'It's good to talk' - the HEA, HEI's and Strategic Dialogue

In an earlier post  I flagged an impending consultation document on strategic diversity, the funding tool planned for use by the HEA to help ‘direct diversity’ amongst higher education institutions in Ireland.   And so it has come to pass.  Last week the HEA issued a consolidated document dealing with clusters consolidation and strategic dialogue and have now entered into a consultation process with stakeholders concerning  its implementation.  In common with other consultation documents released  the document lays out the principles invoplved and then poses a series of questions.

At the heart of strategic dialogue is a compact, contract even (the Hunt report references service level agreements), between the institution and the funder that is designed to ensure that the State gets what it wants from the publicly funded higher education institutions at the same time as helping the HEI to enhance its performance in line with its mission while respecting the independence and autonomy of the institution itself.

Key questions that emerge are

• What are the performance indicators that the state will require institutions to sign up to?
• How effective will institutions be at being strategic?
• Over what timeframe will the funding model be brought in (the document suggests three years)?
• What proportion of the overall HE budget should be ringfenced/top sliced for the performance funding element?
  

As usual, answers on a postcard please to the HEA.