GLOBAL: Leadership challenges for the civic university

Universities are quintessentially urban institutions. According to the Carnegie Foundation 46% of US universities are to be found in large or mid-sized cities. The world's leading city regions account for the lion's share of academic publications and citations. In terms of spatial organisation cities are often claimed to be national and international hubs in the knowledge economy. And yet there are deep-rooted forces that result in a disconnection between universities and the cities where they are located, such that the presence of a university is not a guarantee of local economic success or a vibrant and inclusive urban community.

Mobilising universities in support of city development in the round needs robust partnerships between universities and local civil society. And achieving this needs effective and distributed leadership on both sides. While some universities and city authorities are devoting resources to enhancing internal leadership, the challenge now is to develop capacity in leadership across the boundaries between organisations. The role of universities in the 'leadership of place' can provide a powerful focus for such people development programmes.

Promoting the 'Civic University' as a model can contribute to breaking down the barriers between universities and cities. Such universities should not be confined to working with their immediate city but rather use the 'local' as a crucible in which to forge a more open institution able to address multi-scalar challenges such as sustainable development. Such institutions would not only mobilise their research around grand challenges but also organise their teaching with a view to producing future citizens whose decisions as consumers, workers or entrepreneurs will bring about societal innovation in the broader public interest.

There are leadership challenges to working across the boundaries between universities and civil society. All too often city leaders do not understand the drivers behind higher education, particularly the tension between academic excellence and public engagement. For them the university can be a 'black box' with mysterious ways of working. Equally, for many in the academy the drivers behind city development and the responsibilities of many public authorities are opaque.

However, common ground may emerge around the idea that the university and the public and private sectors can come together around 'the leadership of place'. There is a growing body of academic literature on the role of leadership in shaping the integrated development of places - cities and neighbourhoods within cities. For some, this 'new' leadership of place, which focuses on interdisciplinary work across institutional boundaries and engagement of local communities, can create new complexities. Leaders, for instance, find themselves representing places rather than organisations; outcomes become more difficult to pin down and leaders have responsibility but no formal power.

It is possible to identify two relatively distinct forms of leadership that are required to overcome these obstacles. First, the internal leadership of large organisations (principally universities) so they can become more externally engaged. Second, leadership within city partnerships that require the collaboration of multiple organisational stakeholders. These two forms of leadership have different challenges attached to them and require different approaches.

University and non-university leaders have a role in promoting enterprising or boundary-crossing behaviour within their organisations by recognising the potential of outstanding individuals with the ability to make wider connections, and then supporting, protecting and valuing them. People with the personal attributes and sense of purpose to assume a leading or mobilising role can emerge from levels further down the organisational hierarchy, but they need to be supported by upper management and their endeavours aligned with the strategic priorities of the institution.

Hence, vice-chancellors, chief executives and other equivalent organisational leaders have a vital role in clearly setting out and promoting the civic agenda within their organisation. One Vice-chancellor described this in terms of "articulating that you're interested where the city's going [and] permeating that sense of availability and openness down the organisation".

This function of leadership is of particular importance in universities in helping to overcome the disconnect between strategic and operational levels. The creation of new positions dedicated to civic engagement is one option but this may have limited impact if they are not linked to wider cultural or systemic change within the institutions.

Efforts should rather focus on building the principle of valuing outreach or engagement or knowledge exchange activities into core university structures such as promotion pathways or workload models. However, these external engagement activities should not be compulsory for all academics, as when a person unsuited to this type of role is pushed into a leadership position it is more likely to have a negative effect on the institution's external relationships and reputation.

Inter-organisational partnerships are distinguished by people being as committed to the mutual benefits it will bring to the city as they are to the interests of their own organisation. These civic partnerships should be relatively independent of the transactional relationships that exist between organisations (for instance, between city councils and universities on estate matters), so that tensions or disagreements that inevitably arise on these fronts do not spill over to negatively affect overall relationships and be detrimental to the city as a whole. This should, therefore, allow leadership of these partnerships to focus on the joint benefits they can bring to their city through real change, instead of preserving the status quo relationships and 'not falling out'.

As with leadership within organisations good civic leadership, whether from the city council or other possible spheres, requires being able to articulate effectively the future direction of the city's development. A process of agreeing and clearly setting out this vision in strategic plan documents is required, so all stakeholders are aligned behind the partnership, can see their role and will be committed to delivering.

This also indicates the mutual responsibility and trust that these civic relationships entail; if individual or group leaders fail to deliver themselves it destroys confidence and trust within the wider partnership.

The form of collaborative or distributed leadership that characterises good civic partnerships does not just involve key individuals, but also works through the type of intermediary partnership organisation mentioned above. Because these organisations normally have only very limited resources themselves, their style of leadership must necessarily be facilitative and understated, concentrating on mobilising and aligning key public and private organisations within their city to achieve their goals.

There is therefore a need for developing leaders from the city and its universities to enhance their skills in working together on key challenges facing the city - to lead the city, not just lead in the city. To kick-start this process leaders from the university and the city need to come together and identify a key challenge such as removing barriers to social mobility or developing a sustainable city and then hand over to an operational group of future leaders from the university and the city.

A key task for the university would be to mobilise its global knowledge around the chosen theme and translate this so that it has meaning for the city. Such intellectual leadership should embrace the political, managerial and community dimensions of civic leadership. Leadership development would involve building networks between key actors, locally, nationally and internationally, and developing skills in partnership working through joint projects and benchmarking against best practice elsewhere.

Leadership development programmes with their emphasis on the interpersonal skills of individuals are a necessary but not sufficient condition for creating the civic university. Formal structures within organisations and regulatory regimes can be barriers that even enterprising individuals cannot circumnavigate.

Within Europe there is much discussion of the need to 'modernise' the management and governance of universities to meet the 'Grand Challenges' facing the European Union. Achieving major structural changes in universities is much easier when there is some external shock to the higher education system in the form of a major change in government policy towards the sector and/or institutional mergers lubricated by substantial additional funding.

A recent example of this has been the reform of the Finnish higher education system introduced in 2010. This, among other things, facilitated the merger of three Helsinki universities - the Universities of Technology and Art and Design and the Helsinki Business School - to form the Alto University. This 'new' institution has objectives and values which clearly fit many of our criteria for a civic university; it is world-class and combines disciplines to promote innovation and produce engaged experts who will push boundaries and inspire others.

Across the OECD, universities are facing unprecedented financial pressures to do more with less public funding. Unless universities actively seek to break down the barriers with civil society and demonstrate their contribution to the public good they can expect further reductions in taxpayer support. The urban university that wholeheartedly embraces a civic role should be well placed to resist these pressures.

* John Goddard and Paul Vallance are based at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University. This is an edited version of a paper presented to the Talloires Network conference in Madrid in early June.