Revisiting principles of partnership working in the third space

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic catalysed significant shifts within higher education, prompting institutions to re-evaluate their approaches to partnership working. Collaborative efforts across institutional domains gained prominence, underlining the strategic importance of third-space professionals in facilitating agile decision-making and solution implementation. Here, they demonstrated resilience and adaptability, navigating the pandemic’s complexities while addressing the tandem feelings of messiness and uncertainty. They cultivated open mindsets and embraced a playful praxis, one emergent as an essential strategy for fostering trust and facilitating social learning amidst change. However, recognition and reward for such professionals remain complex, being at times hindered by the fluidity of their roles and fragmented nature of institutional acknowledgment. Our contention is that the culture evident during the pandemic that fostered meaningful collaborative practices and amplified third-space professionals is in danger of being lost.

Initially discussed by Parkes, Blackwell Young, and Cleaver (2016), this opinion piece revisits five principles of partnership working in the context of third-space working. These principles emphasised a need for understanding motivations for collaboration; the necessity of strategic support; provision of suitable reward and recognition systems; developing a culture that embraces change that is fostered through honesty and openness. If universities are to be successful in addressing the ever-evolving ‘wicked’ problems roaming the higher education landscape, a sustainable collective approach underpinned by the five principles remain.

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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi33.1245

Repository URI

https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/publications/fb484a73-0499-41c2-b1ec-521a91292578