This research report, considering curriculum reform initiatives in higher education, explores the nature of whole institutional curriculum reform undertaken by universities in the UK, and beyond, in response to the globalised world and global economy of the 21st Century.
The key questions addressed in the report considered:
What self-scrutiny, strategies, planning and processes do universities who have successfully reformed the curriculum undertake?
How do these universities measure and evaluate the impact of whole curriculum reform in relation to learning and teaching and the student experience?
Eighteen universities expressed interest in the research and provided details of their reforms. Each university judged their reforms as successful against their own expectations. An initial in-depth interview took place with ten of these universities and follow-up case study research took place at three universities: Kingston University, London; Curtin University, Perth, Australia and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The thematic analysis focusses on higher educational leadership, the process and evaluation of curriculum reform initiatives and explores staff and student engagement with curriculum change in higher education. The research concludes that these initiatives can lead to a realignment of the curriculum with a clearly articulated mission for the individual universities taking part in such activities
