Higher education has long struggled with taking effective student success innovations to scale across institutions. Although promising interventions emerge regularly, few achieve systemic, lasting impact. This toolkit offers a practical, action-oriented resource for institutional leaders, governing boards, funders, policymakers, and change agents committed to enabling scalable, sustainable change.
The companion modules break down structures, elements of, and approaches to scaling. They bring the toolkit to life with additional real-life examples and tools to support scaling efforts across a variety of contexts.
Self-Paced Modules in the Lab
This toolkit is a cross-sector-informed guide that integrates lessons from K–12, healthcare, and social innovation with the University Innovation Alliance’s (UIA) real-world experience scaling innovation across 19 public research universities. What we’ve learned: Scaling is not replication – it’s a strategic, context-sensitive process that depends on governance, policy alignment, and continuous learning. Innovation doesn’t scale unless systems are designed to support it.
This resource is designed for institutional leaders, governing boards, system heads, funders, policymakers, innovators, implementers, and anyone working to ensure more students benefit from what we already know works.
Acknowledgements
This toolkit was developed in collaboration with UIA campuses. Participating campuses dedicated individual team members to supporting the development of these materials. We are grateful for the contributions of the following members to support development of the toolkit:
- Nicole Bartolozzi, Iowa State University
- Antja Dionne Caldwell, North Carolina A&T State University
- Adam Duran-Leftin, Arizona State University
- Christopher Gasser, Oregon State University
- Jessica Hitzman, University of New Mexico
- Felicia Keelen, University of Illinois Chicago
- Marquetta Strait, Purdue University
- Ronita Walker, University of Maryland, Baltimore County