Challenge:
A client with extensive interests in retail, consumer-goods manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, and real estate sought to create a new world-class university in Southeast Asia. It wished to do so for social benefit and to fill gaps in the current Higher Education provision.
The Oracle’s Solution:
The Oracle drew on its specialist Higher Education Strategy team to deliver this project which is necessarily elaborate. Several initial on-the-ground fact finding and stakeholder assessment visits were held in-country to define success. A detailed feasibility study and risk analysis was then undertaken over a nine-month period. The client and the national government were furnished with this information and, after minor changes, the proposed initial plans for the university were approved.
Our fellows then contacted tens of potential international partner universities. These institutions were interviewed and shortlisted. Shortlisted partners were then visited and details of the practical and financial models that might underlie an academic partnership between our universities were discussed in detail. The client was provided with detail as well as frank counsel and, based on this information, a decision was made to partner with a leading US university.
Oxford Oracle then went about creating the following key elements of the new university:
- a management structure
- a staff recruitment strategy (and undertaking the first six rounds of recruitment)
- a student recruitment strategy
- architectural and learning spaces plans (in partnership with a specialist construction consultancy)
- validated and accredited curricula for both undergraduate and graduate degree programmes
- a research strategy and policy
- a commercialisation and knowledge exchange policy
- financial models and sensitivity analyses for the university’s first ten years
Consequential Impact:
The university was built on time and within the advised budget. It is thriving and is a source of pride to both the client and the nation. Oxford Oracle continues to work with the client and the university.