Dramatic changes in society - from political reinterpretations of 'facts' to developments in AI - are forcing universities to rethink their identities. According to this book (191 page PDF) they need to find their 'authentic' identities, which means " its particular strengths and distinctive characteristics combine to form a coherent and clearly profiled identity, one that is in accord with the needs of society as a whole and with the expectations of the stakeholders." This creates a 'third mission' (after teaching and research), "to become involved in policy discussions and decision-making by supplying the facts and findings that offer an objective basis for this... seeking out points of contact with society and promoting a cross-fertilisation of ideas." This in practical terms means specialization, differentiation, prioritization, and communicating this 'authentic identity' to the world. On the one hand, this seems to respond to significant need for change with a branding exercise. It is also a restatement of the oft-heard call for deduplication. But an actually intelligent system requires redundancy and interoperability of the sort that 'authentic identity' seems to fail to provide. Via HESA's Friday Fifteen.
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