Enabling strategic campus transformation to elevate the student experience

Today’s campuses are not just physical spaces. They’re ecosystems where technology can play an important role in shaping the entire student experience. During a round-table discussion, held in partnership with Siemens, at the 2025 THE World Academic Summit, university leaders and industry experts explored how digitalisation and modern campus infrastructure can transform traditional spaces into dynamic environments that align with an institution’s strategic goals.

“A campus is not just the environment where people learn and where research happens,” said Faye Bowser, vice-president of the higher education vertical at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. “It’s a place where you have a convergence of people, knowledge and purpose. If the campus is a mirror that you hold up to demonstrate your values, one of the tools that’s very helpful in that is data.”

Different types of data are being collected by universities, ranging from student engagement levels to facilities-related information such as building temperature, which influences student well-being. “The primary focus in what we do is how we create impact in the student journey,” said Mohammed Al Nuaimi, vice-president of Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates. “You have to make sure digital transformation is driven by strategy, not just investment. Having transparency of data for students is also important for them to understand the value.”

The discussion explored the need for standardising what a “smart campus” is. A smart campus should improve operational efficiency and reduce costs for universities while enhancing the campus experience, the participants said. Integration is essential to ensuring data can inform the work of university decision-makers. A difficulty, however, emerges from the fact that universities can be simultaneously both data-rich and data-poor. Even when there is an abundance of information, the challenge remains in how this data is translated into impact. 

“I’m interested in the intersection of the physical build and digital environment,” said Allan Pacey, deputy vice-president and deputy dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health at the University of Manchester. “Being a university that is more than 200 years old makes that difficult. The physical infrastructure can inhibit our ability to have online real-time connectivity,” he added.

“We did a piece of work in the last couple of years to understand what students wanted,” said Pacey. “[We found that] the emphasis was on social spaces and the between-classroom experience that sometimes we miss. The between-timetable aspects of where our students are and how they use spaces are something that we are trying to get to grips with.”

The role of the connection between the physical and digital remains central to discussions around smart campuses – and a significant challenge. Regardless of technology, universities must remember the importance of placing human connection and collaboration at the centre of the student journey. “The role of the campus will always remain important because we want to connect with other people and we want to learn with other people,” Bowser concluded. 

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