Towards a
new strategy
2018 - 2024
This terms of reference presents a draft-outline of the
process-design for developing TU Delft’s Strategic
Framework 2018-2024; this with the provisional title TU
Delft: Fit for the next decade.
Drafting a strategy for a university is generally considered
as a challenge. Therefore it is essential to acknowledge
the inherent complexity of universities from the outset.
They are often characterized as multi-actor, multi-level and
multi-stakeholder organizations. Strategic policy-processes
should be designed with this in mind, where it also should
be noted that the quality of the process is at least as
important as the final result.
The objective of this specific process is that the final
outcome should be recognized and agreed upon by key
decision-makers in- and outside our university, such as:
supervisory board, deans, key academics, student- and
works councils, directors of the support organization
and relevant external stakeholders. Therefore, assuring
the quality of organizing interaction with in-and outside
stakeholders and realizing engagement and support by the
Executive Board is essential and should be an integral part
of the process design.
1. Introduction: why now?
•T
he current strategic plan of TU Delft - Roadmap TU
Delft 2020 - was developed about 5 years ago (between
mid-2011 and Spring 2012).
•A
lthough many strategic priorities included in the
Roadmap TU Delft 2020 have been realized (see: Annual
Reports TU Delft 2012-2015), many initiatives should be
considered as work in progress; there is no reason for
complacency.
• However, since the publication of the Roadmap (2012)
the global, European and national context of higher
education system has changed considerably, and is
changing still.
• Some important environmental developments in the
global, European and national higher education system
since 2011-12 include (but are not limited to): o The
slowly but surely changing role of government and
government-funding of higher education and research on
a European and national level.
○ The impact of the digital society on higher education
and scientific research (e.g. MOOCs, Open Science,
Open Data).
○ The growing demand for higher education globally
and the (so far) continuous growth of enrollment of
students at our university.
○ And, of course, many more.
• Furthermore, the global competition for academic talent
and financial means has increased as new competitors
with growing academic reputations have established
themselves firmly on the global academic scene. These
include a number of (potentially) strong and heavily
state-funded South-East Asian universities. This against,
of course, the background of the already very strong
competition for academic talent and financial means
between established universities in Europe and the US.
• These, and other global, European and national
developments call for a renewed strategic discussion
with the community of our university on such fundamental
questions as (e.g.): what kind of university are we striving
for, and what might this vision and ambition imply for our
organization as a whole?
• With this in mind, the Executive Board of the University is
announcing an institution-wide strategy process targeted
at developing a new strategic framework for TU Delft by
Autumn next year - 2017.
2. From a Strategic Plan to a
Strategic Framework
• At the start of such a challenging, but also as anticipated
- a very inspiring process – it will be important for us to
have some concrete ideas in mind for the final outcome
of this complex process.
• The current Roadmap TU Delft 2020 might be viewed as
a rather comprehensive and detailed document. At the
time of preparing, and discussing it, there were good and
justified reasons for using such a format.
• One of the major advantages of the Roadmap-approach
has been that many issues have been discussed at a
very deep and detailed level with our wider community.
• The many, and often intensive, discussions held by the
Executive Board with a sizeable number of internal and
external stakeholders, have had a very positive effect on
the internal cohesion of the university.
• This engagement of the Executive Board with a great
many members of the community is still part of the
institution’s collective memory of the recent years.
• However, one of the drawbacks of the current Roadmapapproach was that the level of detail has tended too
much to cloud the views of the bigger strategic picture.
• In addition, and acknowledged earlier, the global context
of universities is changing rapidly - too fast to capture the
relevant external developments and all their implications
in a detailed strategic plan – as has been attempted- in
the current Roadmap.
• Therefore, it is suggested that - instead of preparing (a
more or less) “fixed” strategic plan, we should develop a
strategic framework that enables decision-making bodies
within our university (Supervisory Board, Executive
Board, Works- and Student Councils, Faculties and their
Departments, University Services Organization) to use
it as a high-level “guideline” for their decision-making
process.
• As put by Hayes (1985, cited in Shattock, 2003, 33/34),
“When you are lost on a highway, a road map is very
useful; but when you are lost in a swamp whose
topography is constantly changing, a road map is of little
help. A simple compass - which indicates the general
direction to be taken and allows you it use your own
ingenuity in overcoming various difficulties - is much more
valuable. Of course TU Delft is not “lost in a swamp”, but
it is almost a truism that universities as vulnerable social
systems find themselves increasingly in swamp-like
environments.
• In this terms of reference the following aspects will be
addressed: o a reference to the basic steps of strategy
processes,
• the general elements of a new strategic framework,
• a short outline of the strategy setting process 2016-2017,
• a note on the organization of this process in 2016-2017,
• a note on the budget.
3. Strategy process in 5 steps &
outline of strategic framework
• Much literature - academic and otherwise - has been
produced internationally on the designing of strategy
processes in business and academic environments.
Furthermore, there is extensive knowledge and very
useful practical wisdom on designing such processes
in academic environments in the Netherlands and other
countries. Particular in the UK and in the US.
• Therefore the experiences of colleagues from other
universities have been tapped (e.g. Princeton, Oxford,
Edinburgh, Warwick).
• But foremost: it is also certainly not the first time for TU
Delft to engage in a university-wide strategic discussion;
so we can also build on practical experience in our own
organization on both institutional and faculty level.
• To acknowledge the continuity and the consistency of
strategic thinking, planning-processes and decisionmaking within our own institution, and more importantly
- to able to extract maximum value from our own homegrown knowledge and experience, a list of institutional
strategy-documents from 1997 onwards:
○ Towards a new social contract (1997)
○ Engineering the Future (2000)
○ Strategic Perspective 2003-2005
○ Strategic Plan 2005-2008
○ Strategic Plan 2007-2010
○ Update Strategic Plan 2007-2010
○ Re-assessment Agenda 2010-2013
○ Roadmap TU Delft 2020 (2012-2018)
○ Performance-contract Agreements (2012)
• In addition, each Faculty at the TU Delft compiles its
own medium-term plan, which sets out its strategy for
the years ahead within the parameters in line with the
institutional strategy, covering six year period of time.
These faculty strategic plans constitute valuable input for
the university wide strategic discussion.
• In this context, it is reasonable to identify 5 fundamental
practical steps and to translate these into our current
situation (see figure below):
1. To (re)define vision, mission, values and notions of
our culture.
2. To conduct an scan of the relevant environment
and - in combination with this scan - to develop a
SWOT-analysis.
3. To draft core and enabling strategies for your
organization - this against the background of the
results of 1 and 2. Optional is to draft also specific
strategic themes that have a university-wide impact.
4. To integrate the strategies that have been developed
in step 3 to a draft general strategic framework. In
this step 4 the formal decision-making processes will
be arranged.
5. After the decision-making processes one of the
most important steps has to be realized, that is: the
implementation of the Strategic Framework.
• It is necessary to have- at the beginning of such a
process - at least a mental picture of what a new and
flexible Strategic Framework TU Delft 2018-2024 might
entail. The following layers of analysis and action can be
distinguished:
○ Layer 1: vision, mission, values & culture
○ Layer 2: core & enabling strategies
○ Layer 3: university-wide strategic themes
• Strategic documents should not be too abstract. They
have to be drafted with measurable realization in mind
(SMART). Therefore, it is essential to translate the
necessary abstractions like vision, mission & strategic
goals into actionable aims, objectives, strategies, targets
& key performance indicators.
• It should also be noted from the outset that a strategic
framework is - in our university at least - part of a more
general and operational framework of planning- and
evaluation (P&E-cycle).
• Crucial elements in our system of Planning and
Evaluation include: the annual budgeting processes;
the strategic frameworks of the faculties (their annual
work-agenda’s); the strategic conversation with faculties
in the spring and autumn consultations; specific policy
proposals in accordance with the planning; and the
annual report of the university.
• Therefore, as already noted, apart from the fact that
striving for a very detailed strategic plan is not very
helpful in an academic context (or any context for that), a
lot of concrete planning will have to be carried out in the
context of a general strategic framework.
4. Outline of the basic 4 steps in
strategic planning
Step 1:
The first step is focused on (re)defining our vision, mission,
core values and strategic goals.
This activity will not, of course, be carried out from scratch,
but in the context of our statements on these issues in
the Roadmap TU Delft 2020 and Performance-contract
Agreements.
•K
ey questions to address in this phase of the process
are:
○ what university do we want to be(come)e ?
○ what is our vision?
○ what is our mission?
○ what are our core values?
○ what are our strategic goals?
Step 2:
The second step is focused on two basic questions, one
externally oriented and the other with a dominant internal
focus:
○ External focus: what is (and what might be)
happening in the world of higher education, the world
of research and the world of societal, economic and
political boundary conditions of our (inter)national
system of higher education in the next five to ten
years?
○ Internal focus: what is - in the context of the
outcome of the external analysis - our resilience
as an organization, both academically as well as
non-academically?
○ It might be helpful to use this kind of diagram in
organizing this part of the discussion:
• It is necessary to organize a systematic and open
conversation with key stakeholders of our organization on
both external challenges and internal responsiveness to
these challenges.
• It is critical in this phase of the process to avoid a
tendency for complacency with ourselves and to counterveil a tendency for looking inward.
• To counter such tendencies, it is suggested that part of
this phase of the process will be facilitated by external
advisors on specialized in these kind of strategic
questions and with broad experience in international
higher education.
• The SWOT-analysis will be carried out (as much as
possible) in light of the outcomes of the environmental
scan. The SWOT-analysis should answer the question
in what ways our organization is resilient enough to
respond in a flexible way to relevant external threats and
challenges.
Step 3:
In the third step the core (and thus enabling) strategies
of the university for the next decade will be drafted. It is
important to distinguish which strategies are considered as
core and which as enabling strategies.
• Based on benchmarking recent strategic frameworkdocuments of the abovementioned universities, it is
suggested to identify the following key-domains as core
strategies for our university:
○ Students & Education Strategy
○ Research Strategy
○ Valorization Strategy
○ People Strategy
• As chief-enablers for these 4 core strategies, the
following key-domains are identified:
○ Support Services Strategy
○ Estate Strategy
○ Financial Strategy,
• Furthermore, a selected few university-wide strategic
themes have been identified for which it is deemed
important to have a place in the institutional strategic
framework:
○ Alumni & Branding Strategy,
○ Business Intelligence Strategy ,
○ Internationalization Strategy,
○ Open Science Strategy,
○ Risk & Compliance Strategy
• It is suggested that the separate core and enabling
strategies are drafted by several specific strategy
advisory groups that have to be established by the
Executive Board. This drafting should of course take
place on basis of our current strategies on these
issues and making use of the strategic thinking that
already has been carried out and - foremost - in the
light of the outcome of the environmental scan and the
SWOT-analysis.
• It is necessary that strategy advisory groups, focused
on drafting core and enabling strategies, represent a
balanced mix of expertise between established and
relatively new members (e.g. tenure track) of our
organization.
• To avoid over-organization in this already complex
process, it is suggested that the often already existing
policy teams focusing on specific strategic themes a)
draft a concise terms of reference and b) submit these
terms of reference to the Executive Board for approval.
• To ensure consistency and coherence, the separate
strategy-proposals (including the strategic plan of
faculties) will be discussed extensively by the Executive
Board, Deans and Directors (and others) – before
definitive decisions are made.
• Furthermore, the Executive Board is responsible for
ensuring the quality of interaction with in- and external
stakeholders.
Step 4:
This step is focused on the delivery of the strategic
framework itself on basis of the inputs from the several
advisory groups.
• A small delivery-team will be established by the Executive
Board with that objective based on a proposal by the
SGU/ Director Strategic Development.
• In this phase of the process, close interaction with the
Executive Board is essential. In this phase several draftversions of the final document will also be discussed with
in- and external stakeholders.
5. Organization & timetable
6. Budgeting additional costs
• Having a robust organizational structure in place, and
having defined distinct roles and responsibilities are
necessary (however not sufficient) conditions for a
successful strategy process.
• From the beginning, one thing should be unambiguously
clear: the Executive Board is owner of the strategy
process and the President of the Board in particular.
•T
he Executive Board is also the Steering Committee
for the Strategic Framework 2018-2024, chaired by the
President of the Board.
• Furthermore, the Steering Committee will be supported
by a Strategic Framework Team 2018-2024, chaired by
the SGU / Director Strategic Development.
• The chair of the support team Strategic Framework
2018-2024 will establish specific project-teams with
the objective to facilitate the four steps of the strategy
process.
•T
o facilitate the strategy process temporary additional
capacity is likely needed. Therefore, an internal
arrangement has to be made for partial and temporary
secondment of administrative staff on project-basis from
faculties and / or from units from the University Office to
the project-organization Strategic Framework TU Delft
2018-2024.
• It is estimated that this whole process will take
approximately 10-12 months to complete, starting end of
August 2016.
• In a nut-shell the timetable (of course with some overlap)
per separate step is as follows:
○ August - October 2016: discussion & provisional
EB-decision on vision, mission, values & culture
(including organizing interaction with stakeholders).
○ September - December 2016: preparing and
conducting environmental scan & SWOT-analyses
and provisional EB-decision on draft scan & SWOT
(including organizing interaction with stakeholders,
e.g. members Supervisory Board, Deans, Academic
Staff, Directors Support Services).
○ October 2016-February 2017: preparation for
establishing task forces on core and enabling
strategies, incl. preparation of standard reporting
format; establishing task forces (December 2016).
Delivery of draft strategies and draft proposals
strategic themes (February 2017).
○ January 2017- September 2017: establishing delivery
team for first draft strategic framework (February
/ March 2017), organizing feedback on first drafts
from stakeholders; formal decision-making process
(General Assembly Works council / Student council),
Supervisory Board.
•T
his project will be mainly run by the TU Delft itself (core:
Department Strategic Development).
• At this moment no extra budget for personnel is
needed. However, some activities will likely have to
be outsourced, such as conducting an environmental
scan. Furthermore, some costs should be budgeted for
organizing interaction with in- and external stakeholders
throughout the process.
• Lastly, some additional investments have to be
arranged for the development of effective means of
communication; both during the strategy process as
well as for developing suitable solutions for in- and
external communication of - after delivery - the Strategic
Framework 2018-2024 itself.