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Room to improve university governance through understanding governor鈥檚 perceptions of their duties
10 November 2022
Understanding how university governors in England perceive their roles can help universities identify crucial opportunities to enable better governance in the sector, finds IOE alumna Dr Alison Wheaton鈥檚 PhD research.
Dr Wheaton鈥檚 doctoral research, carried out at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, considers聽how English university governing body members perceive their roles and why. It聽highlights聽a聽need to support governors more as聽their roles change in the evolving聽higher education environment.
The findings were published in a report released today by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI). It offers ten recommendations which universities and sector bodies can implement at institutional and sector levels.聽
This includes a major need to bring more clarity to governor鈥檚 roles. While governors typically agreed they have a responsibility to shape and approve university strategy, and have oversight of performance, compliance, and identification of risks, how they understood the scope of these functions varied significantly. Furthermore, governors often regarded themselves as having a cluster of internally facing support roles, in contrast with growing expectations that they should take on more externally facing roles.聽
The biggest gap between sector expectations and governors鈥� assessment of actual activity was seen in academic governance and performance monitoring. When compared to other areas of responsibility, governors expressed the least confidence in understanding the exact scope of these roles, and some voiced concern over the time and expertise available to consider relevant issues.聽
Newer governors bring different expectations of their roles, and tend to include younger, often active executives including more women and from more diverse ethnic backgrounds. Such personal characteristics and the overall composition of the governing body was consistently considered as influential. Commenting on more homogenous characteristics of previous governing bodies, one member said 鈥渢here wasn鈥檛 diversity, and there weren鈥檛 different perspectives.鈥澛�
The research identifies a shift towards more interactive governance in universities where governors聽can maintain clear distinctions between management and governance capacities when supporting their executive teams. These governors were also more likely to contribute to the context, content and conduct of strategy.聽
Based on the governor feedback in Alison鈥檚 study, the report concludes that 鈥渋t takes time and dedication for even the most experienced governors to fully appreciate governance in an academic setting. The question for even highly experienced governors is whether they are 鈥楬E Board / Council ready鈥�.鈥澛�
Dr Wheaton said: 鈥淭here is much guidance regarding what university governing body roles should be, but little empirical evidence regarding how actual governing body members understand their roles. The regulatory regime puts even greater onus on universities themselves to enhance their governance arrangements, with the help of sector bodies.聽聽
Alison鈥檚 Principle Supervisor Professor Tatiana Fumasoli, said: 鈥淎lison鈥檚 thesis shows that there are still challenges for lay members of university boards to make a meaningful and comprehensive contribution to institutional long-term sustainability and strategy. 聽
Her findings point to an increasingly complex legislative framework, to the need for additional training to build capacity, and to the demanding relationships between oversight bodies and senior management teams.鈥�
Dr Wheaton聽presented her findings in a webinar at IOE's Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) on 28聽April 2022.