The recent UT well-being survey results made me decide it is time to speak up. Not just because of the concerning decline in employee satisfaction, but because they point to something I am very uncomfortable with: the growing tension in how we experience our work and our organisation.
Over the past months and years, academics whom I respect deeply have already voiced their perspectives. Their contributions reflect commitment to what the university should stand for. Reading them, I found much to agree with. At the same time, I realised that from my position, I carry a responsibility to add another important perspective and initiate a conversation.
Basically, I want to make sure that rather than viewing this as a tension between ‘academia’ and ‘administration’, we recognise that we are responding to the same challenge from different positions.
The concern that organisational developments may be ‘driven primarily by the needs of supporting processes, while research and education are expected to bear the brunt’ is one we should take seriously. No system should lose sight of why it exists.
At the same time, as service departments, we recognise a different reality from our daily work. Universities today operate in an environment that has changed profoundly. Not only the complex funding conditions which my team works with, but importantly also research security requirements, ethical and data regulations, as well as geopolitical sensitivities are no longer peripheral: they shape (and threaten) our ability to do education and research at all.
Much of what is perceived as growing bureaucracy is, in reality, a response to mounting external pressures: an effort to minimise the impact of constraints imposed on us. Also because there is only limited scope for universities to reverse or reshape these trends.
UT is trying to address the tension between internal and external factors via the Institutional Plan: propose a framework to continue to deliver excellence in a responsible manner, in a complex world. Initiatives such as the Research & Innovation Charter are steps to making it more operational. To roll it all out now requires coordination, shared standards and at some levels, yes, harmonisation too.
From where I stand, being asked to contribute to operationalising the Institutional Plan: the many support processes in question are not designed to control academic work, but to protect it. That does not mean we are going to get it right directly. When processes become too rigid, they will feel constraining. When the purpose is not clear, frustration will grow. And when changes are experienced as something ‘done to’ rather than ‘developed with,’ we risk to continue losing trust.
These are real signals, and we should act on them. What I put forward here is an invitation for us to recognise intent and to cooperate. Many colleagues in so-called ‘supporting roles’ are deeply motivated by the same purpose as academics: enabling excellent research and education and safeguarding the conditions that make both possible.
For me, leadership means contributing to positive change and being of service. That includes listening to concerns, acknowledging friction and continuously improving how we support. But it also means explaining why certain structures exist, and what they are trying to achieve. Management and services have to do better here.
We may now still stand in different positions within the university. But we are invited (also by the Institutional Plan!) to work together, share the responsibility we all carry. If we can keep that shared responsibility at the centre and remain open to working together, we move closer not only to better processes, but also to safeguarding our own existence.
