By Anton John Crace in QS Mid Week Brief — 22 Jan 2026

What signals should higher education leaders be paying attention to in 2026?

QS Midweek Brief - January 21, 2026. How should leaders make choices? And how do they move from cosmetic to structural changes?

Welcome! One of the most difficult things to ask for is help. Maybe because pride, or maybe because of not wanting to be a bother, we often struggle to ask other people questions like “what am I doing wrong?” or “how could I improve?” This typically leads to one of the saddest expressions, “if only I knew that before”.

So, this month, in our third edition of the “Minds in motion” series, we’ve asked for help for you. Gathering together higher education leaders from around the world, we asked them all the same simple question: what are you keeping your eye on. Some of the answers might come as a surprise, other less so, but we hope all provide you with perspectives that offer a new way of thinking about a shared problem.

Read the January edition of QS Insights

Stay insightful,
Anton John Crace
Editor in Chief, QS Insights Magazine
QS Quacquarelli Symonds

Pace, focus and the discipline of choice

By Professor Hannah Holmes, Dean, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School

At the start of 2026, business school leaders find themselves in a familiar but intensified position. The forces reshaping higher education are not new, but their cumulative impact is becoming harder to ignore. Digital technologies are embedded rather than emerging.

Expectations from students, employers and society continue to expand. At the same time, institutional capacity, financial headroom and workforce resilience are under sustained pressure.

As a result, leadership attention in 2026 is less focused on identifying the next major initiative and more on interpreting signals from the system. Senior leaders are watching carefully for where momentum is productive, where it creates fragility, and where focus and restraint are required to sustain quality and credibility. Several themes stand out as areas leaders are actively looking out for this year.

What leaders are watching in 2026

Across institutions, a common set of signals is shaping leadership judgement:

Whether the pace of technological change is strengthening capability or stretching people beyond sustainable limits.
Whether the pace of technological change is strengthening capability or stretching people beyond sustainable limits.
How far institutional portfolios remain coherent as new programmes, formats and partnerships accumulate.
Whether staff capacity and confidence are emerging as the primary constraint on progress.
How curriculum reform is balancing relevance with depth and quality.
Where expectations around place, partnership and contribution are sharpening.
How inclusion is being judged through outcomes rather than access alone.
Whether pace itself is becoming a strategic decision rather than an assumed good.

These are not abstract concerns. They directly inform decisions about investment, sequencing and prioritisation. Each reflects a deeper question leaders are grappling with in 2026: how to keep institutions moving forward at speed, without undermining the very capabilities that make progress possible.

Pace as a strategic variable

One of the most striking shifts at the start of 2026 is how leaders are thinking about pace. Speed is no longer treated as an unqualified virtue. Instead, leaders are increasingly aware that momentum in one area can generate fragility elsewhere.

This does not mean slowing down. Competitive, regulatory and technological pressures still demand movement. What has changed is the recognition that pace must be governed. Leaders are paying close attention to where acceleration builds capability and where it erodes trust, confidence or quality.

In practice, this means making explicit choices. Some initiatives are deliberately fast-tracked because they unlock long-term benefit or address immediate risk. Others are sequenced more slowly to allow learning, adaptation and consolidation. The leaders who appear most effective in 2026 are those who can explain these choices clearly, rather than defaulting to constant motion across the board.

The absorption gap between innovation and capacity

Closely linked to pace is a signal leaders are watching with growing concern: the widening gap between technological possibility and institutional absorption. Artificial intelligence, learning analytics and automation are now routine features of teaching platforms, research processes and administrative systems. The question in 2026 is not whether these tools exist, but whether they are being integrated in ways that genuinely improve practice.

Many leaders are noticing that staff experience digital change as cumulative rather than strategic. New systems are layered onto existing ones, often without sufficient time to adapt or retire older practices. The risk is not technological failure, but erosion of professional confidence and clarity.

For senior leaders, this has sharpened attention on capability building. Investment decisions are increasingly judged not only on functionality, but on whether institutions have the time, skills and support structures to use new tools well. The signal leaders are watching is whether innovation is creating coherence or complexity.

From responsiveness to institutional coherence

Another area of heightened attention in 2026 is institutional coherence. For much of the past decade, responsiveness to market signals has been rewarded. New programmes, formats and partnerships were often seen as evidence of relevance and agility.

Leaders are now more alert to the costs of this approach. As portfolios expand, the risk of fragmentation grows. Students, staff and external partners can struggle to understand what an institution stands for and how different activities connect.

In response, leaders are increasingly prioritising coherence over accumulation. They are asking whether institutional activity aligns with a clear purpose and whether growth in one area creates unintended pressure in another. The ability to articulate why certain opportunities are pursued and others declined is becoming a marker of leadership credibility.

People as a binding constraint

Perhaps the most consequential signal leaders are watching in 2026 is the extent to which people, rather than strategy or funding, are becoming the binding constraint on progress.

Workforce fatigue, recruitment challenges and thinning layers of middle leadership are shaping what institutions can realistically deliver.

In this context, care for people is not framed as a value statement, but as a condition for institutional effectiveness. Leaders are paying attention to early indicators of overload: declining willingness to experiment, reduced trust in central initiatives, or a sense that change is happening faster than it can be meaningfully absorbed.

These signals inform decisions about pacing, prioritisation and focus. Institutions that ignore them risk undermining their own capacity to innovate, regardless of how compelling their strategies appear on paper.

Curriculum reform and the risk of overload

Curriculum is another area where leaders are watching closely in 2026. Pressure to address emerging skills, digital capability, sustainability and ethics continues to intensify. The danger leaders see is not irrelevance, but overcrowding.

Programmes that attempt to respond to every signal risk becoming collections of content rather than coherent learning journeys. Research on learning design consistently shows that depth, sequencing and reinforcement matter more than coverage.

As a result, leaders are increasingly focused on identifying a small number of core capabilities that define their graduates and ensuring these are intentionally developed across programmes. Restraint in curriculum reform is being reframed as a commitment to quality rather than a lack of ambition.

Focus, specialisation and collaboration

Focus is emerging as a recurring theme across leadership conversations in 2026. There is growing recognition that institutions cannot excel in all areas simultaneously. Expectations of specialisation and collaboration are becoming more explicit, with institutions encouraged to build on strengths rather than default to uniform provision.

For business schools, this raises difficult but necessary questions about where to invest, where to partner and where to step back. Leaders are watching for signals that indicate whether activity aligns with institutional capability and purpose, or whether it is driven by short-term opportunity.

This focus also has a spatial dimension. Business schools are increasingly expected to articulate how their activity contributes to the economic, professional and social ecosystems of the regions and cities in which they are based, alongside their global engagement. Leaders are therefore balancing international reach with regional depth, recognising that legitimacy and impact increasingly depend on both.

Inclusion judged through outcomes

Inclusion remains a central concern in 2026, but the way it is assessed is shifting. Access alone is no longer seen as sufficient. Attention is turning towards progression, belonging and long-term outcomes for both students and staff.

Senior leaders are watching for evidence that institutional systems genuinely support diverse learners and colleagues once they are part of the organisation. Assessment practices, support structures and informal norms are coming under closer scrutiny.

The signal here is subtle but important. Inclusion is increasingly understood as a design challenge embedded in everyday practice, rather than a standalone initiative. Leaders who miss this shift risk investing energy in visible commitments that do not translate into durable change.

Leading by reading the system

Taken together, these signals suggest that leadership in 2026 is less about bold declarations and more about disciplined interpretation. Senior leaders are spending more time reading their institutions as complex systems, identifying where coherence is weakening, where capacity is stretched and where pace needs to be governed more deliberately.

The most consequential decisions are often subtractive rather than additive. What to stop, what to simplify and what to stabilise are as important as what to launch next.

In this environment, effective leadership is likely to be judged not by how much change is initiated, but by whether institutions remain intelligible, trusted and capable of progress over time. For many senior leaders at the start of 2026, that is precisely what they are looking out for.

Professor Hannah Holmes is Dean of the Business School and Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor within the Faculty of Business and Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is also a Principal Fellow of the HEA and Chair of the Economic Review Editorial Board. She holds several external Board and Trustee positions, including Prospere Learning Trust and the Manchester Metropolitan University Board of Governors.

Moving from reactive to structural change

By Sidharth Oberoi, Vice President of Global Strategy at Instructure

Over the past year, many institutions have had to respond rapidly to accelerating change—engaging in what can feel like a technological “arms race” to keep pace with digital transformation, while also navigating legitimate concerns around academic integrity and the use of AI. Much of this response has been necessarily reactive, shaped by constrained resources and mounting external pressure.

Looking ahead to the next twelve months, however, the shift I’m watching most closely is a departure from short-term defensive measures toward more fundamental structural reconfiguration. Not just in how AI is governed, but in how universities respond to changing learner expectations, global mobility, credential value and technological fragmentation.

These are not abstract challenges. They sit at the intersection of pedagogy, technology and strategy—and they will shape which institutions thrive in 2026 and beyond.

Beyond the ‘cliff’: navigating the enrolment shift

Much has been written about the ‘enrolment cliff,’ particularly in traditional markets, but what we are watching is actually an ‘enrolment shift’. The landscape of who is studying, where they are going and what they are looking for is changing fundamentally.

Many students are increasingly turning to vocational training and alternative providers. For example, according to data from Spain’s official TodoFP portal, vocational training has seen an unprecedented 36 percent growth over the last six years, now serving over 1.2 million students.

The shift is also evident in international education. As the four traditional magnets for international education, the UK, US, Australia, and Canada, tighten their visa and migration policies, student and global talent flows are redistributing. Other countries are gaining ground in international education as they offer more accessible alternatives in terms of costs and migration conditions.

For universities in 2026, survival depends on providing flexible learning pathways that cater to a multi-generational workforce and facilitate mobility between institutions, sectors and countries to enhance employability.

Making microcredentials ‘count’

Microcredentials are a key tool for navigating this shift, but their impact depends on more than simply offering more courses. To deliver real value, microcredentials must support genuine progression, employability, and lifelong learning.

This requires that credentials are recognised, transferable and valued by both universities and employers across sectors and borders—providing learners with flexibility and opportunities throughout their careers. When designed and implemented effectively, microcredentials can become a fundamental component of the global educational currency.

Overcoming ecosystem fragmentation

The vision of mobility can only be realised if institutions are able to deploy AI effectively, without being hindered by fragmented technology ecosystems.

Digital transformation needs to mean more than ‘modernisation’ through the accumulation of tools. In 2026, the challenge is to move from ‘accumulation’ to coordinated integration of technology. Legacy architectures—often closed, fragmented systems designed for simple, linear processes—limit institutional agility, slow innovation and make meaningful integration increasingly difficult.

To unlock the potential of ‘agentic AI’ (autonomous systems capable of intelligent automation—) while maintaining appropriate oversight and control, universities require an agent-friendly architecture. This means moving away from applying technological ‘patches’ and toward unified data access under institutional control, supported by transparent APIs and open standards. Achieving this shift is not simply a marker of digital maturity; it’s foundational to ensuring that AI delivers real, scalable value for students, faculty and the institution as a whole.

A new pedagogy of integrity

Finally, we must address one of the most persistent and complex challenges: academic integrity. Many institutions continue to address this through a ‘policing’ mindset and the use of technology tools. Whilst understandable, this approach is increasingly limited, as AI continues to evolve faster than any system of enforcement can keep up with.

Instead, a focus on AI literacy offers a more sustainable path. By embedding AI understanding into pedagogy, universities can design assessments and learning experiences in ways that make the learning process visible over time. Encouraging students to be transparent about their use of AI and to explain and defend their reasoning, shifts the emphasis from policing to nurturing genuine critical thinking.

Whilst AI has brought countless challenges to education, it has also created a number of opportunities. Institutions that place AI literacy at the core of their pedagogical strategy, while addressing technological fragmentation, will be best positioned to remain relevant and effective in a world that values lifelong learning and adaptability.