19 September 2018 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
The finale of a project funded by the UK's regional HE funders involving 10 institutions of various shapes and sizes was held last week. “Let’s talk value” was organised by AdvanceHE who used the event to launch a report by Professor Carol Adams, Let's talk value: How universities create value for students, staff and society. Appropriately, the event was well-attended by professionals from finance, HR, marketing and communications, and registry, as well as governors, student representatives and a handful of supporters of Higher Education and Integrated Reporting. The discussions involved now familiar terminology (for example, value creation, multiple capital reporting and six capitals) that was so new in BUFDG's 2016 foray into asking whether Integrated Reporting could help universities tell their stories better. We thought we were being provocative back then by saying, "when it comes to reporting, we are missing an opportunity". But Professor Adams, goes much further in saying, "[T]he sector is selling itself short". She also contends that "[R]elative to other sectors, university annual reports have historically tended to be compliance oriented, and thus largely unimaginative documents that do not follow recognised frameworks for non-financial reporting". Despite being challenging, the report is supportive and full of ideas of how universities' reports could be improved (even if Integrated Reporting is not the aim). And if all this whets your appetite to develop your university's narrative reporting for 2018/19, when you have reread the 2017 BUFDG report on the IIRC's reviews of four HEIs, take a look at the 2017/18 reports of the ten institutions in the latest project - you'll find all the links on the BUFDG website.
