Making the leap: Digital Inside and Out
Between October and December, we are running a series of Viewpoint blogs written by our University Executive to give their personal perspectives on our new strategy to 2035, play back what we heard, explain the choices we are making, and set out how we will test, learn and scale to deliver our strategy.
In this piece, Patrick Hackett, University Registrar, Secretary and COO, and Fiona Devine, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, share their insight into the leap: Digital Inside and Out. You can explore the strategy on our webpage, or download the full strategy text.
Making the leap: Digital Inside and Out
Our strategy to 2035 sets out a clear ambition: to be the global standard for what a world-class, seamlessly integrated university experience should be.
This is about fundamentally reimagining how our students, colleagues and partners experience the university.
If we get this right, we will have fully integrated our physical and digital spaces to provide truly personalised experiences for all. That personalisation won’t come at the cost of community, quite the opposite, it will reinforce a sense of inclusion and belonging, bringing us closer together.
Being ‘Digital Inside and Out’ is the driving force behind all other leaps within our strategy. Digital thinking will be at the heart of everything we do-whether it’s transforming our teaching and learning offering and environments, our research capabilities, innovation activities or community connections. It won’t just support progress but accelerate it on every front.
Transforming the experience: digital at the core
Home to the world’s first stored-program computer, we have, throughout our history, been pioneers of technological advancement. Here and now, we have the expertise and research strength to shape the next era of education and AI-driven transformation ensuring it is implemented responsibly and equitably.
But we have a way to go.
You told us loud and clear during the development of our strategy that our systems and processes need to be simple, intuitive and frictionless for all. It has been fantastic to discover how many of our colleagues want more shared ways of working, leaning into our ambitions to work as One University.
Our commitment is to reduce hurdles, moving from manual to digitized (including AI-enabled) processes so that you can focus on what really matters. Our aim for the future is ensuring technology enhances, rather than obstructs, fueling collaboration and efficiency.
This isn’t a one size fits all approach; we will continue to focus heavily on user experience and personalisation.
Digital should enable users to do what they want, when they want – enabling personalisation at a level not previously possible whether you interact with the institution physically or digitally.
Digital inclusion and accessibility are critical to our success, ensuring everyone can participate fully, with systems as enablers for engagement. We will focus on digital skills and confidence for all, investing in our colleagues so that they can innovate, lead and adapt to emerging technologies.
Colleagues are already actively building the digital confidence needed for the years ahead.
There is huge uptake in our Copilot Chat learning programmes and hundreds of colleagues are benefitting from the Data and AI Academy, delivered in partnership with Multiverse, our strategic workforce transformation partner. The Academy is helping build vital digital literacy around data and AI—skills that will shape the future of every role.
We continue to proactively seek colleague feedback to help us better understand how we can support the digital capability needs of our community.
Our campus without borders
We will enable our students and colleagues to engage in learning, research, and collaboration from anywhere in the world.
Our expansion of Manchester Online to connect learners locally and globally is a step towards this, testing new models for learning and collaboration as we go.
This digital transformation does not diminish the importance of our physical campus; instead, it aims to enable seamless movement between digital and physical environments. Our goal is to create a place where the physical and digital estate work as one.
How are we going to do this?
Our future campus experience will be responsive and connected, blending physical spaces with digital tools so people can move seamlessly between them. Real-time updates on space availability, timetable changes, and connectivity will ensure that studying or working feels intuitive and flexible, even when plans shift.
Behind the scenes, integrated systems, such as Connect, will link Estates, People, and IT data reducing complexity through automation.
Building on our progress
You’ve told us what you need: flexible, connected services, and an investment in digital infrastructure.
We’re making good progress.
Through Evolve, we’re stabilising our core IT Services and improving reliability, security and performance across the systems our community relies on every day.
AppsAnywhere is giving students easier, more flexible access to the software they need.
Future Foundations is reshaping our core administrative and operational processes, so they are simpler, more connected and easier to use.
Our online support portal Connect continues to expand across IT Services and the People Directorate. Next, we plan on embedding it within our Student Hubs. This will be complemented by AskBee, our new AI-powered virtual agent providing 24/7 support through the Connect portal.
Together, these changes are streamlining systems, reducing bureaucracy and helping everyone get the support they need—quickly, consistently and in one place.
We’re also harnessing the power of AI. Through the development of the AI Skunkworks team, we are creating opportunities for colleagues from across the University to come together and collaboratively design responsible approaches to AI through initiatives like AI Pathfinder.
This is about empowering our community—transforming how we work, teach, and learn—without replacing the invaluable human insight and connection at the heart of our institution.
The road ahead
As we progress, we will continue to listen to your ideas for where digital transformation can make the most impact at pace. Our new Infrastructure Committee has devolved authority to speed up decision making and importantly agree priorities and phasing, ensuring how we do this work is as important as what we do. Early priorities for our physical and digital campus will be identified by Chief Information Officer, PJ and Chief Property Officer, Barra Mac Ruairí working with colleagues across the institution.
In this first phase, we will build on our foundations, laying the groundwork for the ambitious leaps ahead.
We’re in a strong position as a university to realise these ambitions and the opportunities ahead are exciting for us all. We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation with you and cocreating solutions as we move further into implementing our new strategy.
I am pleased to see the university’s commitment to digital transformation. However, I believe there should be greater transparency regarding the future implications for both staff and students. Currently, I am enrolled in an AI academy course through Multiverse, which has been an incredible opportunity. Nonetheless, many participants, including myself, feel uncertain about the accessibility of AI tools in the future. Will we be able to apply our hard work after the course? Can we share our practices with colleagues, or will they lack access to the necessary AI tools?
Additionally, Multiverse has requested the university’s support for its learners on information governance during the course due to uncertainties surrounding the use of information via Copilot. Despite the importance of this issue to digital success, Multiverse has struggled to receive a response. It is crucial that both staff and students feel supported, as the university’s ambition for digital transformation depends on it.
Dear Sally. I fully agree transparency is very important. The course you are doing sounds really good. I certainly imagine there will be a range of AI tools available for future use. Yes, we want you to apply your hard work after the course and we will want you to share what you have learnt with others. Sharing good practice is really important for us all. Let me follow up with colleagues on the issues you have raised regarding Multiverse. I will ask the relevant person if they could respond to you directly. Thanks for highlighting the issue. Patrick and Fiona.
The ambition to create a more integrated digital and physical experience is welcome, particularly the commitment to responsible AI, accessibility, and reducing unnecessary friction in core systems. Many colleagues across the University recognise the scale of the opportunity here.
At the same time, several points in the Viewpoint underline persistent concerns that have surfaced repeatedly in my own work on digital pedagogy and institutional infrastructure.
First, personalisation and simplification must not be treated as purely technical problems. The University’s digital ecosystem is shaped as much by governance, culture, and workload as by systems design. Without attending to these conditions, digital transformation risks reinforcing existing constraints rather than expanding pedagogical or organisational imagination.
Second, the strategy emphasises efficiency and automation but gives less attention to the educational values that should guide those choices. A truly digital university is not only one with integrated systems. It is one that enables judgment, critical engagement, and authentic learning. These are human capabilities that can be supported by technology but not automated or optimised into existence.
Third, several initiatives referenced in the Viewpoint speak to technical uplift rather than the deeper redesign of teaching, assessment, and collaboration that many colleagues want. The move to platforms such as Canvas shows how easily digital programmes become dominated by product logics rather than by pedagogical purpose. Digital Inside and Out will only succeed if colleagues are supported to rethink practices, not simply to adopt tools.
Finally, the University is right to foreground digital confidence. However, confidence requires more than training. It requires time, trust, and the ability to shape systems rather than adapt to them. Many staff do not feel they have that agency at present.
Digital Inside and Out could be transformative, but only if the work begins with pedagogy, practice, and shared ownership, and not solely with infrastructure. Continued dialogue and genuine co-creation will be essential if this leap is to deliver the more humane, inclusive and imaginative university we aspire to be.
Hello Stephen. A huge thanks for taking the time to submit a comment to our blog. We absolutely agree that the kind of change we are looking for is not just about the tech. Far from it and there is so much more involved as you say. Ditto your comments on the importance of human skills that we want to share like judgement and critical thinking. We would like to assure you that we see most, if not all, of our processes and practices being subject to scrutiny in the coming years. Not all in one go, of course, but we are starting the journey now. We imagine the adoption of Canvas was not 100% perfect but we think it is a very good example of a successful change programme. What we are hearing now is that loads of staff – academic and PS – and students are helping each other use the platform like a real community of practice. This is great news. Your points are really important and they will not be forgotten beyond this blog. Thanks Patrick and Fiona.
Sounds good! Well, as long as assessments are not included in the “from anywhere in the world” part… or the acknowledged power of AI will be harnessed against us.
Be it 2025, 2035 or 3025, assessment needs to always involve in-person components, on campus. It’s not the easy choice, but it’s the only possible one!
Thanks Cesare. We will always be socially responsible in our use of AI. On assessments in the future, this is not our area of expertise although it is not hard to imagine a variety of forms of assessment. What that mix is to be determined as we find new ways ofworking with AI and more. Fiona and Patrick.
To one day work at the University of Manchester where its digital infrastructure and processes are up-to-date means I will be able to do my best work by focusing on what matters. And alongside that, hopefully other functions across the institution will become more streamlined and efficient e.g. onboarding new staff. It’s energising to see that the University is finally addressing this, and I look forwards to what’s to come. We have so much potential.
So much potential indeed Lara! We want things to be easy and uncomplicated so colleagues across the board can be doing their very best. We are determined to get to that day too. Thank you. Patrick and Fiona.
We can go one step deeper into this topic by looking at the major investments and huge amount of work we’re putting into transforming the entire University’s network. Without this, we don’t have the capability to do all of the above to the standard everyone expects. This major piece of work on the network will give colleagues and students a more secure, reliable, supported connectivity and so everyone on campus gets the same level of service.
We agree Rose that there is so much we could do in this space and expectations will be high. We will have to be really sensible about where we make our investments. It is always best to under promise and over deliver. It so important for us to address the issues raised in the One University workshops we were involved in as well as the Digital Inside and Out sprint. Fiona and Patrick.
It is really nice to see accessibility being explicitly cited as one of the key requirements for our digital strategy. I look forward to building on what that means and how it drives change in our approach to digital.
Absolutely John. Accessibility is so important to us. We are genuinely committed to being a fully inclusive community at the UoM. We look forward to working on this agenda together. Thank you for commenting. We really appreciate it. Fiona and Patrick.