Driving professional excellence
HUMANE, the Heads of University Management & Administration Network in Europe, is primarily a European association whose aims are to build global networks of professionals, to foster innovation in higher education services and to drive professional excellence in higher education management. The network welcomes universities from outside Europe to broaden contributions.
The network aims to transform higher education into a dynamic sector open to the world, through the transformation of professional services with contemporary approaches for dynamic service delivery and what is needed in the academic enterprise of today. HUMANE helps universities thrive in the global world by empowering their senior professional service leaders and managers to strengthen professional practices and organisational development.
Our strategy is centred around connecting, developing, and empowering professionals in higher education, be it those in senior generalist positions (Head/Director of Administration, Registrar, Secretary-General, Chancellor, or Chief Operating Officer) or in more specialised ones (HR, finances, IT, estates, internationalisation, quality assurance, knowledge transfer and innovation).
To do so we offer a wide portfolio of professional development programmes and networking events that focus on contemporary trends in higher education and ways to address the challenges leaders and managers currently experience. We help leaders and managers of professional services find new solutions and deliver effectively for the university of the future by building capabilities in their institutions.
Membership of HUMANE provides a cost-effective means to:
- expand professional networks both locally and internationally,
- develop the skills and expertise that you need to succeed,
- stay up-to-date on key issues and trends,
- have the opportunity to work with HE leaders who have first-hand experience of the ever-changing challenges within HE.
For further information go to the Join HUMANE page, see our page “benefits of membership” and read our “vision, mission and strategy” page. you can also contact us via email. The current HUMANE Newsletter (Autumn 2024) can be downloaded: here
HUMANE Study Visit
Change and Stability: How Innovation works in Higher Education
November 27-29, 2024 – registrations closed
Hosted by the University of Edinburgh (UK)
As a world leading research-intensive institution, the University of Edinburgh is pioneering in developing new approaches to innovation. A powerful research and innovation strategy aligns with the University’s 2030 Strategy to address tomorrow’s greatest challenges. This focuses on strengthening relationships both locally and globally through four key areas: people, research, teaching and learning and civic responsibility.
This Study Visit will showcase multiple good practices, institutional examples and success stories.
The programme is available here.
HUMANE Winter School, Barcelona
Leading change in strategy and policy – Internationalisation
March 23-28, 2025
Hosted by the UPF Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona (ES)
The HUMANE Winter School aims to develop the leadership potential of talented Senior Managers by making them fully aware of:
- The concepts and practices of strategic management in a European context;
- The importance of integrating academic matters, finances, human resources, governance, leadership and communication strategy in the elaboration of university strategy.
The Winter School focuses on leadership skills and the “big picture” of management (how to identify and implement necessary changes). Throughout the week participants work on a case resolution on the internationalisation strategy of a University. The context of university life and the developing scene across Europe provide a unifying thread – this is not just “yet another” management course.
The Winter School is designed for talented fast-rising managers of administration or services, some of who might become heads of administration. The typical candidate will be someone who has the potential to become an influential senior manager and/or head of administration in the future but who at this moment may not be a deputy or senior colleague. Candidates may be an expert or a specialist with the potential to broaden responsibility and move in due course to a senior management position. Applicants are nominated by their own head of administration, their dean or equivalent in their organisation. They are selected by a HUMANE panel with extensive experience of leadership management development programmes.
Applications are now open and you can apply here. The deadline for applications is Friday 29 November.
HUMANE Study Visit Europe
The Paris-Saclay Initiative: Vision, Strategy and Achievements
April 9-11, 2025
Hosted by Paris-Saclay University (FR)
The Paris-Saclay University was established in 2015 by the French government to develop a high-level research-focused university that could reach the top-ten position in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and be a top university in continental Europe.
To reach a critical size the University brings together four leading technical French Grandes Ecoles with two universities, in a partnership with six national research organisations in a research-intensive academic campus 20 kms south of Paris.
The University has some 48 000 students, 8 000 researchers and academic staff, 8 500 technical and administrative staff; it has over 275 laboratories, 11 fields medallists and 4 Nobel Prize winners. It describes itself as “the beating heart for entrepreneurship and innovation”, a powerful research ecosystem in a dynamic business cluster of high technology companies.
Paris-Saclay is at a turning point of its brief history; participants in the Study Visit will exchange with senior university leaders and professional service leaders:
- The original ambition, vision and strategy and the achievements to date
- The governance model
- Implications for resources and economies of scale: sharing services and infrastructure
- Financial strategies and funding
- Collaborative relationships with industry on the Saclay plateau
- The organisational cultural transformation now taking place (as the end of the experimental phase is approaching in 2028)
Save the date and register here to secure your place.
HUMANE Annual Conference
Performance Unleashed: Co-creating High Value for Stakeholders
June 4-6, 2025
Hosted in Helsinki jointly by Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and the University of the Arts Helsinki (FI)
The 2025 HUMANE Annual Conference will explore strategies and practices to enhance institutional performance through close engagement with internal and external stakeholders. In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, higher education institutions are facing many challenges to balance the needs of students, faculty, staff, their communities and funders. The conference will bring together thought leaders, practitioners, and innovators to share insights and actionable solutions aimed at fostering collaboration and driving excellence in higher education.
The three HUMANE member universities of Helsinki (Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and the University of the Arts Helsinki) will be our hosts. As a bursting place for innovation, the smart city of Helsinki is the ideal place to address our conference theme. Finland ranks seventh in the world for its innovation capabilities, thanks to its unique approach to entrepreneurship. It is also the world’s most sustainable destination. It is leading in technology developments, seen as critical to support current challenges: the environmental crisis, the development of well-being due to an aging population (and increasing problems of mental health), the erosion of democracy, increasing competition and the challenges to current economic foundations. Finnish universities play a key role in these developments.
Save the date and register here to secure your place.
HUMANE Webinar
Enhancing professional services through Artificial Intelligence
December 5, 2024 -12:00 to 13:15 CET (FULL)
Restricted to HUMANE Member Institutions and alumni of the HUMANE Residential Schools
In a context of stagnant or decreasing public funding, Artifical Intelligence can offer new approaches for increased performance and profound transformations of professional services to deliver on strategic priorities and higher stakeholder value in universities. It can help to make operational productivity gains: staff workload reduction, streamline issue resolution and improve customer satisfaction. AI also has the potential to enable powerful data driven decisions and to elevate student experiences through personalisation.
But many digitalisation initiatives overpromise and underdeliver, very often because they are not sufficiently conceived with users in mind, from the initial steps of designing new approaches to the full implementation.
How can universities develop responsible and ethical approaches to introduce human-centered AI approaches in their daily operations; how is staff upskilling and reskilling currently done, and should be done in the future to support these development; what are the opportunities and the risks?
With experts and senior university leaders of professional services the webinar will discuss these issues and explore potential applications to leverage the potential of AI in the following areas:
- Student admission and enrolment
- Managing the smart campus and infrastructure in the 21st century
- Recruiting and developing people (using GenAI and people analytics)
- The benefits of AI in financial processes and services
The programme is available here.
Due to the overwhelming response and interest HUMANE received for our webinar “Enhancing professional services through Artificial Intelligence” on 5 December, registrations are now closed. We will run a second edition of the webinar early 2025. If you would like to receive further information “Keep me informed”. The dates will be announced very soon.
HUMANE Summer School, Berlin
Change Management and Transformation in Universities
September 14-19, 2025
Hosted by the Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
The Summer School focuses on achieving sustainable change in relation to universities’ operations. Participants use professional services transformation programme case studies and other material to explore global best practice in this area.
The programme content focuses on the wide variety of contrasting approaches to meeting the challenge of effecting policy and strategy change. Topics such as globalisation, strategic change management, strategic financial management, human resource management and strategic communication are covered over the course of the week.
We are looking for applications from fast rising middle to senior managers, keen to learn more about the art and science of leading and managing large-scale changes in operations and support services. Applicants must be open to non-hierarchical, flexible, agile management approaches, including approaches deployed in other industry sectors. Typically, they will be able to demonstrate the potential to move beyond their current roles irrespective of whether they are already working in operations management, or come from a specialist technical, or policy background. Applicants are nominated by their own head of administration, their dean or equivalent in their organisation. They are selected by a HUMANE panel with extensive experience of leadership management development programmes.
Sign up here to be kept informed about the 2025 edition of the Summer School.
2025 Save the Dates – 2025 events already announced
2025 Annual Conference, Helsinki
June 4-6, 2025
Performance Unleashed: Co-creating High Value for Stakeholders
Hosted in Helsinki jointly by Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and the University of Arts Helsinki (FI)
More information here
2025 Winter School on leading change in strategy and policy – Internationalisation
March 23-28, 2025
Hosted by the UPF Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona (ES)
More information here
2025 Summer School on change management and transformation
September 14-19, 2025
Hosted by the Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
More information here
2025 Study Visit Southeast Asia – Driving Success: Strategic Innovation through transformative leadership in Southeast Asian Universities
Hosted by University of Nottingham Malaysia; The St.Gallen Institute of Management in Asia (SGI) in Singapore
November 9-14, 2025
More information here
2025 Study Visit Europe – The Paris Saclay Initiative: Vision, Strategy and Achievements
Hosted by the Paris-Saclay University (FR)
April 9-11, 2025
More information here
University governance, leadership and management in higher education
Major transformations have occurred in the governance of public higher education institutions in the last decades. Universities often have been granted more autonomy from state control to set their own strategic agendas, decide on their governance and manage their own affairs. Yet at the same time new forms of quality control and performance contracts have emerged under which the state is demanding accountability from its universities.
HUMANE carried out a Survey to gain a better understanding of the profound changes in the position of Head of Administration, understood as a generic term to refer to directors of administration, general directors of services (as in France), registrars or clerks (as in the UK), vice-presidents for administrative affairs, kanzlers (as in Germany).