Unlocking Efficiency:
What a National Benchmark Could Deliver for UK Universities.
Unlocking Efficiency: What a National Benchmark Could Deliver for UK Universities
Breakout Session | 2:00 - 2:50
7th May, 2026
Incremental cost-cutting is not sufficient to meet the sector’s evolving challenges. What’s needed is system-level transformation, underpinned by deeper collaboration across the sector. The session will explore one of the key opportunities identified by the Universities UK Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce report, the need to adopt a common approach to assessing efficiency and benchmarking costs.
The opportunity, and the challenge, is what will it take to move from retrospective, partial insight to a shared, rigorous and timely understanding of cost, performance and efficiency across the sector? And crucially, what value is unlocked once we get it right?
Drawing upon existing models, we explore the case for a national benchmark, consider the availability and usefulness of publicly available data, the barriers that exist and how these can be overcome, and what success would look like for the sector.
Panel members:
Panel Chair: Helen Dove (Etio)
Helen is a Principal Consultant, specialising in Performance Benchmarking across the further and higher education sectors. Helen’s expertise lies in analysing and interpreting data, identifying, and presenting insight and supporting senior leaders to understand and interpret data to inform their decision making. Helen has extensive knowledge of the education sector, a detailed understanding of the issues affecting universities and colleges, and the impact they have on financial management. Helen leads an experienced team of consultants who consistently deliver successful projects to a wide range of education providers and government bodies.
Panelists:
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Vivienne Stern, Chief Executive, UUK
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Ben Vulliamy, Executive Director, AHUA
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Khadir Meer, Deputy Vice Chancellor, SOAS
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Huw Morris, Honorary Professor of Tertiary Education, UCL