A collaborative approach to enhancement

There was a recent report jointly published by the Royal Society and the British Academy which considered the state of the funding landscape for educational research since 2010, outlining multiple current and future challenges to UK educational research funding. Education research suffers from the lack of a dedicated research council (compared to say medical research) – and the future security of national support to improve educational practice is unclear. Such investment in education research will be essential in sustaining a sector in crisis – a key source of solutions to the challenges we face today and the rapidly changing expectations of what universities will be able to achieve in the near future.

QAA's support for its series of Collaborative Enhancement Projects – or CEPs – offers one of the few examples of where dedicated funding for this kind of work can be found. It funds work which is essential to the future of the sector – from studies of how we might most appropriately respond to the emergence and proliferation of generative AI, say, to research on how we evolve what higher education does to best meet the needs of its most important stakeholders (our students). There are precious few other opportunities for such work to be supported in this kind of way. And we've yet to see the full array of benefits from such work – whose longer-term impacts will accrue increasing amounts of value for our sector, students and colleagues as the earliest projects continue to mature.

This kind of support has proven, and continues to prove, invaluable to the work, prestige and profiles of colleagues, like me, who have chosen education-focused pathways for our academic career. Indeed, I'm not exaggerating when I say that the opportunity to participate in a CEP has had a massive impact on my career, as it was a crucial element of my successful Principal Fellowship application.

Working in partnership with colleagues from Bishop Burton College, Cardiff, Chester, Leicester and Newcastle Universities, I'm currently one of the leads on a QAA-funded CEP charting the possibilities of competence-based assessment strategies. This project is itself a follow-up on from an earlier CEP lead by the University of Hull, which more broadly explored competence-based education. These are part of a series of projects we've developed at Hull redefining higher education to embrace a shift from a knowledge-based curriculum towards a competence-based model – one which holistically promotes what our students can do and who they can be.

One might say that, in a way, that strategy is echoed in the collaborative, enhancement-focused, practice-led approach that underpins these CEPs.

These CEPs are properly collaborative – not just in terms of the partnerships between the providers who participate in them, but in terms of the relationships between the project delivery team and QAA. Indeed, the value of the support that our work has received isn't just about the money. The funding itself is of course very much appreciated – it makes the scope of the work possible – but the opportunities for advice, networking, profile-building, dissemination and impact which these awards bring to our projects are even more valuable.

As QAA launches a new set of CEPs for 2025, it's worth sharing a little of what I've learnt from my engagement with these processes – to benefit, I hope, those just starting on these journeys, and those considering applying for similar opportunities in future, as well as offering some more general thoughts that might be of use to anyone entering, engaging in and managing such collaborative project work.

The support we have received from QAA extends far beyond financial aid. From our very first engagement – at the project inception meeting – and then in regular meetings throughout the course of the project, our contacts at QAA have helped us refine our project management processes by working with us to set and agree clear expectations, milestones, targets and strategies to mitigate risks. This rigorous and supportive process has helped us develop our professional and project-management skills – and keep our projects on track and ensure they deliver the kind of outcomes and outputs we've planned. Regular engagements with QAA's project support specialists have given us access to a breadth of sector expertise and to opportunities to be a part of QAA's broader work, to join wider conversations, networks and platforms, where our work can achieve more extensive impacts.

So, my advice is this: Take advantage of these shared purposes – this symbiosis. Our initial CEP engagement with QAA was a bit of a wake-up call for us, with our limited experience of coordinating national-level projects. That opportunity for close liaison through the course of the project was a new approach for us, but it was one which, I'm glad to say, we chose to lean into, and from which we were able to reap real benefits.

We've extended that collaborative approach to the way we've worked with our project partners. From the outset, we developed an agreement on what partnership in the project meant and our shared expectations of each other. As the project matures, we are moving towards a steering group model of working, attempting to develop a sense of shared ownership of key project outputs, with project partners contributing to the impetus that drives the work forward.

And that's a way of working which, beyond the scope of these projects, has transformed my approach to collaboration and project management.