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Re-Imagine the University

The agenda WUF brings to the global table.

Re-Imagine the University is the agenda WUF brings to the global table: a shared direction for the world’s universities, which each institution follows in its own way and at its own pace.

It is not a theory written for universities from outside. It is built from the questions their leaders are already asking, it respects the differences between institutions, and it is meant to be argued with. WUF holds it so that no university has to face these questions alone.

No university can redesign itself alone

Every university is now asking the same questions: what to teach when knowledge is everywhere, how to use powerful technologies without losing its purpose, how to serve its own community while working with the world. Each one is answering them alone, with its own budget and its own advisers, and often too late.

Reason

  • The questions are common
  • The answers are local
  • The time is short

What it means

  • One shared agenda saves every university from starting alone, and lets the smallest learn from the largest and the largest from the smallest.
  • The agenda gives a direction, never a uniform model. Each university takes the path that fits its land and its people.
  • The changes reshaping universities are structural and fast. A shared agenda lets universities move from reacting to leading.

Two questions

The agenda begins with two questions that sound alike and are not. What is the future of the university? asks how universities must respond to the world around them: knowledge moving freely between regions, digital tools changing every task, learning that continues for life, and inclusion, sustainability and service moving to the center of the mission. What is the university of the future? asks what kind of institution they must become: flexible and personal learning, disciplines working together, intelligent systems that leave people free for judgment, and recognized skills beside degrees.

The six shifts answer both questions at once.

Five steps to begin

The six shifts are a direction. These five steps are a way to start, open to a university of any size, in any country, with any budget.

  1. Join a permanent network. Build lasting partnerships with other universities, with government and with industry, and act on shared challenges together.
  2. Lead the digital change. Adopt artificial intelligence and data on your own terms, to improve learning and decision making.
  3. Open the doors to lifelong learning. Offer flexible programs for every age and every stage of a career.
  4. Break down the silos. Make work across disciplines the normal way of teaching and of solving problems.
  5. Commit to society. Place sustainability, inclusion and service to your community at the center of every program and every decision.

A small college may begin with one step, a large university with all five. What matters is that each university moves, and that none moves alone.

The smallest university can lead

Re-imagining the university is not a privilege of the wealthy. A young university in a fast-growing country, without old structures to protect, can adopt the six shifts faster than an institution with centuries of habit. A regional college that already lives with its community may be ahead on the fifth shift before anyone writes it down. That is why WUF holds the agenda for all 35,000+ universities, and not for a few.

What success looks like

For

  • The student
  • The working professional
  • The teacher
  • The leader
  • The community
  • The world

The re-imagined university

  • Learns to think, judge and act, through real problems and good mentors, and leaves able to keep learning.
  • Comes back again and again for new skills, recognized wherever they go.
  • Is honored for teaching, supported to grow and free to innovate.
  • Decides with good data and clear principles, as part of a network of peers across the world.
  • Sees its university at work on its problems, its economy and its future.
  • Hears universities speak with one voice where the future of learning is decided.

The university matters too much to humanity to be re-imagined by anyone but universities, together.

Download Re-Imagine the University (document 03)