HOW can we successfully rethink the way in which we work to prepare for a thriving economic future?

Institutional innovation is a fascinating concept, one which re-imagines businesses, cities and even countries delivering much more than traditional annual results for shareholders, government agencies and authorities.

A 21st Century vision for the North East could be of a ‘smart’ region in which human, social and environmental costs are incorporated within its economic development. It could spearhead new technologies, products, and businesses in sectors such as renewable energy that offer lasting benefits. The firms would be powered by people given incentives to innovate, which could lead to dynamic growth and a strengthened economy.

Rethinking the basic structures and strategies of the organisations in which we work is a radical commitment, but will create confident institutions well-equipped for new challenges. Institutional innovation reinvents from within a business – a bold, difficult route to take, but one with potentially remarkable outcomes.

In universities we are now imagining how we will deliver learning and research, partnerships with businesses and international interactions in the future. We are all aware that the funding of higher education is currently in flux, but it is also the technologies, topics, access and social policies created and used within higher education that are experiencing change.

At its core, higher education will continue to drive learning, research and discovery across the world. How those core activities take place within individual institutions will evolve radically in the next decade or two.

Institutional innovation means redesigning the strategy, aims and operations of organisations from the ground up to focus on talent development. By going through such radical disruption the institutions will be able to thrive as new 21st Century infrastructures take hold.

As a result it is more important than ever to ensure that the brand of the organisation is distinctive and rings true for each individual who is studying or working within it.

Dr Sonal Minocha is associate dean of the faculty of business and law, the University of Sunderland.