This reports on recent research into co-operative leadership which aims to support co-operative higher education; where co-operative education is understood as the connection between the co-operative movement and co-operative learning (Breeze 2011). The research was carried out in three co-operatives: a co-operative school, a co-operative university, a workers’ co-operative, and an employee owned retail business. The research is framed within a set of catalytic principles established in previous research (Neary and Winn 2016): knowledge, democracy, bureaucracy, livelihood and solidarity. The results have been developed as a diagnostic tool for academics, other staff and students in higher education institutions to assess the extent to which they are already operating in co-operative manner and how these co-operative practices might be further developed. The ultimate aim of these activities is to establish a cooperative university. The research is funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Tag: LFHE
Do It Ourselves Higher Education
The ‘Co-operative Leadership for Higher Education‘ project, funded by the Leadership for Higher Education (LFHE), is now formally over. Mike Neary (PI) submitted the final report to the LFHE yesterday and we expect it to be published in the coming months. Throughout the research, we have been greatly assisted by Katia Venezuela Fuentes, who recently completed her PhD. Congratulations, Katia!
The final report for the project is based on our conference paper, ‘Co-operative leadership and higher education: four case studies‘, which we presented at the Co-operative Education and Research conference in April.
We have also created a short guide to ‘Do It Ourselves Higher Education‘. This draws together a collection of resources, both conceptual and practical, that offer a huge amount of advice and guidance for those interested in the development and implementation of co-operative higher education.
We are regularly contacted by academics who are looking for a real alternative to the existing model of higher education and welcome the opportunity to talk about what we have learned during this project and our earlier work. We are particularly interested in putting ideas into practice and working through the actual challenges of the conversion, dissolution or creation routes to co-operative higher education.
Co-operative Leadership and Higher Education: four case studies
Mike Neary, Katia Valenzuela Fuentes and I presented the following paper at The Co-operative Education and Research Conference, 5-6 April 2017, Manchester. A link to download the paper is below the abstract. It is the first report from our Co-operative Leadership for Higher Education project, funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
This paper reports on recent research into co-operative leadership which aims to support co-operative higher education; where co-operative education is understood as the connection between the co-operative movement and co-operative learning (Breeze 2011). The research was carried out in three co-operatives: a co-operative school, a co-operative university, a workers’ co-operative, and an employee owned retail business. The research is framed within a set of catalytic principles established in previous research (Neary and Winn 2016): knowledge, democracy, bureaucracy, livelihood and solidarity. The results have been developed as a diagnostic tool for academics, other staff and students in higher education institutions to assess the extent to which they are already operating in co-operative manner and how these co-operative practices might be further developed. The ultimate aim of these activities is to establish a cooperative university. The research is funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Website for Co-operative Leadership for Higher Education
I mentioned that Mike Neary and I received funding for a new project on ‘Co-operative Leadership for Higher Education’. This is just a note to say that the project has its own website which you can subscribe to:
http://coophe.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk
Recent posts outline the project, relate it to our previous project to develop a framework for co-operative higher education, and look at Edwin Bacon’s work on ‘neo-collegiality‘ and Paul Bernstein’s work on workplace democracy.
Co-operative Leadership for Higher Education
Mike Neary and I have been awarded funding by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education to focus on ‘co-operative leadership’ in the higher education context. Below is the introductory section of our research proposal. You can read the rest on Mike’s blog. Here’s a link to the project blog.
The aim of this research is to explore the possibility of establishing co-operative leadership as a viable organisational form of governance and management for Higher Education. Co-operative leadership is already well established in business enterprises in the UK and around the world (Ridley-Duff and Bull 2016), and has recently been adopted as the organising principle by over 800 schools in the United Kingdom (Wilson 2014). The co-operative movement is a global phenomenon with one billion members, supported by national and international organisations working to establish co-operative enterprises and the promotion of cooperative education. The research is financed by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education’s small development projects fund.
Higher education in the UK is characterised by a mode of governance based on Vice-Chancellors operating as Chief Executives supported by Senior Management teams. Recent research from the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education on Neo-collegiality in the managerial university (Bacon 2014) shows that hierarchical models of governance alienate and de-motivate staff, failing to take advantage of research-based problem solving skills of staff operating at all levels, not accounting for the advantages to organisations when self-managed professionals interact with peers on matters of common purpose, particularly in knowledge-based industries.
The co-operative leadership model for higher education supports the ambition for more active engagement in decision-making to facilitate the best use of academics’ professional capacities, but framed around a more radical model for leadership, governance and management. Members of the co-operative university would not only be involved directly in decision-making and peer-based processes that make best use of their collective skills, but have equal voting rights as well as collective ownership of the assets and liabilities of the co-operative (Cook 2013). This more radical model builds on work done recently as part of a project funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) to establish some general parameters around which a framework for co-operative higher education could be established (Neary and Winn 2015). One of the key issues emerging from this research is the significance of co-operative leadership – the focus of this research project.