Shaking up the Governance

In this piece I wish to analyze the prevailing governance and administrative structure in Indian universities/ institutions. Few features, particularly noticeable among centrally funded universities/ institution, are:

• governance structure do not encourage competition hence fail to set ambitious target. 
• majority of the senior administrative positions is less strategic and more operational in content and nature. 
• all appointees to these positions are made by the head of institution from a pool of senior faculty within the system. 
• these positions are not open for a competitive search with a comparable compensation. 

A competitive spirit, therefore, is lacking among the Indian universities/institutions. 

Why not follow the global best practices of governance in academic system?

Let us understand what it entails.

Every organization exists in public affairs with a long term 'vision' that is realised by undertaking specific 'mission' mode activities under the guidance of certain 'core values' deeply ingrained as fundamental beliefs that ensures righteous path is followed in all acts.

Governance structure is more like organs that facilitate organizations realise vision and mission without compromising its core values. Organs here refers to organizational structures and processes that are designed to ensure organization choose an aspirational ‘vision’, has clear ‘mission’ and set of ‘core values’ that guarantee accountability, transparency, inclusiveness and empowerment.

Often Governance is seen having overlapping meaning with management. Management however, is more about mobilizing and transforming various resources (physical, human and financial) to achieve concrete outcomes. Governance is about how power is distributed and shared, how policies are formulated, priorities set and stakeholders made accountable. Governance systems set the parameters under which management and administrative systems operate (UNESCO).

The core of governance lies in creating an aspirational environment and encourages healthy competition within the organization. Opportunity lies into going forward with a transformational strategy and not incremental, where few suggestions outlined below are worthy enough to be adopted 

1.      A forward looking Board of Governors (BoG) - is vital

a.      BoG should set transformational agenda and actively get involved in defining strategic directions; guide operational changes; look for innovative schemes to achieve financial stability and resilience. For that government has to empower BoG.

b.      Board accountability may be made higher by forming several sub-committees to push forward specific strategic goals and build momentum

c.      Include faculty and students in these committee as invitees. This will give them time to present concerns to the board and engage in a deep discussion of issues

d.      Since most of the Board members are from diverse background, it is important to regularly apprise them about global trends in higher education

e.      Eminence of Board members should be impeccable

2.      Involve everyone in setting new Vision, Mission & changes being introduced

a.      Develop aspirational and shared vision in conversation with all stakeholder (bottom up)

b.      Think global and set ambitious mission & targets (collective leadership)

c.      Encourage all units to brainstorm and come up with innovative solutions that help achieve the shared vision, suggest ownership and accountability (horizontal and vertical)

3.      Prepare for a transformational journey

a.      With National Education Policy (NEP 2020) expecting universities/institution to expand into multi-disciplinary set up with high research focus, it is asking too much too soon. Given that India has mostly nurtured linear academics for a long time, it is going to be transformational journey for most of them. Many structural changes would be necessary including introduction of some radical dimensions. Leadership guiding the change will matter the most. It is important to identify a bold leadership who possess strategic sense to lay down new expressways, have the ability to scout talent (from within and beyond),  build smart teams for various subjects and put them together to accomplish larger goals. So far current breed of leaders lack this character as they are accustomed to be playing an incremental role within the constraints, rather than coming out ot it. 

b.      Radical dimension would mean to focus more on external-facing strategic activities-mostly outreach, while leave internal operations to the team working under.

c.      First task is to create robust system so that most of the operations run in auto-pilot mode leaving most of the leadership time for strategic activities. This will help develop a data-driven decision making culture. Occasional and high level guidance should be enough to operations. 

d.      Radical dimension would entail developing a strategic plan where focus is more on financial stability in view of shrinking state funding, upgrading infrastructure to global standards, enhancing global operation, attracting global talent pool and teaming for impactful research etc. Indian universities/ institutions anyway are going through a demanding time as increasing public scrutiny and media attention due to their no show in global ranking. Running universities is now a much more complex businesses than usual. They need to be run like a large and complex enterprise.

4.      An experiment with bold leadership

a.      Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures [see my write up ‘What’s ailing India’s Higher education (IHE) system?’]

b.      Current leadership model is failure in India. The prevailing process of leadership selection is anything but fair. It lacks aim and professional approach to choose a competent leader. We see ‘favourites’ and mediocrity around.

c.      Can we do something radically different – as an experiment?

d.      Bring outsider (non-traditional leaders) to lead universities/ institutions? There are plenty of examples where a proven leader from other domain, in fact, have been brought to lead universities to a success

e.      In USA, this trend is increasing with every passing years. There have been 10 such appointments in 1986; 14 in 1995; 23 in 2012 and 62 in 2014

f.       Let me refer to three appointments in US universities, where bold leadership choices were made to execute transformational agenda: Janet Napolitano, former secretary of homeland security, was named president of the University of California system in 2013. Clayton Rose, a former vice chairman at JPMorgan Chase was appointed president of Bowdoin College in 2015. And in 2016, South Carolina State University appointed James Clark, a retired AT&T executive, as president [Shaking up the leadership model in higher education, February 2018 McKinsey & Company, February 2018]

g.      Lets us keep academicians away from administrative roles as they primarily  enjoy teaching and research hence let them go back to class rooms and labs to do what they do best

5.      Revamping leadership structure

a.      First is to identify and prioritize activities that directly lead to fulfilment of organization's vision and mission. A clear distinction between 'Strategic' and 'operational' activities has to be made. Strategic activities may demand fundamental design changes and need adequate authority while 'operational' activities merely require efficient execution where an intelligent automation would ensure an 'auto-pilot' mode of operations-serve well.

b.      The second step involves roles descriptions for 'Strategic' activities (distinct from operations) and aligning them with the broader organization, for a smooth interactions with various academic and administrative divisions.

c.      The third step is to explicitly allocate decision-making authority to various roles, adjoining committees, and stakeholders of the organization. The resulting governance system must strive for excellence, adopt best practices in order to develop higher capabilities, encourage competition, and emerge as true global organization having influence far and wide. It must have sufficient scope for stakeholder’s voice to influence the scope of business.

6.      Differentiating 'Strategic' from 'operational' activities

A leadership role is assigned most often without bothering to draw a line of distinction between ‘Strategic’ vs ‘Operational’ content of the role. Thus role get diffused to routines. Let us understand with an example- handling sponsored research and consultancy projects is one of the many important activities in a university administrative set up. It is led by, typically, a Dean (R&D). The name itself is old fashioned and limiting in scope (general omission is commercialization aspect of research). In most of the places, the task of this Dean is limited to facilitate administrative support required to manage the fund as per terms and conditions of the funding agency. While main task of this unit should be to play a more proactive role in developing research strategy for the institution, setting research agenda based on collective consultation over national needs, encourage institutional collaboration on larger theme and mobilizing faculty resources to participate in the same and most importantly connecting doctoral program with national priority programs. These proactive settings will ensure higher research outcome and impact.

 

A new model is to have two separate but dependent positions- Dean (Research Strategy) having support of a Associate Dean (Research Operations). The team of Dean (Research Strategy) is supposed to devise and implement strategies and policies to maintain and increase the institute's research funding; shape the response to a changing research landscape and the requirements of our funding partners; and enhance institute's standing as a world-leading institution. European Union has prescribed Research Life Cycle (more for applicable for Pharma products) but generalizable enough to draw lesson and delineate entire ‘Research Support Life cycle of a project’ to be serviced by the office of both Dean and Associate Dean.

 

 

 

 

The Dean may concentrate on Research visioning → Connecting to national & global agenda →Discovering Major funding opportunities → Opportunities Database → Large bid preparation → Internal buffer funding → Integrity and ethics compliance → Building a team → Costing and pricing a project →

 

The Associate Dean may cover the task following to the above ie. Submitting application → Projects award & initiation → Setting up contracts → Managing project finances → Managing risk → Financial audit → Research Dashboard → Recording and reporting your research → Ensuring research has impact (Promoting & Commercialise).

 

 

 

Such an elaborate structure doesn’t exist in any of the Indian institutions. Research work therefore remain inconsequential.

 

7.      Refreshed Leadership structure to drive the transformational agenda

Governance structure should follow global best practices that sets ambitious goals and encourages competition. The top executives is known with various titles: Director (IIITs), Vice Chancellor (India/UK universities) or President (American universities); they report to Board of Trustees or Governors.

 

Indian & Others	USA
Board of Governors (BoG)	Board of Trustees (BoT)
Vice Chancellors/ Directors	President of university
Pro-Vice Chancellors/ Dy-Directors	Vice President (Pro Vost) of university
Deans (Administrative activities)	Deans of Schools (academic units)
Dean / Head of Schools/Departments (academic units)

 

Adopting American model may be refreshing and also allow several best practices easy to correlate, hence this is proposed here

• The President is guided by a number of Vice Presidents responsible for strategizing specific university business: viz. Academic Strategy, Human Resources Strategy, Research Strategy, International Strategy, Strategy for Finance, Corporate Strategy, for Resource Development, for Outreach & Campus services
• Accordingly the senior officer leading the strategic activity will enjoy status of Vice President (Academic Strategy), Vice President (Human Resources Strategy), Vice President (Research Strategy), Vice President (International Strategy), Vice President (Strategy for Finance), Vice President (Corporate Strategy), Vice President (for Resource Development), Vice President (for Outreach) & Vice President (Campus services)
• All Deans work under Vice Presidents and operationalize the stipulated agenda set in ‘Strategy’ by the VPs
• Appointments to these positions should be made following a competitive search with comparable compensation commensurate with the authority

 

8.      Academic Units

University system has several Schools. However, most of the academic units in IIT system are designed as ‘dependent' model and survive on an annual grant received from government sources, which is gradually shrinking now. Older institutions (eg JNU & IITs) have reached a maturity and should rise to a self-sustaining status by adopting new financial model where dependency on government grant is less. Nomenclature of academic units makes a difference when we attempt to attract large endowments to name School and Centre, which is not possible for a ‘Department’.  Let the School governance adopt global best practices where it operates with significant autonomy under a ‘Dean’ chosen on competitive basis as Chief Executive Officer with defined deliverables and compensation. It is run as an enterprise.

 

9.      School Leadership

At present, Head of academic units is generally chosen on ‘seniority’ from the existing professors. It is inward looking process hence devoid of outside competencies. It doesn’t guarantee the most competent ‘one’ being chosen. Also they get limited time to serve with hardly any authority. They usually function within a restrictive boundaries and mostly busy maintaining ‘status quo’. Indian academics have lived with this model since ages. Adopt a competitive model ie designate Head as ‘Dean of school’ with enhanced authority. The selection of Dean is done through a competitive process and search is open - from any part of the world. ‘Dean’ functions as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in world class institutions. Appointment may be made for 5 years with a definite deliverables. The appointment may be renewed based on performance. Compensation package should be designed commensurate and comparable to the best. Further, School must enjoy autonomy on

•     Academic programs and curriculum

•     Selections of all non-regular faculty (Adjunct, Visiting Faculty and Professor of Practice)

•     All MoU relevant to school

•     All MDP and approval of the same

•     Usage of all funds

•     All non-regular faculty teaching (including international faculty)

•     All remuneration of executive teaching by regular faculty

•     International travels by students and faculty

•     All branding and promotional programs

•     Comparable provisions to attract high-quality doctoral students

•     Comparable incentives for high-quality research publications

•     Provisions to maintain the quality of infrastructure

Schools may also be encouraged to form its own Advisory Council (SAC) on the pattern Apex Advisory Committee (AAC), consisting of eminent people who would guide the School in its pursuits. SAC members are inspirational figures and respected for their seminal contributions. SAC is expected to lend overall guidance to the School in attaining its mission and increase School’s visibility and impact.

 

10.   New Financial Model for Schools

Schools/Centres should be sufficiently empowered entity - a micro model in complete administrative sense. Nurture them as a ‘Father-Grandfather’ relationship (self-sustaining model) rather than the existing ‘Parents-Child’ relationship (dependency model). Let finances of these academic units be run in a project mode (ie 80:20 model where academic unit retains 80% of revenue while 20% goes to central admiration). An annual ‘Balance Sheet’ may be prepared accounting all ‘Cash inflows’ and ‘Cash outflows’ to ascertain School’s viability. In such a scenario, academic units will be more focused in offering demand-driven courses, run high quality training programs, make efforts to raise endowment and build a corpus for remaining self-sufficient.

 

11.   Other portfolios

These remain on priority list are:

•     Alumni Affairs to be run as professional entity under a Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

•     External wisdom ensures decisions are fare and progressive. All decision making committees – university to school level, should have good proportion (≈30%) of members from the outside (external experts) – including Global experts. External wisdom ensures decisions are fare and progressive.

•     Adopt the prevailing global standards in faculty recruitment and promotions

•     Separate by-laws to manage self-generating funds

•     An Apex Advisory Council (AAC) with eminent and inspirational figures should provide overall guidance in attaining new mission. The Council should be chaired preferably by a distinguished alumni or very eminent person.