Over more than a decade of working in leadership and researching institutional , it has become apparent to me that higher education is approaching a critical inflection point that demands immediate strategic attention.

This was recently emphasised by the vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra, who the reform of the Australian sector a matter of ¡°national survival¡±. However, this is not just about Australia.

For years, many universities in the anglophone world in particular have operated in a ¡°blessed demand environment¡±. Their reputations attracted consistent student flows, both domestically and internationally, creating a comfortable reality in which strategic planning often devolved into incremental improvement ¨C being slightly better today than yesterday. When demand perpetually exceeds supply, almost any approach appears successful.

However, this golden age is ending, and four convergent forces are reshaping the tertiary education landscape in ways that make traditional approaches obsolete.

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First, demand disruption is happening through regulation and choice proliferation. Government caps and other restrictions on international student numbers have punctured the demand bubble, while digital platforms such as 2U and edX have expanded student choice. Today¡¯s learners exercise unprecedented agency in selecting their educational journey, often prioritising flexibility and value over institutional prestige alone.

Second, when revenue streams seemed inexhaustible, many institutions ¨C from, in Australia¡¯s case, the?Australian National University?to the?University of Technology Sydney?¨C overextended on infrastructure and staffing without building resilient financial foundations. The chickens are now coming home to roost, with several universities facing serious fiscal constraints.

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Third, many universities have fallen victim to ¡°symbolic strategy syndrome¡±. on publicly available university strategic plans reveals that they are not much more than elaborate exercises in institutional theatre. They consume enormous resources and time yet emerge remarkably homogeneous, failing to address the sector¡¯s most pressing challenges: international student volatility, technological disruption and the fundamental shift in how knowledge is created and transmitted.

Fourth, higher education is finally having its long-predicted Netflix moment. Artificial intelligence isn¡¯t just changing how we work ¨C it¡¯s revolutionising learning and research paradigms. As have noted, we¡¯re transitioning from a knowledge-transmission model to a knowledge-discovery framework. Students increasingly learn through AI-assisted exploration, while researchers leverage machine learning for literature reviews, drug discovery and complex analysis. Universities that fail to integrate these realities into their core mission or wait too long to do so will find themselves increasingly irrelevant.

The confluence of these forces creates an urgent need for genuine strategic thinking. To thrive in this emerging landscape, institutions must develop distinctive advantages, maintain rigorous cost discipline beyond mere redundancies, and make bold resource allocation decisions. ?

Writing in 51³Ô¹Ï recently, Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis contested the suggestion that university strategies are too vague and similar, insisting that the distinctions between them ¡°are not merely semantic. They translate into concrete strategic choices¡±. But he worries that the emergence of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) could promote a compliance culture rather than the development of ¡°a genuine mission-based compact¡± that ¡°begin[s] with this distinctive contribution and explore[s] how its impact could be deepened and expanded in line with national priorities¡±.

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Regardless of whether we agree about the current distinctiveness of university strategies, we certainly agree on the importance of being explicit about each university¡¯s distinctive capabilities ¨C and acting on them. not just in the formulation ¨C how would you expect employees to coordinate their actions to achieve an ambition which is not clear to start with? ¨C but also in the execution if resources are spread too thinly across too many initiatives and coordination across departments does not happen.

This mirrors lessons from commercial markets, where companies with genuinely differentiated products retain customer loyalty regardless of price pressures or competitive threats. Universities must ask themselves: What makes us irreplaceably valuable to our stakeholders ¨C staff, alumni, employers, funders, politicians and the wider community?

Strategy requires courage. It demands choosing what not to do, which often challenges both equity considerations and individual interests in the name of promoting the institutional and national good. Nations with robust, strategically-focused higher education systems ¨C from the US to Israel ¨C demonstrate the prosperity that flows from having institutions that truly serve their students and society.

And in the age of lifelong learning, successful institutions will build communities that extend far beyond graduation, encompassing everything from professional development to social impact initiatives, from sports programmes to research partnerships. When alumni feel genuinely connected to institutional success, they become . This, again, requires a clear strategy that facilitates coordination among siloed units, not just at the university level but also between the university and the faculties.

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In short, the universities that thrive in the new reality will be those willing to make difficult choices, invest in genuine differentiation and build sustainable community engagement models. As a sector, we should be more disciplined in the development of distinctive strategies ¨C and ultimately, the nation will benefit from such effort.

The question isn¡¯t whether change is coming ¨C it¡¯s whether your institution will lead or follow it. The conversation about genuine university strategy ¨C not just planning theatre ¨C has never been more critical.

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is an associate professor in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney Business School.