Project partners and HEFCE support

This major project examining the role and impact of internal communications in higher education starts in January 2008, and is funded by the HEFCE leadership Governance and Management Fund. The University of Leicester is leading the project consortium, which also includes the Universities of Bristol, Oxford Brookes and Edge Hill. The Knowledge Partnership will be providing consultancy to the consortium and supporting the field work and analysis.

Champions and support

The project has already received support from many individuals, such as Professor Anne Gregory, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Leeds Business School and expert on communications management, and is being formally championed by the Leadership Foundation, Universities UK, CASE, UPA, HEFCE, Guild HE and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Our overall aim is to benchmark current practice in internal communications in the sector, and provide a tool for HEIs to evaluate their activity.  We will also be looking at the linkages between internal communication and staff attitude and satisfaction. 

The benefits of effective communications?

Research looking at organizations outside of the sector has demonstrated a clear link between effective communication between senior managers, middle managers and staff across all functions and areas in terms of achieving organizational objectives.  It has also demonstrated clear linkages between staff attitude and customer satisfaction.  For example, Don E Schultz of North Western University has written of 'extensive research on customer satisfaction demonstrating the link between consumer satisfaction, customer loyalty and engaged and supportive employees'. The project will look to see whether or not a similar correlation exists between high education staff and managers, and students and staff.

Training programmes and toolkits

By looking at commercial and public sector models, we also hope to develop models of good practice based on activity throughout the sector, create a training programme in partnership with the Leadership Foundation and an evaluation tool with which HEIs can evaluate their own internal communications.

The project consists of a number of phases

1. A survey of senior staff in HEIs to record their views on current practice and effectiveness of internal communications.
2. An extensive series of focus groups and structured interviews within HEIs to garner and record good practice within the sector.
3. Trialling of best practice in partner organizations with support from external business partners.
4. Creation and dissemination of a benchmarking and evaluation tool to enable to sector to develop their internal communications.
5. Development of a training programme on internal communications in partnership with the Leadership Foundation.

Results and conference

The results of the project will be made freely available to all those in higher education in the UK, and we hope to have a reporting conference in 2009 to discuss the project findings. If you would like to know more, or be put on a mailing list re the conference, future workshops, or want to receive project results and toolkits, please email: l.simpson@theknowledgepartnership.com

Please click here to fill in the survey if you are one of the following:
Director of Communications, UK University or College
Director of Personnel, or Human Resources, UK University or College
Vice-chancellor of a UK University or College