Many of us joined PASCAL, because it was set up as an Observatory where we could truly get into meaningful conversations about some key and relevant issues such as Place Management, Social Capital and Life Long Learning. PURE shows us that intelligence, analysis and practical wisdom from PASCAL experts own originality, interaction and public engagement capability, to stimulate important debate.
PASCAL was designed to connect the worlds of scholarship (universities mainly) and policy-making (at sub-national region level mainly) to make academic work more useful and public governance better able to deliver. It is in this latter respect that it has largely failed to date, (and, for instance, James Powell’s attempt, for PASCAL, to develop PUMR to support constructive change in universities is an example. Where PUMR has been adopted well, in KHLim, the narrative has been changed and the local region of Genk, in Belgium, has gained a great deal from it. Change occurred in KHLim because senior local academic leaders recognised the PASCAL PUMR message, passionately choose to accept it, and with develop new co-ordinated working practices with the people of Genk to make a real difference and real improvements. They appointed the next tier of development manager leaders who themselves led for improved ways of working, with a huge range of partnership working between local business and the local university college. These partnerships seem to work because there is a meaningful conversation developing between all partners who: now work on joint projects co-identified by all; work closely together to co-create and co-design workable solutions; and then, and most importantly, co-produce sustainable and cost-effective solutions. James Powell’s PASCAL’s studies of KHLim, reveal it to be preparing itself well for necessary 21st century changes and challenges in society. It has an ambition to develop towards a new Higher Education culture where academic & support staff will:
Look where everyone has been looking:
See what no one else can see:
but also
DO WHAT NO ONE ELSE IS DOING
The examples we studied, were captured at recent regional event, which portrayed how KHLim has developed into a University for a Modern Renaissance where it can, and will, help its city region flourish with respect to industry, business, the civil and voluntary services and the community at large. Through its deep and meaningful collaborations with regional partners, it has, and will, develop leading edge solutions of high impact, which, as a result, lead to sustainable outcomes. Key in this is the leadership it provides to all parties.
General Lessons Learned with respect to this Theme
Before getting KHLim to describe its own processes in more detail, we think the key message learned from this PASCAL development was that change occurred (at KHLim) because senior local academic leaders recognised the PASCAL PUMR message, passionately choose to accept it, and with help from PUMR support staff learned how to develop, for themselves, new co-ordinated working practices with the people of Genk producing co-ordinated projects which make a real difference and real improvements in the real world. Such action was not trivial and was hard won by committed local leaders such as Michael Joris and Ria Bollen.
So PASCAL has to work towards developing local leaders who will not only spread the word, but also ‘take off their coats’ and get involved in local action. They had learned to understand the PASCAL way of working through a personal involvement with PASCAL-PURE and this ‘hands-on’ and deeply engaging process had given them the confidence to go to the next level for themselves. The PURE process also enabled them to recognise the weakness of their existing regional strategy for properly engaging with local citizens and the local community. As a result not only did the narrative change by which they understood and managed the local regional issues, but also their recognition that they had to learn how to do things rather differently, and with a rather different narrative. You will see from the discussions below that PASCAL-PUMR gave them an improved narrative and better ways of working successfully at the local level.
Unfortunately, the PUMR process has yet to be adopted by others in a similar situation to KHLim. Furthermore, the support which PASCAL can provide, although relatively low in cost, is much more than many universities or university colleges can afford. To get to an appropriate level of improved working the support PASCAL needs to supply is also more than most senior academic managers feel they can afford. The sort of changes PASCAL suggests are not trivial, so PASCAL’s Board needs to find a way of local leaders wanting to afford an improved approach.
If any in PASCAL can see ways and means of getting a similar situation to occur in other universities/colleges please make suggestions to OTB. Also indicate other situations where a PASCAL type approach has made a real and sustainable difference.
First Local Success Story for PASCAL-PUMR as portrayed by Michael Joris from KHLim
A few years ago Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg (KHLim) was involved in the PASCAL-PURE project in Flanders and the dissemination conference for the Flemish results was organized by us in cooperation with VLHORA (Flemish Council of University Colleges) and the Flemish Department of Education and Training.
Our institutional leadership was very much influenced by the philosophy and the tools offered by the PASCAL-PURE approach. KHLim staff participated in a number of PASCAL conferences, and it was decided that the model introduced by Pascal-PURE and later by PUMR was a model that was to be incorporated into the institutional approach of especially the Research and Services to the Community policies, which at that point were going through a number of changes. These changes were brought about by the overall changes in Flemish higher education, based on the new legislation on higher education and the ensuing new frameworks.
Because KHLim is to offer now programmes that are based on a professional profile (nursing and health care, teachers, social workers etc.) we went looking for operational models that could be used in the further development of the institution.
This model was found in PUMR.
KHLim uses the cooperation and help offered by PASCAL-PUMR for a number of reasons. We use it to transform institutional management, we use it to reinforce the institutional change management and we use it to further develop our specific type of research and community commitment. Bear in mind that KHLim is essentially a polytechnic working under the umbrella of the high-level research university of KULeuven. Ever since it became apparent that our master programmes were coming under the direct coordination of the university, it was understood that our research and development and services needed to be redefined, because from now on the focus would be on R&D in the professional-focused professional bachelor programmes.
Therefore there was a need of mind shift.
KHLim and CHANGE MANAGEMENT
PASCAL-PUMR helps us to look at the necessary change management and basically we are working on four domains
- Defining a modern vision/mission to ensure that there is awareness and commitment throughout the organisation
- Setting up a system to realise the goals, with an adequate organisation and the necessary tools and methods
- Working on the people aspect: inside and outside the organisation, ensuring awareness, training and job descriptions, including lecturers, researchers and students to come up with interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches
- Creating an impact through the establishment of sound networks, an ecosystem, and a quality culture
KHLim and IDENTITY
PUMR also helps to identify what we are and what we stand for. It helps us to think about the profile that we want to strive for. This is not so easy. We cannot pretend to be a research university, because that is not our core business. We are an institution that has to teach professional bachelors, we have to perform applied research and development and we have to offer our services to the community. We want to do that starting from our own identity and it is good that we have an initiative such as PUMR to be used as a benchmark to define this identity. This is not as easy as one might think, because we are changing our model and at the same time we wish to be a unique institution that can fully operate within the regional ecosystem. We are becoming a more complex type of organisation altogether. Therefore it is good to have guidance and examples of good practice, and professional coaching.
PUMR is helping to develop our USP as an institution, and it helps us to develop in an institution that can take up its role as a key organisation for the regional Knowledge Transfer Partnership in our province Limburg.
We cannot at this point in time make use of the organizational structures of the research universities in Flanders, because there are not enough resources available to us in terms of both qualified people and funding. The current financial model for Hogescholen/University Colleges is under debate, but it will take a long time to change that, if this is going to happen at all. In the meantime we need to be able to excel at our three core tasks: education and training, research and development and offering our services to the community. Again, in working with the PUMR model this helps us to reorient ourselves to do just that.
Also, if we are going to be known as a trusted partner in the Knowledge Transfer Partnership of our so-called eco-system, this could also entail raising extra funding.
KHLim and PUMR: OPERATIONAL VALUE
In embracing the PASCAL-PUMR-approach we see that we have been cooperating in basically five fields and achieving results.
It must be stressed that this was possible because of the support of higher management and the directors involved who started to see the value of the cooperation through the PASCAL-PUMR-champions inside the organisation and after they were in direct contact with the PUMR representatives. The personal contact and the discussions with people from PASCAL and PUMR were a catalyst.
The (for now) five fields of development that have been addressed and in which we have seen a positive development are the following.
1. PHILOSOPHY
PUMR has helped to define the philosophy of the university college, as a comprehensive set of ideas, values and operational choices. The PUMR model has again served as a benchmark. The vision/mission of KHLim was further developed against this benchmark. Especially the need to be embedded in the regional eco-system and to play the role of knowledge partner in the innovation and regeneration processes within the scope of the place management of the province, which has been hard hit because of the closure of the Ford Motor Car Factory, became a very important feature. Remember, in earlier versions of the vision/mission statements, this issue was hardly noticed, since the main (and sometimes only) focus went to teaching and delivering well educated and trained graduates.
2. FRAMEWORK
PASCAL-PUMR was a benchmark from the beginning because of the framework it offered, set in the overall framework of PASCAL-PURE. The first contacts with PASCAL and what PASCAL stands for proved to be very inspiring. KHLim participated in a European Leonardo-project called EU-Drivers, to strengthen the college’s commitment and knowhow. The results of that project showed us that the PUMR-approach was the first option for us, since it was operating on the operational level too, with the offer of expertise and instruments. In other words, PUMR, besides being a benchmark for our development also offers a framework for development.
3. FOCUS
From this benchmark and framework follows focus. This is extremely important because it helps to define goals and objectives, it helps to define indicators and offers a set of standards and therefore is the basis for a positive P-D-C-A-cycle (plan, do, check, act). This, of course is the basis for our quality management. In following PUMR standards, the college remains focused on a certain number of aspects, which helps moving forward. Also the self-evaluation instrument is a good help.
4. INSPIRATION AND SUPPORT
All people involved at KHLim have enjoyed the very personal and open contacts with the PUMR-team that come to visit and work with us.
It cannot be stressed enough how important this actually is, the personal discussions, the examples and the exercises amount to an important form of awareness creation, coaching and feedback on the various actions KHLim has undertaken since the beginning of the project. The many positive examples given by the PUMR-team are being translated into the realities of our country and region, and again the team serve as sounding boards and coaches.
5. TOOLS
We have participated in a number of international projects, and we have the good fortune to be able to use a number of the tools developed in these cooperation projects. But it must be said that we look at PUMR for a number of essential tools and the methodology that is created for PUMR. That is because of the operational level that is targeted by PUMR. A number of other projects will focus on the macro or meso levels only. PUMR offers an approach for all three levels.
It is important to see that concepts such as academic leadership and academic enterprise are actually developed and supported by a set of tools. Tools that have been made available are also very user friendly. So the PUMR advantage here is that they have worked out a conceptual platform, but at the same time they offer the necessary methodology and the tools that enable us to get started immediately. Other examples here are the UPBEAT-system, and Action Learning.
CONCLUSION
PASCAL-PUMR has helped KHLim to redefine and benchmark the organisation and the operational issues. This has especially been in the field of participation with our regional partners and beyond. Not only have they supplied us with a framework and focus, there has been efficient and effective coaching and there was the offer of methodology with the toolset to achieve the objectives.
At this point we have started and redefined a number of important elements in our vision and mission. This has been done in such a way that the institution will have a strong, own identity, which will help to strive for excellence and being different from other university colleges. This has proved so strong that this will also be part of the identity of the new merger institution. KHLim is merging with two other university colleges of the same university association, and one of the five pillars of the new institution, so it was decided, will be our regional embedding and cooperation.
This too is the result of the PUMR-approach, because the KHLim negotiators had a clear idea of where our institution wants to go with this. But it does not stop here.
We see that there still is a long way to go. Because of the closure of the Ford plant a new regeneration plan was written based on a very detailed needs analysis. In the analysis the eco-system of the province of Limburg was described and it was found that higher education institutions can and must play a more important role in the future. We have to pull our weight to help with the regeneration plan, called SALK.
Thanks to the PASCAL-PUMR experience we have, we will be ready for co-defining problems and opportunities, we will be ready for co-establishing cooperation platforms and we will be ready to co-create the framework to build a new future for our region and province, and participate in realising the concrete projects and development.
James Powell, Larry Swanson and Chris Duke
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