Academic development as an organisational change process

Recent policy papers and funding initiatives have promoted cooperation between individual and institutional actors to facilitate academic development. In this context, the present paper focuses on change processes in German higher education organisations. It regards academic development as a process of incremental innovation which may start on different levels of the organisation, and which needs to be considered in the context of external governance. To further explore this proposition, this paper examines selected project outlines with regard to the actors involved and the approaches proposed for innovation in teaching and learning. The findings suggest avenues for further research and may inform future initiatives for academic development.