Covid helped speed up a digital revolution in higher education that had previously been forecast to occur around 2030. A decade’s worth of change was ushered in practically overnight. Though the speed of this transition is admirable, given its necessity, there is still much to be done to make sure technology works for the people who navigate universities every day – students, teachers, researchers and administrative staff. This is what my colleagues and I at EY set out to investigate through our report into what each of these stakeholder groups need from technology in order to thrive.

The report – informed by surveys of more than 3,000 part-time and full-time students, interviews with leaders at 28 universities, and online focus groups with more than 250 teaching and professional staff around the world – brings many issues into focus. Perhaps the most critical of these is the need for universities to place the people they serve at the heart of technological efforts. That is, to put humans at the centre.