EAUC Leadership Lab 2021

The EAUC Change-Maker Programme: Sustainability Leadership and Innovation

*By application

*If you are interested in joining us, please provide us with a short application on why you would like to attend, letting us know a bit about you and your background and how you hope this programme might improve you and your team’s effectiveness.  This application could be in the form of a short (2 minute) video or one page of text. Please send your application to join the Leadership Lab 2020 cohort no later than 15th December 2020.

​Applications should be sent to Claire de la Motte

Costs
Educational member rate is £1150
Non-member rate is £2150.
 
This includes fees, course materials, lunches on all three days and dinners on 14th and 15th January.  The fee for this residential also includes your first year subscription to the EAUC Leadership Academy.

About the programme

A transformational leadership and personal development programme to help develop expertise and confidence as a strategic sustainability leader in a university or college.  We will look at how sustainability can help us navigate through crisis and recovery and build resilience within our personal and institutional lives. 

The results of unsustainable human development are evident worldwide – climate change, species extinction, pollution, poverty and inequality are reducing our capacity to sustain human life.  Humans are on a collision course with the natural world.  Sustainable development is widely accepted as the only way forward – the ‘new normal’ in mission-led strategy in universities and colleges.
 
Environmental, social and economic leadership and governance solutions are required to shape the development of sustainable future. These solutions will influence stakeholder behaviours – including prospective students and funders.  The task for universities and colleges is therefore to reframe the agenda as ‘strategic sustainability’, embedding it into their strategy for long-term success.  Sustainability is the next frontier in progress and innovation.
 
The course focuses on leaders, future leaders and change agents to support the sustainable development of their own institution in a way that also contributes to delivery against the sustainable development goals.  The focus is on personal and professional development to support strategic leadership. 

Who should attend?
From your role in a university or college setting, you will be involved in promoting sustainability through your work and seeking ways to accelerate your impact and reach.  For example, you may be:

• Working to connect sustainability efforts across your institution;
• Involved in working with stakeholders in your city/region;
• Working to bridge academic and operational efforts;
• Developing your campus as a ‘living lab’;
• Involved in articulating the distinctiveness of your institution in creating global change agency;
• Wanting to further your own personal and professional development. 

Locally rooted, globally connected
 
The programme is designed to:

• Help participants develop expertise and confidence as change agents in a university/college setting;
• Empower participants to close the gap from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’ and promote sustainability for institutional value creation;
• Support participants contribution to the co-creation of thriving, sustainable communities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally;
• Offer additional coaching support by arrangement to help participants identify professional/work-related challenges and overcome them. 

 
Drawing on the experience and needs of the cohort, participants will be invited to translate knowledge into their own institutional context as well as benefiting from peer-to-peer support.  The course will be illustrated with case studies from a range of sectors, providing real-world insight.  There will be the establishment of a supportive Community of Practice to compliment the course, that will consist of peer mentoring and coaching.
 
Participants in the programme will be expected to:

• Undertake pre-session and post-session activities, as determined by the course team;
• Engage with the designated materials in a critically evaluative way and seek out additional sources for interest and wider sharing;
• Set aside time for personal reflection and deeper strategic engagement with the topics;
• Contribute in the classroom/online in a way that respects the input of the full cohort;
• Support peer-to-peer and group work;
• Participate in facilitated online sessions and webinars;
• Share their learning with colleagues, family and friends;
• Adopt a growth mindset, open to new ideas and lifelong learning.  

Each participant will be encouraged to identify a key sustainability and innovation leadership challenge and work on a plan to deliver institutional change; additional coaching support can be made available through the programme by arrangement.
 

Course Content 

The course focuses on leaders as change agents, supporting the sustainable development of their university/college and wider community and aims to advance the expertise and confidence of participants to act.  Programme themes are integrated to support strategic leadership towards sustainability and innovation and include:
 
1) Leading in Complexity and the Change Journey
How to deal with the complexity of the world today and effectively facilitate change in this context will be examined.  Participants will explore the meaning and implications leading in conditions characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). Complexity will be examined in the meta-context (global and societal trends) and at the organisational and sector levels.  Participants will develop an appreciation of systems thinking and interpersonal competencies for sustainability practice.  The role of stakeholders and building trust through transparency will also be explored.
 
2) Sustainability Innovation and Value Creation
As innovation’s new frontier, sustainability relies on thinking differently about the ‘business’ model of a university/college, involving future-facing reviews of products (programmes, courses, online modules), services and governance models. Leaders need to be able to question the implicit assumptions behind current practices and drive innovation, harnessing creativity to create value. Aligning sustainability with institutional strategy and operations will be examined in the context of closing the gap between values and actions. 

3) Sustainable Self
To get an organisation to change, individuals need to change!  This topic considers personal values, attitudes and beliefs to make sustainability personal and support role modelling.  Participants will explore the importance of aligning actions with values to empower people to change and support others in transition.  Alongside knowledge, skills and practice, personal resilience and agility necessary to be a successful change agent along with issues of equity, covering and belonging and promoting an inclusive culture, will all be discussed.
 

Faculty Team

Chair:  Professor Wendy M. Purcell PhD FRSA, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Associate Chair: Professor Janet Haddock-Fraser, Manchester Metropolitan University
The Faculty team will also include experts from Cambridge and Glasgow Universities, EAUC, UK further and higher education executives and industry.
 
What previous programme participants say: 
“I’ve now attended two leadership labs and both times found them extremely useful - the mix of theory and new ideas, workshops, time for reflection and the opportunity to meet colleagues working on the same problems across the sector is one I find invaluable. Recommended!’
Dave Gorman, Director of Social Responsibility and Sustainability, University of Edinburgh

The Leadership Lab workshop was an intense, vibrant and enjoyable learning experience.  I came away with fresh ideas about how to understand and influence my organisation, which I have since put to good use.  Follow-up webinars have helped consolidate my learning.  I would highly recommend the course for any sustainability practitioners wanting to make a difference....and isn't that all of us?
Dr Julian Greaves, Sustainability Manager, Bath Spa University 
​
"This course gave me a greater understanding of how leaders view and can better react to the climate crisis, the role of universities and colleges in addressing the crisis, and how we can adapt our approach to it. The course examines our and our institutions’ values, and discusses key drivers for change such as risk, cost and reputation."
John Thorne, Sustainability Coordinator, Glasgow School of Art

“The course was excellent; it challenged by assumptions on what it is to be a sustainability leader and was a great opportunity to share practical experiences with others.”
Candice Snelling, Deputy Head of Sustainability, Natural Environment Research Council