As the profile of today’s college student shifts, so do expectations for how institutions support success. Leaders are eager to innovate and often look to peer institutions for models that appear to work. But scaling is not a copy-and-paste exercise. What succeeds on one campus rarely transfers cleanly to another.
Scaling is a strategic, context-sensitive process shaped by governance, policy alignment, culture, and capacity. Lasting impact depends on whether those conditions are in place. While many institutions want to scale innovation, far fewer have assessed whether they are actually ready to do so.
What It Takes to Scale Innovation in Higher Education
Deciding to innovate is just the first step in a far-ranging, complex process. Many colleges’ efforts to scale an innovation have stalled when boards, executives, or innovators assume – without verifying – that their interpretations or strategies are aligned.
Successful scaling depends on dynamic interaction across all the organizational layers involved in any kind of change management. Innovations shape and are shaped by the contexts and systems in which they exist. Importantly, a scaled innovation is not a static, one-time achievement. Instead, innovation, scale, and change management are ongoing processes that continue to evolve as innovation is evaluated, people’s needs change, and contexts shift. Adhering rigidly to a single approach runs counter to the spirit of innovation.
The UIA’s scaling toolkit addresses the realities of scaling:
- It centers scale as a system-wide process, not just an institutional process.
- It builds policy and governance into the scaling design, not as an afterthought.
- It connects change management to innovation in a mutually reinforcing relationship.
- It treats equity and adaptability as structural, not supplemental.
What the Readiness Assessment Covers
We based our model for scaling innovation in higher education, in part, on studies of the high-level environments and dynamics that shape how scale happens. We invite you to explore the resource section below for a deeper dive into the research that informed our approach to scaling and change management.
To begin scaling change, we recommend our stakeholder readiness tool. This is a detailed questionnaire that allows each stakeholder group to assess its understanding of the initiative and its capacities and resources for implementing the necessary actions. Remember that, just as every institution is different, individual job descriptions and their areas of focus might vary from one school to the next. Accordingly, some individuals completing this questionnaire may belong to more than one stakeholder group.
To accurately rate the status for each task addressed in the questionnaire, you will need to consult representatives from multiple (if not all) stakeholder groups. Once you fill out the assessment tool, consider your current strengths and the areas in which you would benefit from improvement. Use the information you’ve collected to plan for progress in areas that need improvement, enabling you to execute your scaling initiative effectively.
Who Needs to Be Involved
Let’s examine some of the stakeholder groups represented in this model and consider the responsibilities that each typically undertakes in an initiative to scale change.
Governing Boards: As the backbone of a higher ed institution, the board is responsible for creating the conditions that will help innovation succeed. That includes selecting the institutional leaders, such as presidents or chancellors, who can best support innovation and scaling efforts. The board is also instrumental in aligning the policy that will drive resource allocations, evidence review, communication pathways, and more.
Executive Leaders: These are the public-facing change agents who empower campus leaders to act and provide them with accountability structures. They set the tone for building a campus- or system-wide culture of innovation that prioritizes improvement. Executive leaders are directly responsible for creating the feedback loops that enable participants at every level to report their progress, challenges, and outcomes.
Innovation Leaders: Members of this stakeholder group are tasked with setting a bold vision for change, creating buy-in across the campus community, clarifying core elements of the innovation, and guiding its design. They’re instrumental in surfacing problems and finding solutions. They build coalitions within the community, ensuring mutual trust and including a wide variety of expertise and perspectives.
Policy Makers and Funders: These two groups are responsible for setting the conditions that will keep the scaling initiative sustainable. Policy makers create and revise institutional policies that best support innovation and student success, incorporating feedback from everyone affected. The funders’ role is providing resources for promising initiatives while emphasizing the need for clear expectations, reasonable timelines, and the best conditions for ongoing financial support.
Common Risks to Plan For
Innovation, by definition, is a positive, forward-facing process. That said, we encourage innovators to remember that pursuing a complex, far-reaching initiative always comes with an element of risk. Even the most committed and passionate stakeholders can lose track of small details that may develop into larger problems. For example:
- A feedback loop that isn’t robust and inclusive might leave certain critical voices or essential details out of the ongoing conversation that successful innovation requires.
- Sustainable innovation is a long game fueled by a steady flow of resources. If a source of funding dries up, there must be a contingency to replace it.
- Leadership changes within the institution or political shifts at the local, state, or federal level might alter policy alignments that once appeared to be set in stone.
Keeping these concerns on your radar needn’t interfere with your success. Instead, let them serve as a reminder that nothing should be taken for granted. Any campus- or system-wide initiative contains numerous moving parts, and everything must function properly at all times.
Don't Guess, Assess Readiness
While each institution is a complex ecosystem of policies and practices, your students will always be the ultimate beneficiaries of any innovation in educating and supporting them. And while each institution has leaders and thinkers capable of innovation, higher ed in general is best served by sharing innovative policies and practices whenever possible. These ideas must be scaled to meet the unique needs of your college or university. If scaling is the goal, readiness has to be measured. The UIA Scaling Toolkit includes a stakeholder-based readiness framework designed to help institutions identify strengths, gaps, and next steps. Download the toolkit to assess where you are, and what it will take to scale well.
Resources
In creating our model for scaling innovation, we reviewed these studies:
- Collective Impact – Stanford Social Innovation Review
An approach to system-wide transformation through intentional coordination of multiple organizations and stakeholders toward a shared vision for change. - Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) – Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
A model for educational improvement at scale through engaging diverse practitioners from different contexts in collaborative problem solving through improvement science methods. - Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) – National Society for the Study of Education
An education-specific framework involving both researchers and practitioners in iterative, collaborative design processes. - Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) – BMC (Springer Nature)
A framework from healthcare emphasizing fidelity to core components and adaptability for peripheral components. - Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) – Springer Nature
A model describing distinct phases of implementation processes.