Funding, Trust, and Transformation

What does it take to lead transformation in institutions often seen as slow to change? In this clip, Brian MacCraith reflects on the critical role of university presidents in shaping both internal change and external perception. He emphasizes the power of shared vision, authenticity, and trust as essential tools for sustainable reform. MacCraith discusses how leaders must engage stakeholders across government, industry, and the community, serving as ambassadors for the university’s values and impact. He also highlights the growing challenge of underfunding in higher education, underscoring the need for resource diversification, strategic partnerships, and clear communication of institutional value. For higher education leaders navigating complex pressures, this is a candid and practical look at what leadership means in a time of disruption — and why visibility, trust, and adaptability matter more than ever.

I've been involved in a number of major transformation, both inside universities and out, and what I learned from that - you know it was a process of learning for me - was number one. It's articulating the beginnings of vision; indicating where you're coming from where you believe the organization or institution should go, but it's following that by not imposing that, but by going out and talking to the community itself. Refining the vision, taking feedback so that ultimately, and this is my biggest learning, a shared vision is the guaranteed approach for actually a transformation. An imposed vision won't work. So, both - as I said, both in universities and outside I've learned that that shared vision is crucial. So, it requires a lot of dialogue. It requires a lot of time, but then when the vision is shared, the whole organization moves with it, and you get this coherence, and I think coherence across an institution is critical. But effective transformation works when everyone is aiming in the same direction and moving together. There will always be challenges within that and nuances, but that shared vision is absolutely critical. Within that as well, the leader must be authentic, must be authentic and must you know recognize mistakes, be open to challenge, be open to it, open to adjustment, and I think again that provides trust from the organization, from the university, and that you know this isn't a an autocracy and or an authoritarian approach, but that sort of authentic leader, engaging, providing vision, but willing to adjust in response to the community. All those would, to me, be the critical elements. When I was appointed, and even before when I was considering the job, and I talked to people and I read about you know you know charismatic university leaders around the world, it became very evident that it's a two-headed role. One operating inside the institution, and two, almost as important, is the ambassadorial role. You are the face of the university; you are the person most responsible for articulating the values and achievements, and challenges of the university outside. So in in Ireland that there's a fixed tenure of 10 years as a university president, but for all of those 10 years I probably spent about 50% of my time engaging outside, and that means to industry, to communities, to organizations, to government, and you know by by being out there one gets recognized one gets respected if one is behaving appropriately. But, it's extremely important for the effectiveness of the university in engaging with all those stakeholders to be that trusted voice that's willing to spend time out there. And in that role as well, one gets asked to get involved in initiatives on behalf of government for example. And for example, I chaired a number of major initiatives around STEM education, one around some major healthcare challenges, one about the future [of] recruitment and retention of doctors. But all of that adds to the credibility not of the individual, but of the institution, and all the time, one by doing that one is adding value and adding to the reputation of the institution, but it reflects again coming back to the values of the institution. If the university articulates that it wants to be an engaged university and add value to society, the greatest ambassador of that is the university president because that person, he or she, has the highest profile. Yes, I mean I think the underfunding of universities across the globe is probably operationally the single biggest challenge, and universities are having to become resourceful, resilient, creative, innovative in their approaches, but within that, in terms of finances, diversifying resource streams in the university is critically important. So that involves issues like the whole issue of international students, and there are dilemmas there. There are ethical dilemmas in that as well. Issues of philanthropy and engaging with philanthropy, issues of engaging with strategic partners, and industrial partners, and with within all those because one is talking about financial resources there are challenges, but I mean ultimately the primary source from most public universities is going to be from governments in most parts of the world and so that engagement with government and dealing with issues of governance and compliance and creating trust - in many countries universities aren't trusted with government money. So, it is ensuring that that trust exists and continuing to articulate the value added to nations by universities. For example, in my own country, the Irish Universities Association, and within that the council of university presidents, we commissioned a major study of the societal and economic impact of universities collectively and put, if you like, dollar or euro values on that for the government. Quite remarkable when look one looks at the impact on the the nation's economy, the impact on individual graduates in ter terms of the lifetime earnings, and so on and so on. The impact on attracting foreign direct investment into the country, which is a huge impact on the economy. One has to be able to articulate those stories very clearly to government, but going back to your original question, you know one has to be creative and resourceful in addressing the diversity of resource funding streams for the university itself.