This paper will reflect on the development of a practitioner-led study raising questions about how projects might evolve beyond their initial focus. Engaging with multiple dimensions of change, we consider how to explore our professional selves in a post-Covid world.
The lead author, a newly appointed Head of Quality Assurance initiated the study to support an ambitious recruitment-driven portfolio project and to inform the configuration of a wide-ranging Curriculum Management System (CMS) to encompass programme design and registry functions. Covid 19 and restructuring had contributed to higher teaching loads and new appointees had taken up some key roles.
Social identity theory seeks to explain social behaviour in terms of group belonging (Reicher et al., 2010). Applied to institutional change, these approaches seek to understand and include key elements of identity in ongoing change to promote resilience (Beech, 2017).

Initially the study sought to identify what aspects of curriculum design were valued by various professional groups in order to support both strategic projects (the accelerated portfolio and adapting the CMS). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior University managers, academic managers, heads of professional services and elected student union officers (N = 10) with follow-up interviews with 3 of these. Questions related to the participants’ role, teaching and learning challenges, developing new programmes and the roles of others in that process. Thematic analysis was used (Braun, et al., 2014).
Senior managers described a continuum in which reflective teaching would lead to good programme design and thence to marketable degrees. Academic managers valued individual reflection, autonomy and creativity. They described tensions between university priorities and supporting teaching and development within Schools. Professional service heads referenced tensions between creativity and marketability but sought to emphasise their collaboration with Schools and across professional services. All staff groups perceived that better recruitment to well-designed programmes was an imperative. Students’ union officers described a tradition of student engagement in programme design and valued it as a fundamental aspect of institutional culture. Follow-up interviews have demonstrated that groups positively referenced the same aspects to describe how they had successfully adapted to producing the new programmes.
Valued elements identified by the study informed the two strategic projects. Guidance around programme design was based around commonly accepted aims and group priorities while the configuration of the CMS reflected identified principles and collaborations. As a small-scale social identity intervention to support organizational change, the project can thus claim some success.
The final section of the paper will consider future directions. The development of professional identities in Higher Education is underexplored as is the role of actions at work in constructing them (Clarke, et al., 2013). While the focus on curriculum has yielded valuable insights here, we will consider how a focus on participants’ main area of activity might provide richer insights.
Comparing two perspectives, we will outline a wider theoretical framework to enable the project to evolve from offering effective rapid solutions to formulating thoughtful questions to inform actions on a broader scale (Beech et al., 2021, Cole et al., 1978).