Connecting the dots between academic and professional services staff

Teaching and research may be core to universities’ activities but without the diverse expertise of professional services staff, these complex organisations would grind to a halt. The non-academic and “third space” roles power a vast array of functions, including administration, student support, libraries, learning development, communications, human resources, technology transfer, careers services, admissions, estates, alumni relations and IT. 

Yet, the relationship between academic staff and professional services, who make up about 50 per cent of the university workforce, is complex – historically hierarchical, now more akin to strategic alliance – and evolving. Increased corporatisation and internationalisation of the sector, competition for students and focus on the student experience across increasingly diverse cohorts, combined with tighter budgets and tech’s transformative effects, have shifted the type and balance of roles. Teaching faculty rely on learning designers and IT specialists when crafting courses, while whole-sector challenges such as sustainability, mental health and widening participation require coordinated efforts managed by specialist teams. Research impact depends on the industry acumen of technology transfer and knowledge exchange offices. 

As Saskia van der Gevel from Virgina Tech writes: “Professional staff frequently hold long institutional memory and maintain networks that span departments, community partners and employers, enabling them to translate priorities across cultures and systems. Treating this insight as strategic knowledge – rather than downstream support – strengthens institutional decision-making.”

This collection offers advice to help bridge different areas of professional expertise, with explainers about key roles and offices, advice for effective collaboration and how to navigate the “third spaces” that enrich crucial functions such as teaching, student support and libraries. While we do not pretend to touch on the full multitude of non-academic roles within a university, these resources provide a framework for bringing together teams and experts with very different ways of working.

How professional services and academic staff can work together better

Achieving shared goals across teaching, research, student support, regulation and facilities management means reducing disconnect in working cultures between academic and professional staff. It means creating links through training and shared technologies. Methods such as process mapping can help clarify who contributes to initiatives when and prevent inefficiencies through duplication and delay. Collaboration can also mean considering whether institutions could share administrative functions, as these articles explain.

Why process mapping matters in higher education: Helen Jones from the University of Chester shares a technique to improve collaboration, reduce inefficiencies and build shared understanding across teams to support more effective working.

Building bridges between academics and professional services: Five strategic tactics for a seamless collaboration between academics and professional staff in pursuit of a learner-centred education by Foteini Springou from the University of York.

Is a ‘co-opetition’ model the way to safeguard higher education for future generations? Shared support functions don’t mean the end of competition among institutions, writes Mark Thompson from the University of Exeter. Instead, collective thinking could focus effort on universities’ strengths. 

Beat GenAI ‘stranger danger’ with staff training: Higher education staff are apprehensive about the new stranger in the room: GenAI. But personalisation and staff development can help alleviate anxiety, explains Katie Steen.

Collaborating in university teaching and learning

Designing, updating and validating courses is demanding, exacting work that requires the input of varied specialists. Learning designers, among other professional practitioners, work in concert with teaching faculty to design and develop effective courses. Below, find out how to ensure this invaluable relationship is collegiate and collaborative and why instructional designers should be viewed as a critical friend to lecturers.

Learn from product development to design HE courses: Theresa Mercer and Ron Corstanje from Cranfield University explain how a design-thinking approach can support agile, innovative new course development.

Learning designer may be the best job you’ve never heard of: This role is the bridge between students and academia – and makes use of many transferable skills you may already have in your toolkit, writes Vanessa Jefferson.

Instructional designers, how to work well with teachers: Time, trust and agreeing goals are common difficulties when academic and non-academic staff co-design an online course. Here, Viviana Cáceres from Tecnológico de Monterrey outlines how to overcome them.

Supporting pedagogical innovation in response to AI: To avoid an unwinnable game of catch-up with technology, universities must go beyond scaling online learning, as Charlotte von Essen from the Stockholm School of Economics explains in this video. 

Employability and careers experts: universities’ link with the outside world

The bridge between study and what comes next for graduates – whether that’s a job, a higher degree or creating a start-up – is a vital step in achieving student success. Careers and employability teams offer industry insight and connections, and expertise to help students communicate their skills to future employers, as these articles explain. 

How employability teams can strengthen academic programmes: Working like recruitment partners, rather than just career advisers, can help align teaching with industry needs, writes Hanene Duprat from Al Akhawayn University.

Making skills visible to students: If students struggle to recognise their valuable transferable skills and articulate them to employers, academics look to careers professionals for support. Lorna Devlin from the University of Edinburgh outlines how it works.

What is that professional services role?

With about half of university staff employed in non-academic jobs, it’s hardly surprising that not all are well understood. Here, we demystify roles such as strategic student access director, social media director, business relationship manager and research development coordinator.

What it means to be a university social media director: From the outside, the job can seem as if it revolves around sports highlights, trending sounds and campus beauty shots, writes Riley Phillips, but those moments represent only a fraction of the work.

The impact of business relationship managers in higher education: The role that bridges the gap between digital transformation and the wider university is often misunderstood. Here, Bhupinder Siran from the University of Southampton explains what a business relationship manager does, and the position’s challenges and rewards.

Why transfer student programmes are key to expanding access: In this video, Rick Clark, director of strategic student access, and Georgia Tech provost and executive vice-president for academic affairs Steve McLaughlin discuss why students need and want flexible, affordable pathways into higher education. 

How to support research projects of any size: Eleanor Nelsen, a senior research development coordinator at Virginia Tech, explains what help is available for researchers looking to secure funding, including training and on-demand resources.

Maximising legacy gifts in higher education: Legacy giving remains a relatively untapped resource in the higher education sector. Legacy officer Carolyn Jones from the University of Liverpool explains how her office works.

Embedding lean practices in higher education: How can university processes be more efficient and sustainable? Here’s how the continuous improvement team at the University of Southampton took a viral approach to efficiency. 

Tap into know-how and skills of university librarians

Libraries are a space where distinctions between academic and non-academic staff and expertise are often, well, academic. Central to university activities, library teams provide pedagogical, AI literacy and research skills support as well as training and professional development opportunities. Need advice about archiving a journal article or managing a dataset for a grant proposal? Head to the library.  

Harness the power of your university librarian in the age of information chaos: Find out how to tap your university library’s mine of knowledge for trustworthy research sources, data expertise and information literacy advice, writes Benjamin Meunier from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Integrating the university library into teaching and learning: Where is the library positioned within your institutional structure? Steve Briggs from the University of Bedfordshire makes the case for integrating it into the teaching and learning unit.

Working in and with ‘third space’ professionals

Blended professionals, those staff members who work in the space between academic and professional services roles, are an integral part of university activities such as libraries, learning design, research administration and student experience. People who work across the two are “natural boundary crossers”. Read on for advice about how institutions can capitalise on this expertise and individuals can build even more productive working relationships. 

How to make the most of ‘third space’ experts: Integrated practitioners are increasingly important to universities. Emily McIntosh from Middlesex University and consultant Diane Nutt explain how to capitalise on the bridge between academia and professional services. 

The benefits of engaging third space practitioners in curriculum development: Third space practitioners are often overlooked in the curriculum development process, to everyone’s detriment. Steve Briggs from the University of Bedfordshire looks at how to engage them better.

Stay in your lane or swim sideways: Learning designers and subject matter experts often have to navigate the choppy waters of course co-creation. Here, Jay Cohen offers six tips for collaborating successfully.

Support for taking research to market

When the journey from breakthrough to saleable product can be long and the stakes measured in millions of dollars, researchers need to understand the support available through technology transfer and knowledge exchange offices. These resources demystify what support you’re likely to find within your technology transfer office.

The path from ‘eureka’ to patent: Early action matters when it comes to protecting and commercialising university innovations. Dana Vouglitois from Florida Atlantic University offers a step-by-step guide to technology transfer. 

A lean approach to university technology transfer: Universities can leverage outsourcing to build a lean, adaptive technology transfer office that enhances collaboration and responds to external funding cycles, writes Gavin Clark from University of the Arts London.

Professional development and staff training

A linear upward career trajectory is by no means the norm in higher education, especially, as Jane Shepard writes, in “an environment where sidesteps, and fluidity between roles, industries and specialisms, are the new normal”. She presents a careers toolkit for knowledge exchange professionals in creative fields, while other professional development support includes recognition for non-academic teaching staff and networking for technicians. 

Professional services staff, you’re educators, too: Eleanor Hodgson from the University of Exeter shares ways to help professional services educators to recognise and evidence their teaching practice. 

How a career framework for knowledge exchange can foster a culture of professional growth: Jane Shepard explains how University of the Arts London identified the skills required by professional services staff who help facilitate knowledge exchange.

Career development for technicians in higher education: Technicians need to self-advocate, network and seek leadership opportunities, writes Mark Dabee Saltmarsh from Cardiff Metropolitan University. Here, he offers career advice for the unsung heroes of higher education.

Connecting and empowering technical staff: Technicians themselves will have many of the answers to the challenges they face and can bridge staff groups, but their roles are often siloed or isolated. John Nicolson from the University of Cambridge suggests ways to build networks. 

Advice for effective internal communications

Comms teams might feel as if they’re shouting into the void, while academics rail that managing emails and other internal messaging eats into precious teaching, research or impact time. Effective communications are possible, as these articles explain, through building trust, finding the right channels and understanding the needs of diverse, busy, dispersed groups to cut through workloads and information overload.   

Cut through the noise with impactful internal communications: Internal messaging needs to reach the right people and inspire action – whether that’s getting responses to a staff survey or changing recycling behaviour, writes Kelly Hibbs from the University of Southampton. 

Segmenting academic audiences for effective internal communication: David Brown and Katie Trachtenberg from Heriot-Watt University explore ways in which communications professionals can segment messaging to reach different audiences.