View from the top

Today’s institutional leaders face a shifting landscape of challenges. View From the Top: Academic Leaders’ and Funders’ Insights on the Challenges Ahead explores the complex issues facing academic leaders and funders, and their preparedness to tackle them.   We also explore the strategies leaders are developing to ensure their institutions’ long-term success.  

Developed from interviews with over 100 global senior leaders in partnership with Ipsos, View From the Top provides insight into current priorities and areas expected to pose significant challenges in the coming years, such as AI governance and climate change.  

• 89% view research as their principal challenge, and 93% say maintaining research excellence is a clear focal point.

• 84% pinpoint funding as a high priority, with 66% anticipating this challenge to intensify over the next five years.

• 80% say demonstrating societal impact is a high priority; however, only 43% say they are well prepared to do this.

• 75% see talent, including recruitment and retention, as a significant challenge. 66% predict that managing talent will become more difficult in the future.

• Outcomes and impact are top priorities, with two-thirds predicting that demonstrating impact will become much harder over the next five years.

• Over two-thirds feel securing finances is crucial to delivering on their top priorities; half believe this challenge will become much greater in the future due to stagnant funding growth and rising research costs.

Achieving excellence in research and education are high priorities for institutions. Library leaders and their teams are uniquely placed to help academic leaders deliver on these objectives through information and technological expertise, as well as a variety of emerging services.

• 93% of academic leaders put a high priority on ensuring research excellence, while only 56% feel well prepared to meet this challenge.

• 82% of academic leaders consider educational excellence a high priority; 64% feel well prepared to tackle the challenge.

• 64% of academic leaders rate AI governance as a top priority, but only 23% feel their institutions are well prepared for this challenge.