Building capacity in institutional research: collaboration and complementarity?

Institutional Research associations across the world are re-imagining and redesigning their professional development and capacity building activities. This paper outlines the professional development activities of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) in the United States (est. 1966), the European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR) (est. 1978), the Southern African Association for Institutional Research (SAAIR) (est. 1994) and the United Kingdom and Ireland Higher Education Institutional Research Network (HEIR) (est. 2008) and argues that a more sophisticated approach to IR is needed, informed by systems thinking, aimed at proactive engagement with policy-makers and managers, organisational learning, direct links to institutional strategy (‘a seat at the table’), and the analysis and use of larger volumes of data.