10 January 2025 Nick Gilbert, Chief Information Officer of the London School of Economics and Political Science, shares perspectives on how institutional leaders can work together to deliver strategic change in challenging times. We in universities face well-reported challenges that have brought long-standing strategic imperatives into sharper focus. While the sector has always needed to evolve and transform, today’s operational and financial pressures have added fresh urgency. For many, this creates a perceived choice between investing in long-term change and delivering immediate improvements. However, this isn’t an either/or proposition. The priority has to be on today and tomorrow. We cannot afford to focus exclusively on building solutions that will only deliver results in five or fifteen years. Planning for both requires careful navigation from institutional leadership, with the entire leadership team aligned on where we’re going and how we’ll get there. Leading strategic change together At the heart of these considerations lies the fundamental purpose of universities: the advancement of knowledge and its dissemination. We must constantly evolve to remain institutions of quality, delivering value to students, fostering impactful research, and building capabilities for the future. This multifaceted purpose shapes how leadership teams approach transformation. We can no longer […]