What’s the future of higher education governance in a fast-evolving sector?

The background

The report presents the findings of The Big Conversation: a sector-wide partnership between AdvanceHE and the CUC, AHUA, UUK, GuildHE and Independent HE to consider the state of higher education governance. It focuses on what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next for governance in a quickly evolving sector, and also looks for areas where practice varies. It will likely feed into the much-anticipated revisions to the CUC Guidelines, rumoured to be arriving in spring 2026.

What’s clear is that governance comes in all shapes and sizes, and there’s no industry standard. It’s hoped that, with this report and the upcoming revised CUC guidelines, some areas of best practice can be identified that will help standardise HE governance and ensure it’s fit for purpose in a changing sector.

Our key takeaways

We’re pleased that the report highlights the importance of ongoing governor development. We welcome the focus on individual governors identifying their needs, as well as institutions offering diverse and tailored opportunities for development; we can signpost clients and candidates to resources to support this. 

We’re seeing a resurgence of universities looking for former HE leaders to serve on their boards to strengthen links between corporate and academic governance, which aligns with the report’s recommendation for academic governance integration.

A focus on increased transparency can only be a good thing, and the inclusion of partnership collaboration (being more open-minded about strategic partnerships) will support the sector to share learnings and continue to evolve. 

We’ve identified two themes that are particularly relevant to our clients:

#1 – Enhanced board composition

“Actively reflecting on size, skills and diversity to meet evolving sector challenges”

Board composition is a crucial consideration for every university. When helping clients with board recruitment, we invite them to reflect deeply and critically on the skills and diversity of their boards.

We encourage clients not to just ‘replace what’s been lost’ but to think more broadly about what skills and experience will be needed in the future. Some skills are in shorter supply than others; for example, many institutions are currently looking for financial skills (e.g. audit and risk), and/or business/commerce experience (e.g. mergers and acquisitions). But rather than replacing like with like (e.g. a lawyer with another lawyer), a vacancy can be viewed as an opportunity to consider what you need next.

At Perrett Laver, we’re committed to driving up diversity at the most senior levels of HE. As well as skills, reflecting on board composition also means paying closer attention to diversity in all its forms. In support of this, we are proud to run the Governance Apprenticeship Programme (GAP) that aims to bridge the board diversity gap and shorten the timeline to creating truly representative boards.

#2 – Remuneration consideration

“Exploring benefits and challenges of payment to secure talent, raise expectations and improve diversity.”

Governor remuneration is a conversation that we regularly have with clients, both within higher education and outside of it, and we’re not surprised to see it feature as one of the report’s key themes for consideration. As the report says, “the expectations of governance have increased dramatically in the last five years… a number of Chairs are committing more than 30 days a year to the role and the vast majority do this without remuneration”.

We think that taking a broader view of the issues around governor remuneration is helpful, as is looking to other sectors to see how they’re doing it – for example, the NHS. While there are a number of considerations to remunerating governors, it would go some way towards levelling the playing field and encouraging candidates from underrepresented backgrounds to feel able to put themselves forward.

What’s next for HE governance?

As the milestone of the revised CUC guidelines approaches, the AdvanceHE report is a positive signal that the sector is ready for governance to evolve. We are encouraged by the report’s findings, and believe they will help improve culture, transparency and accountability across the most senior levels of HE leadership.