3. THE FUTURE
Three articles describe future perspectives. They each look at what the role of universities will be in the future, and they do so each on their own scale. Thus, the articles move from an overall societal story about economy, via the organisational learning of the university to the individual’s transformation inside the university’s buildings.
The first article introduces four scenarios: ‘Open Networking’, ‘Serving Local Communities’, ‘New Public Responsibility’ and ‘Higher Education Inc.’. The scenarios have different approaches to global and national interests as well as market forces and government regulation, as seen in e.g. the way in which they handle teaching and research buildings.
The second article argues that sustainability can be used as a tool for turning universities into learning organisations, which thereby become even better at researching, teaching and disseminating knowledge.
The third article pinpoints the potential of thinking in terms of transformations and university architecture. Whilst experience economy suggests icons, the more recent transformation economy focuses on experiences that transform the user. This way of thinking may influence the way in which we build universities.
All three articles focus on how the physical framework plays a significant role in relation to the universities of the future. In doing so, they point to the enormous potential found in professionally and strategically thinking physical planning into the future work of universities.
Futures scenarios for higher education buildings
Four scenarios for the future of higher education have been developed by the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. The four scenarios imply different ways of dealing with buildings and educational space for the universities of tomorrow. This paper sketches these scenarios and their possible implications
Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin is a senior analyst in the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), leading the CERI project on the future of higher education. The views expressed are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the OECD and its member countries
Some noteworthy trends in tertiary education point to different possible futures for tertiary education systems and for the design and management of education facilities in the OECD area. In a nutshell, these important trends for the future of buildings are: 1) continued expansion of tertiary education systems; 2) further internationalisation; 3) shifts in governance implying more competition for funds and more student contribution to the cost of tertiary education; 4) increasing use of technology.
The political will and individual interest that can fuel the further expansion of higher education systems are present in most countries. Should past trends in access rates continue, the enrolments would continue to increase in most OECD countries, in spite of the general ageing of society in many countries. On average, an OECD country could see the size of its tertiary education system increase by 16 % by 2025. This implies that the need for university places will probably not decrease in the near future.
The three other trends point to a different use of university space that will need to be taken into account in its design. The international mobility of students and academics has grown significantly in the past decade. The number of foreign students within the OECD area has tripled since 1980, and doubled between 2000 and 2006. While this may not last forever, this is likely to continue in the coming decades. The increasing use of online learning as part of university teaching may also change the use of space and the time of on-campus presence. Finally, recent shifts in cost-sharing point to an increased financial contribution of students to the cost of their studies, which generally results in more part-time enrolments. All these trends point to a different use of physical facilities, induced by a more temporary presence of students on campus and by new needs created by visiting scholars and students. This may profoundly change the patterns of socialisation on and outside campuses.
Finally, the increasing competition and concentration of funding in tertiary education may lead to different needs in terms of an ideal location for universities. The location of institutions as part of innovation clusters or as part of big metropolitan areas might become one important dimension of this competition for international visibility (and for funding). Examples of innovation clusters are the Knowledge Village in Dubai, the Education City in Qatar, or the Kuala Lumpur Education City in Malaysia.
Scenarios for the future of higher education
The four scenarios below bring together some of the ongoing trends and emerging changes and imagine what the future could look like if the changes became more radical. Each scenario could bring different prospects for the design and management of educational buildings.
Open networking
In this scenario, higher education is internationalised and involves intensive networking among institutions, scholars, students and with other players such as industry. It is a model based more on collaboration than on competition.
Students choose their courses from the global post-secondary education network and design their own curricula and degrees. Students have a great deal of autonomy. They often study abroad and take courses offered exclusively online. New technologies have brought changes in approaches to teaching, especially at undergraduate level, with standardised courses often delivered online, and different use of classroom time with more small seminars and interactive discussions. International collaborative research has been strengthened by the dense networking between institutions, driven by the availability of free and open knowledge.
This scenario could be driven by voluntary co-operation between and among countries and institutions leading to the gradual harmonisation of higher education systems as in the Bologna process.
Such a scenario could have many implications for the design and use of the buildings. Housing for students and academic visitors would become an important feature. The large number of international visitors and students might imply that campuses located close to cultural sites or capitals become more attractive as tourism and studies become intertwined. International networking could possibly lead to the development of multi-campuses in several countries. The access to electronic resources will allow for different uses and missions of libraries. In most cases, the management of the buildings would remain very traditional – either done by universities when they own their buildings or by public authorities when they do not.
Serving local communities
In this scenario, higher education institutions are focused (or refocused) on national and local missions. They are embedded in their local and regional communities, and are dedicated to addressing local economic and community needs in their teaching and research.
As is currently the case, higher education is mainly publicly funded and administered. Academics are treated as trusted professionals with control over education and research processes. A small number of ‘elite’ institutions are linked to international networks (although there are now some barriers to internationalisation). The average institution, however, responds to its local communities. It works more closely with industry to design relevant initial and lifelong training. It also offers more recreational education for elderly people.
This scenario could be driven by a backlash against globalisation. There is a growing scepticism in regard to internationalisation for a variety of reasons including recent terror attacks and wars, economic crises, concerns about the growth in immigration, frustration about outsourcing and the feeling that national identity is threatened by foreign influences.
In this scenario, institutions would need less student housing since they would be closer to the students’ homes. This would mean smaller educational buildings, with smaller and less comprehensive libraries, and better accessibility for older students – both working and retired people. Some services, such as baby care, would become a standard offer. Their location would need to be easily accessible to all, including to possible industry partners. One could imagine part of the courses actually being relocated to different sites, either within companies for training needs, or close to communities. The management of the buildings would in most cases be done by the local communities, but one could imagine a bigger interest of local economic players to build educational buildings that would service their needs.
New public responsibility
In this scenario, higher education is primarily publicly funded, as is currently the case, but there is a greater focus on the use of ‘New Public Management’ tools, including market forces and financial incentives.
The institutions are autonomous (or legally private). They still depend on public funds for a significant share of their budget. However, institutions have taken advantage of foreign education markets, the deregulation of tuition fees, the patenting of their academic research and their growing financial links with industry to diversify their funding sources. The boundaries between public and private higher education have blurred, as most resources of universities are private, coming from student tuition fees, and support from business and private foundations. The division of labour between (or within) institutions is more marked, most of them specialising in different missions in teaching and research – a differentiation that does not necessarily prevent all of them from continuing to carry out both research and teaching.
In this scenario, the shift in public governance could be based on mounting budget pressures created by the ageing society. Rising public debt has shifted a significant part of the cost of education from government to students and their families. The cost of health care and pensions are now the primary government spending priorities.
The autonomy given to the institutions would mean that they own their facilities. They would probably try to rent rather than own them if they had to expand. They would try to intensify their use to create room for more paying students. They would also start moving into facilities that better fit their increasing specialisation and probably hire space managers to optimise the use of their buildings (and its derived revenue). Gradually, education buildings would become much more diverse due to the different needs of each institution.
Higher Education Inc.
In this scenario, higher education institutions compete globally to provide education and research services on a commercial basis.
Research and teaching are increasingly disconnected and institutions concentrate on what they consider to be their core business. Research universities thus hardly teach, if they teach at all, whereas general institutions concentrate almost exclusively on teaching. Most segments of the market are now demand-driven, with business-like methods (responsiveness to customer needs, attention to effective management and administration of the institution etc.), while the most prestigious institutions continue to be more supply-driven and managed through peer assessment.
There is fierce competition for students. Many universities are opening new institutions or branch campuses abroad and franchising educational programmes. An international division of labour is emerging, with some countries earning reputations for high-quality undergraduate education, while others are competitive in training postgraduate students and conducting research.
This scenario could be driven by some form of trade liberalisation in education. Originally pioneered by a few countries, trade in higher education has gained ground and become more pervasive.
As for buildings, there would be an even greater variety of facilities than in the previous one. The mainstreaming of for-profit education would possibly translate into a smaller size of institutions, smaller size of classes and less amphitheatres. Libraries would not necessarily belong to the institutions but become a business selling their services to the institutions – the researchers and/or the students. Some companies would specialise in constructing and renting tertiary education buildings with a business-like management. Most educational buildings would also be used as conference centres or even wedding places. Some institutions may continue to own their buildings and turn their design into an international logo, immediately associated with their brand, so that every student can live the same campus experience globally.
University construction and transformation economy
Students do not only want to learn, they also want to be transformed as people. The experience economy’s focus on consumption and experiences is now being replaced by transformation economy, which seeks a more lasting value creation. This way of thinking may inspire the way in which we build universities
Rune Thorbjørn Clausen, is an industrial PhD student with PLH architects and attached to the Center for Management Studies of the Building Process, CBS. He works with architectural added value in a transformation economy perspectiveUniversities are truly transformation economic suppliers. The student is enrolled at the university with a ‘clean slate’, and three or five years later, he or she has not only acquired knowledge but also transformed into something special, which is marked by a degree. This ‘extra’ that the university supplies, is transformations. A change of condition. It is acquired experience, insight or new skills, which in the situation fundamentally changes the student’s perceptions and expectations of what it means to study. If the university is to transform, however, it is not enough to look at the academic and social offers, it is even more necessary to consider the prerequisites for the academic and social aspects. I.e., the physical context.
In the last decade, experience economy has gained speed, and in step with its development, we are beginning to see the contours of a transformation economy, whose economic dynamics have their origins in the experience economy. Along with transformation economy comes a much more explicit demand for the user’s involvement in value creation. In fact, you can almost say that without involvement, value creations are not possible at all. In a classical economic sense, this means that the user becomes the controlling ‘production factor’ of traditional resources such as labour force, land, capital and technology.
This is pragmatic value creation in the sense that value sprouts from the student’s encounter with and involvement in architecture. And to a very great extent, it is a matter of the student’s ability to participate in the value creation. Value becomes a result of how actively the student gets involved in the architecture. Consequently, university construction should trigger inspiration in the student, so that the student feels tempted to use and interact in the building, and this mobilises the basis for a value creation that can positively transform the student.
At a time where interaction between students and between researchers and teachers is made more and more virtual and non-physical, the physical design only becomes even more important. The campus area or the distinctive university building should act as an agora in the old Greek sense of the word. A square, a gathering place, where you meet, discuss, allow yourself to be inspired and grow wiser. Planning of such an agora must be based on how the physical design, the architecture can mobilise and drive the transformations that are in such high demand. The trend in experience economy has been to give the users a great experience of architecture by focusing on the iconic building design in itself.
With the advent of transformation economy, we are beginning to see a shift in the perception of architecture. Rather than focusing on the object, we now see a greater need for a focus on the recipient’s attention towards the architectural object. When architecture opens up for a space of possibilities that allows the user to create, frame and filter meaning, one consequence is that meaning and value are no longer attached to the building, but inherent in the very attention you direct at the building as a user. This is a fundamental change. Now it is no longer the designed building that gives the user value and meaning, but it is the user who gives the building value and meaning via his encounter with and involvement in the building. Thus, the valuable transformations are driven forward by a mutual tension between building and user.
Transformation economy’s significance for university construction
Generally speaking, we are not particularly conscious of how our physical surroundings affect us, and what architecture represents, which is a paradox, because architecture is a significant resource of a cognitive, symbolic and emotional nature. Consciously and subconsciously, architecture has the ability to affect the users who are physically present in the building or who observe it from the outside. Architecture opens up to an action field, which offers to create value for the individual user. For this very reason many users and developers seem to make buildings useful in other ways than as outright climate screen or physical framework for teaching and research. In transformation economy, the building’s primary function of providing a roof over the head and protecting against rain and wind is no longer decisive. Instead, the building’s secondary function of providing associations and emotional meaning gains central focus to a higher degree.
This means that university buildings’ value is created by architecture’s ability to inspire and facilitate such other ‘projects’ of a more identity-creating and image-signalling nature. It is this utility potential that is the actual value creation of architecture. Architecture should inspire students so that they themselves can create sense and meaning on their own terms. The university building is a resource for this, and as a physical artefact it should not determine a given significance by imposing a meaning on the student. As the agora in the old Greek urban community, the university building should be a space of opportunity, in which the student can acquire experience and insight and be transformed.
”We shape our buildings and afterwards, our buildings shape us.”(Winston Churchill, speech to the British Parliament, 1943)
Then why should architecture do this? Well, for one reason, because architecture with its influencing effect on man’s scope of activity has a great potential for transforming its users. When the British House of Commons was to be rebuilt after the Blitz during World War II, Winston Churchill asked his colleagues to remember that the architecture, which was subsequently to be constructed, would affect and shape them as individuals. This is very good and pertinent advice to give. It is a shame, though, that the fundamental message, i.e. that architecture transforms its users, has been ignored to such an extensive degree. It even seems particularly troubling now when transformation economy is beginning to gain ground. The fact is, that because of its role as an educational institution, the university has a unique opportunity to supply solid and lasting transformations of its students, and architecture is a central tool for doing this.
Decision makers must be aware of this issue, as it is particularly problematic if the building – consciously or subconsciously – is rejected as a tool. In doing so, the opportunity to control and direct the effects implied by architecture are also rejected, and the opportunity to strategically influence the transformation of the students is lost.
How to drive the good transformation?
The word ‘transformation’ means a change of form – going from one condition to another. But – can a campus area transform? Yes, very much so. It can do so for several reasons, but one essential reason is that architecture facilitates given circumstances and behaviour. Architecture greatly affects our ability to express ourselves. Transformation economy’s view of architecture does, however, create a conflict as the user as controlling production factor of value also affects architecture’s ability to express itself. A brilliant example of this is the CBS’s main building at Solbjerg Plads square. Too few study workstations in the programme ‘reading room’ have resulted in students rewriting the programme ‘canteen area’ converting it into more of a reading room – or, in actual fact, into one large collective group room.
It is thus important to stress that in order to drive a good transformation, the planner has to realise and acknowledge that today’s users are critical, demanding and competent, and at the same time they demand a higher degree of involvement. Transformation economy’s view of architecture is, as mentioned, that it is not the designed building that determines the value and meaning for the user, but rather the user who determines value and meaning for the building via his encounter with and involvement in the building. This change implies that user and architecture should engage in an equal dialogue and exchange. Users move across, forward and backwards in architecture, and value will grow from the multiplicity of interactions they have in the building.
One result of this little reflective article will be that if the shift from experience to transformation is taken seriously, and energy and resources are allocated to meet the challenges, this wonderful tension between user and building will be able to produce social, cultural, economic and professional growth via the architectural design and set-up of the campus area. It requires for us to think in terms of transformations and that we establish a field of connection between sender and recipient, in which transformation can emerge, develop and grow.
This process is complex, and you may ask who it is that supplies the solution. Is it architecture? Yes, it opens up to possibilities, but does not in itself provide the result. Is it the users? Yes, but only if they are inspired by architecture and the possibilities and actions that it allows. Is it the decision makers? Yes, but only if they allow space for architecture that opens up a space of possibility for transformations.
The conclusion is thus that if we start to consider architecture in the light of transformation economy, we will see that architecture creates great potential value creations for the university, because it offers the student more lasting value creations.
Campus Sustainability: The Road to Systemic Transformation
Universities can benefit from institutionalising a commitment to sustainable campus operations. Green thinking can be a tool to transform universities into true learning organisations becoming even better at teaching, learning and sharing knowledge. A number of change agent activities can be used
Leith Sharp was the founding Director of Harvard’s Green Campus Initiative and has been working with universities for the last 15 years to achieve organisational change in the pursuit of environmental sustainabilityEnvironmental sustainability is a moving target that requires a rapid and wide-reaching escalation in the pace of organisational change across every university. We must move beyond the era of little victories, in which we make one discrete green project work at a time, to an era of systemic transformation, in which entire processes are reformed, resulting in large-scale environmental impact reductions across the university. At its heart, the challenge posed by the environmental imperative is an organisational change challenge. The road to campus environmental sustainability involves the very difficult work of deep, systemic and continuous reform of all institutional systems, habits, decision-making processes and behaviours that fail to internalise a consciousness of and relationship with the earth’s life support systems.
We must rapidly increase the rate at which our universities are able to transform almost every aspect of their organisational systems and physical operations by becoming learning organisations as well as teaching and research institutions. In order to circumvent the numerous forces that act to prevent change within our organisations, we must directly address the resistance to change by addressing the underlying fear of instability. To do this, we must be able to successfully maintain the stability and continuity of the university organisation while simultaneously changing almost every practice within it. This will involve the dual effort of diagnosing a myriad of organisational characteristics, risks (perceived and real), motivations and interrelationships, and using this knowledge to chart pathways towards innovation that are relatively free of risk and instability while being imbued with the necessary rewards and incentives for the individuals involved.
To achieve this we need a critical mass of individuals both within the university sector and in those external entities that serve universities, to undertake an array of change agent activities. These individuals will have the greatest effect by undertaking a range of change agency activities aimed at removing barriers and resistance to change while stimulating engagement and leadership amongst large numbers of people from all areas of the campus community. Such activities include the following:
Build a wide network of relationships, maintaining mutual trust, effective two-way dialogue, respect and understanding as the basis of engagement and shared learning. Effective and sustained organisational change is highly dependent upon the existence of a culture of trust. Maintaining trust within large and complex hierarchies requires diligence, advanced communication skills, heightened emotional intelligence, a sense of humour and a large investment of time and attention.
Take an active role in the transmission of experience between individuals and projects and use peer-to-peer forums as much as possible to foster engagement, commitment and learning. Adults are most likely to put effort into learning new things when they are engaged in a shared learning process with their peers where they might find themselves as teachers and/or fellow learners. Peer-to-peer approaches can be as wide-ranging as setting up forums, in which university presidents meet with and challenge one another, to running forums of targeted professional staff, in which they teach one another emerging best practices, to setting up student residential programmes that employ students to engage and influence their student peers.
Reform finance and accounting practices to ensure that both capital and operating costs are considered in financial decision-making pro-cesses.
One effective cycle of leadership leveraging involves engaging the grass roots of the organisation (such as building managers, custodial or kitchen staff) to trial new projects that can then be used to gain upper level leadership statements of support, which can then be leveraged to generate middle management support. Middle managers tend to be the gatekeepers of the institutions’ decision-making processes and systems because they often need to know that they have both the support from above and the capacities below before they are ready to buy into a new proposed change. Therefore, they are central to successful institutional transformation. When middle managers in universities across the world finally put their support behind integrated design, life cycle costing and reinvestment in campus sustainability activities, planning and design teams will be able to explore vast new horizons for sustainable campus planning, design and operations.
This reform alone will remove one of the most significant barriers to achieving the optimal energy efficiency performance of campus buildings and onsite campus energy systems. One approach is the adoption of life cycle costing (see www.lifecyclecosting.org) for a definition) in all financial decision-making processes that involve ongoing operating costs. In that way, all significant financial decisions take account of the true cost impact beyond just the up-front cost.
Allow for resource conservation-related cost savings to be tracked and reinvested in additional sustainability staff and campus sustainability activities with long payback periods and carbon offsets. This reform would open the way for significant cost neutral environmental impact reductions across the campus. On the large scale, many campuses would also be able to achieve cost neutral climate neutrality by adopting an accounting and finance framework for tracking and reinvesting conservation savings over long periods of time. Furthermore, the challenge of finding funding for dedicated sustainability staff can be resolved by tracking and reinvesting savings that result from the work of these staff, setting up a positive feedback loop between increased staff capacities and increased conservation savings.
Adopt governance structures and accountability frameworks that institutionalise ongoing reporting responsibilities across the campus.Common accountability frameworks include green building certification systems, greenhouse gas reduction commitments and annual waste and recycling reports. Accountability frameworks are most effective when there is wide scale consultation in their development and adoption. Common governance structures include campus-wide advisory committees of staff, students and faculty and are most effective when there is adequate professional support from sustainability staff with a senior report and adequate resources
Integrate strategies for achieving continuous improvement in all areas of campus planning, design and operations.This may be achieved by institutionalising a commitment to continuously review and expand institutional sustainability goals as current goals are reached, and by fostering an organisational culture that supports continuous learning and exploration. In many regards, this will come down to ensuring that staff are encouraged to spend enough time piloting new approaches, engaging in ongoing professional development and investing in networks of professional peers to allow for continual sharing of best practices between universities.
Formalise the use of the campus as a living lab for the practical exploration of sustainability innovations. Students who wish to pursue sustainability related studies could benefit enormously from participating in campus based sustainability projects that offer practical, interdisciplinary learning experiences. Faculty wanting to expand sustainability related teaching and research could be supported by administrative staff to utilise a variety of campus facilities, data, sites and demonstration projects to enrich related curriculum and research activities. In turn, with enough management support, administrative staff could derive professional satisfaction and timely help from students and faculty in testing and analysing new approaches and opportunities for reducing campus impacts.
Work to bring about a shift towards systems thinking, in which the focus becomes the optimisation of the system over the optimisation of its subcomponents at the expense of the overall system. Many of our greatest opportunities for reducing campus environmental impacts can only be diagnosed, understood and afforded when they involve larger systems than are typically considered. For example, radical improvements in energy efficiency can be achieved at no added cost by investing more in building envelops and then working to right size the mechanical systems to reflect the reduced heating and cooling demands. Similarly, the premium costs associated with shifting to environmentally preferred products such as 100 % recycled paper, green cleaning products or organic food can become a cost neutral proposition if additional opportunities associated with the larger systems of material consumption are also considered. For example, costs can be entirely offset by adopting policies to print all copies double-sided, to use microfibre cloths to reduce cleaning chemical costs, or to work with students to reduce food waste and place greater value on quality over variety. On the campus planning scale, thinking in terms of larger campus systems can open the way for radical improvements in campus utilities.
When we think about the sustainable campus of the future, most of us immediately preoccupy ourselves with the physical transformations. Onsite renewable energy systems and clever building design solutions utilising passive solar and natural daylight, treating and reusing storm water and sewerage onsite, local organic food in dining halls, composting systems turning waste into food for native landscapes, bicycles and quiet electrical vehicles cruising around campus, green chemistry techniques used in labs, and much more. The physical campus we dream of will never come to fruition if we do not first reform the deeply imbedded habits of compartmentalisation, territorialism, silos and institutionalised disconnections between disciplines, professions, tiers of management, capital and operating budgets because these habits will continue to tear apart, water down, compromise and overwhelm the best planning and design ideas. In reality, the world in which the sustainable campus lives or dies is the largely invisible world of people, relationships, power and process, a place in which too few of us have been channelling our revolutionary energies to date.