Effecting change in higher education institutions

Modern-project Senior Leadership Workshop by ESMU: “Effecting change in higher education institutions”, 13-14 April 2011, Brussels (Belgium). Click here to see the full program.
MODERN - European platform for Higher Education Modernisation is a three-year EU-funded structural project under the Lifelong Learning Programme. MODERN organises conferences, peer learning activities, senior leadership workshops and publishes thematic reports. Higher education in Europe has undergone considerable change in the last decade deriving from the pressures of globalisation and the need for Europe to find new ways to maintain its position in the world economy. The current economic difficulties and longer term demographic trends will ensure that the pressure for change will not diminish. However, most leaders of higher education institutions have risen to their positions mainly through their academic expertise in a subject discipline, in an organizational culture defined by collegiality.
While this system has coped well with the demands made on it, there is a sense now that the volume of change is such as to necessitate a qualitative change in the leadership and management of higher education towards greater professionalisation. The EU-MODERN Project is launching a senior leadership workshop to improve the knowledge about and practical skills for leading and managing change in European universities. The workshop will provide a framework for practical change management in a university setting and will facilitate an opportunity for those at senior level tasked with bringing about such changes, to share their experience and enhance their practice.
The workshop will use both plenary sessions, with presentations from senior experts in higher education management illustrated by real-life university cases, and small group sessions using a peer-learning model, facilitated by an organisational development trainer and certified coach. A central feature of the workshop will be a focus on addressing the specific change management issues faced by the participants. All participants will be requested to provide a case to be shared and explored with their peers in a supportive and confidential environment. Information and experience exchange is an essential value of the workshop.
The practical outcome of the workshop will be that participants will develop and test out with their peers and with experts a proposed plan of action to implement in their home institutions. The format of the workshop is especially designed to stimulate interaction and networking. The workshop will provide an intellectually stimulating and supportive environment in which to share the challenges of the modernisation of higher education and to develop the leadership skills appropriate to the task with the support of senior experts and participants.
The target group is senior managers in European universities with responsibility for bringing about specific institutional change at a strategic level (Vice/Pro-Rectors, Directors of Administration, Deans; Research Institute Directors; Heads of Academic Departments). The number of places is limited to 20 participants. For further information and registration see www.highereducationmanagement.eu.