Resources and support for digital transformation

Making the most of the toolkit for digital transformation for different stages of readiness and find out how other organisations have approached it.

Digital transformation toolkit

We developed this toolkit to support digital transformation in the HE sector, from assessing digital maturity across the organisation to creating actionable roadmaps and plans for implementation. Our framework for digital transformation provides a structure to guide the development of strategic vision and planning. It highlights how policies and processes might align to promote cross-team approaches to reduce complexity and fragmented processes. We had input from key UK higher education (HE) sector bodies and developed all the supporting materials through a robust review process with senior leaders from UK HE organisations and interested international representatives.

In 2024, we collaborated with 24 higher education providers in a research pilot to discover how our digital transformation toolkit could support digital transformation within their organisation.

Discover the findings in our report and case studies.

This infographic offers a brief introduction to the different parts of this toolkit and how they can help your digital transformation strategies and plans. This can also support discussions with executive leadership teams.

The framework offers a structure to inform digital transformation activities with a focus on fostering digital innovation, streamlining business processes and operations and developing partnerships for collaboration.

Read our framework for digital transformation in higher education

The maturity model uses the framework structure to illustrate different levels of digital maturity for each area of activity and across all aspects of business. The model describes sector benchmarks and supports organisations to identify their own baselines, from which to move forward. The maturity model reflects a ‘big picture’ view – it does not provide the level of detail that the action plans need to address.

Download the maturity model for digital transformation (pdf)
Download the maturity model for digital transformation (docx)

The action plan provides a practical template for organisations to produce detailed actionable plans to enhance their digital maturity. It prompts reflection on current maturity levels to identify actions, KPIs (key performance indicators) investment, responsible owners, relevant stakeholders, supporting resources and documents, and assign priority levels. The template is a companion document to the maturity model and can be used at organisation-wide level to produce a roadmap and/or at faculty/school/department level.

The process of creating action plans can inform/feed into the development of a digital transformation strategy or help to review and adjust an existing strategy. This process can also be used to consider digital aspects of all existing organisational strategies.

Download the maturity model for digital transformation: action plan and roadmap (docx)

The maturity model overview guidelines suggest ways to use the suite of materials, with examples of how to make best use of the template.

Download the maturity model for digital transformation: overview (docx)
Download the maturity model for digital transformation: overview (pdf)

A 2023 report offering an overview of how UK universities are developing and implementing their digital strategies.

Digital strategies in UK higher education: making digital mainstream

Our digital transformation glossary provides descriptions of key words and phrases used in the materials.

Download the digital transformation glossary (pdf)

Get involved

Find out more and register your interest in joining the digital transformation in higher education working group.

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This toolkit is made available under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA).