In the current higher education climate, where frozen domestic fees and declining international enrollments have pushed traditional funding models to a breaking point, "new revenue" is the holy grail. Whether it’s the modular funding of e.g. the LLE in the UK, high-margin CPD for industry, or rapid-response Degree Apprenticeships, the financial mandate for academic departments is clear: be entrepreneurial.
But for many department heads, "entrepreneurialism" collides with systems built for a different era. We are asking departments to hunt for revenue using 21st-century market data, while forcing our governance teams to manage it using 19th-century administrative machinery.
The Value Clash
Why does this "Approval Gap" exist? It happens because different parts of the university are fundamentally clashing over how to define "value." When a new, short-form course is proposed, three different institutional languages are spoken at exactly the same time:
The Department sees ROI: "There is a 50k industry contract on the table if we start this module in six weeks."
The Regulator/Government looks for Performance: "Does this lead to high-skilled employment and meet baseline quality conditions?"
Central Governance is concerned with Risk: "Does this delivery model threaten our degree-awarding powers or our 10-year validation cycle?"
Because we haven't agreed on which definition of "value" takes priority for shorter, non-traditional courses, we default to the "safest" (and slowest) common denominator: the 18-month validation cycle designed for a three-year undergraduate degree.
The "12-Month Wall"
If your approval process is longer than the course itself, you will get outpaced.
Departments feel this "sandwich effect" most acutely. They are squeezed between the executive pressure to generate income and the reality of a quality committee schedule that only meets once a term. It’s not that central governance is trying to be obstructive; they are simply being asked to govern a 10-week module using rules designed for a three-year degree.
But the outcome is the same: bottlenecks like this actively destroy morale. Faced with a year of paperwork for a ten-week module, departments eventually just stop trying.
Pragmatic Perspectives: Decoupling for Speed
If we want to capture the "last mile" of revenue, we have to help educators move fast, without losing control. This means moving toward Proportional Governance:
Validation "Sprints": Borrowing from the tech world, why not hold 48-hour "Validation Sprints" for non-standard provision? Bring Finance, IT, and Quality into one room. Don't leave until the pilot is cleared.
The "Pre-Approved" Sandbox: Establish a set of "Modular Guardrails." If a department stays within pre-vetted templates (credit weightings, fee structures, data standards), they get "Fast-Track" approval.
From Preventative to Detective Governance: Instead of trying to prevent every possible error before a module launches (preventative), allow for rapid launches with high-frequency monitoring (detective). If the performance signals look bad after the first cohort, you iterate or retire the course.
The Bottom Line
Governance is intended to keep the institution safe. But when legacy processes harden into inertia, they starve the university of the revenue it needs to survive.
The revenue is there. To capture it, we need to empower central governance to become the exact innovation engine the university needs to reach it.
