing tech companies solving their problems leads to a vibrant exchange of ideas, vigorous debate and an unprecedented level of future insight.
Nic: You’ve shared with the Emerge HE leaders network a survey that shows that 25% of Coventry students want to stay fully online. What does that mean for your student offer? What will change and what will stay the same?
Ian: The whole model needs to change. Recognising that there’s diversity in what people want in their HE experience is really important, and so is trying to make sure that we use online and blended learning in the right ways and in the right places. We need to make sure there’s plenty of opportunities for people to come together if they wish to but, equally, to create online communities as well.
It’s much more than simply removing the formal lecture. It’s what we add back in and the spaces that we create. The estate that we build for the future is going to be so much more about creating collaborative spaces for staff and students, where they can have the experience of being with other people, talking to other people, challenging thinking. That’s got to be both online and on campus.
Nic: An enterprise or corporate would say this level of change is an innovation challenge. And they’d say that only by re-imagining traditional approaches, or seeing new approaches, are we going to get to a new product or new place. Is the solution here that universities become more innovative and try more innovative approaches? And if so, is there anything holding the sector back from being from that?
Ian: You’re right. Behaving in entrepreneurial ways is something that I’ve been particularly talking about for 10 years. I chair the National Centre for Entrepreneurship and Education and we have our Entrepreneurial Leaders programme to support senior leaders in universities to share their experience of innovation and entrepreneurial behaviour. But then, I look at my institution and we have 7,500 members of staff. Turning a university into an agile, innovative sort of institution isn’t easy — in the corporate world, the lines of business, and the direct control that you have over those lines of business, are so much closer. Universities have complex organisational structures, relationships between staff, trade unions and students, and we’re regulated by enormous numbers of people in all sorts of ways.
When it comes to teaching, an academic member of staff who’s a subject expert goes into a classroom and there is no monitoring of that classroom. What happens in that classroom is down to the professionalism of the academic member of staff — there’s almost a ‘sole trader’ aspect about that activity. We don’t want to lose that but, equally, how from there do you effect change across the board so it’s systematic? A student will not have one single experience from their university, because they’re going to have a dozen or 15 tutors in each year of study. The relationships, the ability to effect that change and the communication of it, is complex.
Nic: Within Coventry, where do you see innovation occurring then? Is it from those ‘sole traders’, where individual professors bump up innovation? Is it from a central teams? Is it from external provocation?
Ian: All of those things, to a lesser or greater degree. It’s about how we communicate a corporate view of innovative behaviour and then free up people so that they’re not being maverick, they’re being innovative. And the difference is quite fine, isn’t it? It comes down to everyone seeing themselves as part of a bigger picture. It’s about the sole traders recognising that they’re part of a body corporate, and that gives them lots of opportunities, lots of freedoms, but also some responsibilities.
At Coventry we have a lot of central control and there is a lot of provocation from the centre, but I certainly see lots of innovation coming from other places too. Role modelling an innovative mindset and persistence are key. Demonstrating innovation and persistence lead to other people becoming innovative.
Nic: What do you see as the biggest threats and opportunities in the sector? And within that, where can you see technology helping the most?
Ian: I think the biggest threat at the moment is a cultural narrative against universities: a narrative in government circles and in the mainstream media that universities are full of fat cats and bad behaviour. I’m not saying there’s no bad behaviour, of course there is, and we should be calling it out wherever we find it. But the reality is, of course, that there’s lots more great stuff that goes on. I also worry that quite a lot of the commentators who are making those comments are people who benefited from free education in a very much more elitist HE system. And I can’t help but worry there’s a little bit of classism in this idea that there are too many universities. There aren’t. We need more, not less, and then we need innovation and diversity in all of that. There are also threats to financial sustainability, and especially to research funding.
Technology is absolutely on my opportunity list in terms of building better accessibility for more people, more reliability in creating those communities and more access to great tutors and great orators to bring the ideas to life. I’m very optimistic about the role of technology and data in order to lead insight. Once we’ve translated data into insights, then we can start to personalise learning, because we can really liberate whether someone needs to be scaffolded or stretched, or whether someone needs to be supported in their learning style rather than in the content.
Nic: What does that mean for how a university or a VC or a PVC should be thinking about their P&L? How much investment has to be effectively rerouted to new sources of innovation, and how’d you go about doing that?
Ian: It has to be the very explicit statement of having a specific line in the budget that says we will continue to invest in innovative thinking, in trying to enhance what we do. That’s tough, because it means taking bits out from other places. It means facing the brutality of, when you’ve made a decision to transition to something else, killing off what went before and making the saving both in people and in technology that comes with switching something off. The ability to automate much more of our routine in order to be able to invest in the frontline, rather than in enormous amounts of administration, has to be important.
But I think having a straightforward and not insubstantial innovation line in a budget can be transformational. We know that when the government made its declaration about committing 0.7% to international development, it drove a set of narratives and thinking. And when they row back on the 0.7%, then there’s an outcry and we can hold them to account. We need that specific act of funding for innovation to support a proper roadmap of innovation.
Nic: And for founders innovating in the higher education space, what advice can you give them? What are the common mistakes you see them making? And if you think of founders who are exceptional, what do they do differently from the other founders you’ve met that means that their products are more likely to be successful?
Ian: Don’t over-pitch, don’t over-promise, but be clear that you’re coming with something which is a problem that’s been identified somewhere, and that you’ve solved. And be humble enough to recognise it may not fit. Don’t try and force it into every institution: you’ve got to find the ones where it’s adopted and then it will evolve to fit others.
Anders Krohn, CEO of Aula, brings humble confidence to the table. Dan Avida, the Engageli founder, offers the kind of inspirational conversation that blows me away every time I talk to him. Similarly, Jamie Poskin, founder of TeachFX, conveys a great passion for what he does. Humility mixed with passion is the key. The trouble with some of the founders is that they are passionate and pushy, and pushy doesn’t go down well.
I’m really excited about the work we’re doing with Ben Hallett, CEO at Vygo at the moment. It’s really growing like topsy and I love it. Every Thursday or Friday morning, I’ll wake up to a two-minute video update of how things are going. He doesn’t need to update me because I’m not leading the project, but he just sends me this two-minute video in that deeply Australian sort of way, “How are you doing, mate?” I actually look forward to getting those messages, and it’s a great way to communicate.
Nic: Is there anything that you’ve learned as a leader during the pandemic that has changed the way that you lead in work that you wish you’d always done?
Ian: I now deliberately start even the shortest response to an email or a video call by asking about the other person how they are and how things are for them. I’ve tried to become more connected to individuals and groups. However, I’ve also become more impatient, and so I’ve probably become more direct as a result of the situation, because of the feeling that we haven’t got enough time to mess around like perhaps we did in the past.
So what would previously have been a two-hour meeting is now one hour or even less in some cases. I still think that we’re getting through the content well but if people aren’t delivering, then they need to know that they’re not delivering. I’ve also said sorry more times during the last year than I have ever before. So if I think I’m even slightly in the wrong, then I’ll start by saying sorry. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
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If you are a university leader and you are interested in sector innovation, please do connect with me, Nic Newman.
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