Charting the Road Ahead: A New Path for Universities

Wtitten while inaugural Director, FORWARD, The RMIT Centre for Future SKills and Workforce Transformation.

Universities today face a critical crossroads. They must adapt to a rapidly changing world while managing financial pressures, new competitors, and evolving student needs. However, they also possess unique strengths — their ability to facilitate knowledge exchange, foster innovation, and act as hubs for research and collaboration.

The question is: how can they restructure to maximise these strengths while overcoming their current limitations?

Large-scale transformations, such as Bayer’s transition to Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO), show that traditional organisations can evolve into more agile, decentralised ecosystems. However, these transformations require groundwork and experimentation before full-scale adoption.

The most effective approach is to start small, launching pilot projects and experiments that test new ways of operating. Universities should explore decentralised models where academic departments function more like independent knowledge hubs, with greater autonomy and direct engagement with industry partners.

One major challenge in adopting a platform model is rethinking traditional partnership structures. Instead of rigid, top-down agreements that favour large institutions, universities must shift toward ecosystem models, where multiple stakeholders collaborate as equals, co-creating knowledge and value.

A common concern is whether decentralised models — which have been successful in corporations — can also work in universities.

While universities are distinct from businesses, we can draw lessons from other industries, such as healthcare, where decentralized, trust-based systems have dramatically improved efficiency and service quality.

One of the most compelling examples is Buurtzorg, a Dutch home-care organisation that replaced hierarchical management structures with self-managed nursing teams. Instead of large, centrally controlled departments, Buurtzorg operates as a network of small, autonomous teams, each responsible for its own decisions and outcomes.

The impact has been profound:

• Lower overhead costs (just 8% compared to nearly a third in similar Australian systems).
• Higher quality care, as nurses spend more time with patients rather than navigating bureaucracy.
• Global adoption, with Buurtzorg-inspired models expanding to France, Sweden, Germany, China, India, South Korea, and Japan.

Another concern is scalability. While decentralised models work well for small teams, can they function at the scale required by universities? Buurtzorg provides a strong case for how this can be achieved. Despite operating with 16,000 frontline nurses and over a thousand teams, the model remains highly decentralised while maintaining service quality.

As one Buurtzorg leader put it:

“Scalability, whatever we do, is very important. Everything we do, the question always is: does this solution work at five people? Would it also work at 5000? If the answer is no, we find another solution.”

This scalability mindset is key for universities. Instead of implementing one-size-fits-all reforms, institutions should focus on building flexible, adaptable structures that can expand without losing autonomy, quality, or agility.

Buurtzorg’s success offers several lessons for universities exploring platform-based models:

• Empower self-managed teams: Give academic and research units more autonomy over curriculum design, funding, and partnerships.
• Reduce administrative overhead: Shift resources toward learning, research, and student experience rather than bureaucracy.
• Adopt a scalable, trust-based model: Ensure structures support growth while maintaining flexibility and human-centric decision-making.

As universities rethink their future, the platform approach offers a compelling alternative. By embracing decentralisation, flexibility, and trust, they can become more resilient, more innovative, and better aligned with the needs of students, faculty, and industry.

The choice is clear: cling to outdated models or embrace a dynamic, platform-driven future. The universities that act now will define the next era of higher education.

The Platform University, a collaboration between RMIT FORWARD in Australia and Boundaryless in Europe, offers a transformation agenda rooted in global expertise and industry-proven practices. Leveraging Platform Organisation models and the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem-Enabling Organisation (3EO) framework, we empower universities to become dynamic, flexible hubs of entrepreneurial innovation. This transformation reimagines the university’s structure, culture, and operations — enabling continuous innovation, agile responsiveness to market shifts and the seamless integration of internal and external resources. In doing so, we equip universities to thrive in an ever-changing world.

To learn more, visit https://rmit-forward.org/platform-university/