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Consultancy and enhancement services

Helping education ministries and institutions to be world-class providers of higher education.

Creating world-class providers

Advance HE is a unique agency helping higher education be the best it can be. We are member-led, not-for-profit and globally connected, with members in 27 countries. Our renowned experts focus on the areas of leadership and governance, teaching and learning, research, and equality, diversity and inclusion, looking across and beyond the HE sector to share practice and insight. We work closely with our members and clients to understand the challenges faced and the opportunities presented to improve and enhance how things are done.

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    Complete the form by clicking below and we will send you an information pack including our consultancy brochure and further information and case studies of our work.

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    Supporting you to achieve your strategic goals

    Our work can help you:

    • Keep pace with—and think beyond— changing financial and regulatory contexts through effective strategy and approaches to access, teaching, research, student experience, leadership and governance
    • Compete for and retain both students and staff by sustaining an inclusive culture, delivering support and enabling belonging in order to be ‘first choice’ as a provider or employer, especially during a cost-of-living crisis
    • Focus on sustainability from environmental, economic and social perspectives delivering a more joined-up and holistic approach from lecture hall to boardroom, and more effective ways to demonstrate value and impact to wider stakeholders.
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    Our areas of work

    Is your teaching and learning driving student and institutional success?

    As higher education emerges from the pandemic, we are seeing a renewed focus from governments and regulators on good student outcomes using student progression, retention and graduate employability as measures of good degrees and value for money.

    Drawing on our connections we will support individuals, institutions and country systems to provide flexible, high-quality, digitally-enabled student experiences that prepare learners for success as constructive contributors to the future world.

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    Is your learning and working environment one which welcomes diversity, nurtures talent and removes barriers?

    Discrimination in society, institutions and organisations continues to exist. We see growing tensions arising from differing cultural, ethnic and other identities, both on campus and in wider society.

    We can help you remove barriers to education, employment and success, so that higher education can reach its full potential, and your staff and students can benefit equally from the opportunities it affords.

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    Are your leadership teams ready for the new world?

    Changing geo-political forces, adapting to a post-Covid world, increasing competition and the need to build new relationships all call for a different kind of leadership that builds and sustains inclusion. Confident, capable leaders adapt, grow and diversify their talents, their teams and their institutions to respond to future challenges.

    We create pathways to leadership that build a more diverse pool of leaders and enhance the skills and cultural competence of existing and future leaders.

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    Is your governing body effective?

    Good governance is critical to delivering impactful HE and confidence and trust for stakeholders. Yet we know that understanding what is effective in your context is needed more than ever to navigate turbulence and be fit for the future.

    We build on our unparalleled track record of supporting and developing governors, governance professionals, institutions and systems of governance across the world to support boards to lead successful institutions.

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    Is your research culture inclusive and supportive?

    Research culture encompasses the behaviours, values, expectations, attitudes and norms of our research communities. Currently, many researchers feel that there is a focus on quantity of outputs rather than real quality, which leads in turn to intense pressure. Advance HE supports institutions and individuals to develop their research culture.

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    Exploring a holistic approach to equality, diversity and inclusion

    "We are delighted with the online teaching programme that Advance HE developed for us. When our face-to-face programme was delayed because of Covid-19, we were really pleased that Advance HE would work with us to support participants with their immediate challenge of teaching online.”
    Lyudmila Tatsenko, Head of Education, British Council Ukraine Teaching Excellence Programme
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    "Initially, I had reservations about working with external researchers but these were unfounded. I particularly welcomed working in partnership with researchers who were familiar with the issues we face. The ease of contacting them was fantastic and I really was delighted that the final report was delivered ahead of schedule.”
    Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager, UK HEI
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    "By collaborating with other schools it has shown that there are a number of shared issues, challenges and areas of focus for development across the sector … The project has helped foster relationships with our peers and through these we are now starting to build on some of the ideas generated during the project work.”
    Hull York Medical School
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    "The Race Equity training is well-designed, thorough, and provides an appropriate level of challenge to staff. It has provoked discussion, reflection and changes in policy and behaviour amongst staff; it has also been extremely well-received."
    Alice Wilby, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Access, Participation and Student Experience), University College Birmingham
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    "The Academic Leadership Programme was very useful because after the workshop I am able to perceive problems more easily and also to react to them better, maybe more lastingly. I am grateful to the organizers for a new network of like-minded companions with similar challenges.”
    Assistant Professor, Dr. Franc Dimc, Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs, University of Ljubljana
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    "The extended modular approach over which the development took place enabled deeper reflection and learning and working with real-life scenarios (adapted for confidentiality) helped development as a leader and manager.”
    Dr Sally Jackson, Chief People Officer, Sheffield Hallam University
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    "From the outset, it was clear that Advance HE understood Sheffield Hallam’s mission to transform lives and that our mission and strategy informed their approach to engagement with Board Members to conduct the review. The Board welcomed the opportunity to review its performance and, in particular, to benchmark its survey results against other institutions; this was particularly helpful in providing insight and assurance as to what ‘good’ governance looks like.”
    Lord Kerslake, Chair of Sheffield Hallam University, Board of Governors
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    "Working with Advance HE on our governance review has been an absolute pleasure. They have a comprehensive understanding of the democratic and governance workings of Students’ Unions, which meant that we did not have to spend time explaining our structures to them. As we were their first SU client we were able to structure the work with them that will definitely benefit any other SU who works with them in the future. I would absolutely work with them in the future on similar projects.”
    Craig Stephens, Chief Executive University of Essex Students' Union
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    "We felt that Advance HE’s combined expertise in inclusion, culture, education and leadership made them unique in the sector and most likely to be able to deliver what we were looking for. When I spoke with the team there, they listened to our needs, learned more about our context and designed and delivered this programme.”
    Professor Sherria Hoskins, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science
    and Health, University of Portsmouth
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    How we deliver solutions

    Advance HE understands that your contexts and budgets may require different forms of delivery to suit your requirements. We offer:

    Bespoke Support

    We can offer a completely tailored solution fit to your needs. This can include audits, surveys, staff development and strategy and effectiveness reviews contextualised to your institution's policy landscape and challenges.

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    Change Impact Programmes

    Change Impact Programmes bring together a group of institutions to tackle a shared challenge. They are cost-effective and delivered as a focused period of activity – usually six months. They are grounded in sharing excellent practice, developing innovative approaches and assessing the impact of change. 

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    e-Learning Courses

    Our e-Learning courses have been carefully designed by our sector experts to support staff and students within higher education. The courses are challenging, reflective and easy to implement across an institution, providing insights and tools to embed institutional policies and help improve organisational cultures.

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    In-house development programmes

    We offer a suite of programmes and training solutions that can be designed to meet your organisation’s requirements, developed in partnership with you and delivered to meet your requirements.

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    Insights

    We are specialists in higher education research. Our expert team can provide, qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods offers, underpinned by sector-wide datasets from our student surveys and our sector-leading higher education statistical reports.

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