Morning, Wednesday, 8th July 2026
Online
This conference will examine the future of university estates in the UK.
It takes place following the recently published Strategic Plan 2025-2031 from the Association of University Directors of Estates, and the priorities it sets out for estates functions in supporting institutional resilience, including the need for closer coordination between estates, finance and academic planning, a more systematic approach to managing assets over their lifecycle, improved use of data to inform decisions, and stronger alignment of estates strategies with wider institutional objectives.
It also follows the Office for Students’ recent work on financial sustainability, highlighting pressures on income, costs, and borrowing across the sector, alongside implications for governance and capital prioritisation. Delegates will discuss how institutions respond in practice, including approaches to long-term financial planning, risk management, and aligning estates strategies with evolving regulatory expectations and financial constraints.
The discussion takes place alongside wider pressures shaping capital planning across the sector, including construction costs, financing conditions, and changing patterns of student demand.
The conference will bring together stakeholders and policymakers to discuss next steps in implementation of the Strategic Plan, and what will be needed for estates teams to support decision-making across financial resilience, digital transformation, environmental performance, student experience, and long-term management of university estates.
Attendees will consider how the plan’s emphasis on whole-life planning, data-driven decision-making, and cross-functional collaboration can be translated into operational practice, particularly in the context of intensified OfS scrutiny of institutional financial sustainability. Areas for discussion include how estates functions can balance short-term pressures with longer-term investment needs, and how capital planning, borrowing capacity, and major estates programmes can remain viable and strategically coherent.
Strategic planning & financial sustainability
How estate strategies can support financial sustainability will be examined, with a focus on practical approaches to managing cost pressures and prioritising investment. Areas for discussion include how institutions make choices between competing demands on limited capital, balancing maintenance needs with new builds, and responding to changes in income streams such as reduced international student recruitment. We also expect discussion to consider how decisions on estates investment can be aligned with longer-term financial planning.
Delegates will look at the use of data and approaches to scenario planning in prioritising capital investment. This includes how institutions might build confidence in the evidence used for major investment decisions, as well as approaches to reviewing and reshaping estates portfolios to respond to changing demand, technology, and regulation. Governance arrangements for capital allocation and oversight in major estates decisions will also be considered, including how decisions are taken in the context of financial and regulatory uncertainty.
Further sessions examine implications of planning reform and infrastructure policy, including faster planning approvals and accommodating local consent alongside growth. Attendees will look at how estates teams can best manage these factors in delivering major capital projects, including choices around delivery models, procurement routes, phasing, and approaches to managing risk in large-scale estates programmes.
Climate resilience & decarbonisation
Further sessions will consider the sector’s responsibilities around net zero delivery and climate adaptation, including the development of partnerships with external bodies, such as Great British Energy and other public and private sector collaborators. Areas for discussion include life carbon assessment, energy efficient refurbishment, and the decarbonisation of existing estates, alongside priorities for balancing refurbishment and new builds, climate risk management, and integrating sustainability into long-term capital planning.
Delegates will discuss how environmental performance can be embedded in strategic decision-making, and how delivery models can remain financially sustainable, operationally practical, and aligned with broader partnerships and industry engagement.
Supporting learning & improving accessibility
The agenda will also examine the role of university estates in supporting high quality teaching and learning, including the embedding of hybrid learning environments, design of flexible and accessible spaces, and expectations from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education for environments that support teaching quality and student outcomes.
Delegates will discuss how timetabling and space optimisation can respond to shifts in student expectations, as well as the balance between refurbishment and new builds in delivering adaptable and digitally-enabled campuses that can cater to the needs of learners with varying modes of study, caring responsibilities, and access requirements.
Digital estate strategies & international student provision
Sessions will explore next steps for the design and management of digital infrastructure, hybrid delivery models, and data-enabled estates systems to support flexible and scalable teaching and learning across campuses. Delegates will consider how digital estates can be leveraged to improve operational efficiency, enhance student experience, monitor learning spaces, and respond to evolving technological and pedagogical demands, alongside priorities for capability-building, procurement and change management to support delivery of digital estates programmes at scale.
Further discussion will consider strategies for developing digital infrastructure to improve international student experiences, transnational education delivery, and supporting institutional competitiveness - with ambitions outlined in The UK’s International Education Strategy, including the expansion of education exports. Early findings from projects such as Jisc’s Researching International Students’ Digital Experience will be considered, looking at informing approaches to digital engagement and hybrid provision.
Civic responsibilities & community partnerships
The contribution of estates strategies to civic responsibilities will also be assessed, looking at utilising campuses as anchors for regeneration, with discussion on ways forward for partnerships with local authorities, NHS, public sector partners, industry, and the wider community and their role in regional growth, skills development, and community wellbeing.
All delegates will be able to contribute to the output of the conference, which will be shared with parliamentary, ministerial, departmental and regulatory offices, and more widely. This includes the full proceedings and additional articles submitted by delegates.
