UniForum

Led by NousCubane Consulting Group, the UniForum program began in Australia and now has more than 70 participating universities worldwide. Eleven Canadian institutions participate, including UBC, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Toronto.

• Providing a detailed look at how effectively Dalhousie provides 70 different administrative services, measured by staff and faculty satisfaction with specific services as well as the resourcing required to deliver said services.
• Enabling comparisons of our results, capacities, and delivery model against our national and global peers.
• Facilitating learning from other universities who are doing this work particularly well and in a sustainable fashion.
• Helping us consider how we might design effective approaches to administrative service improvement aligned with Dalhousie’s culture and core values.

UniForum will be an important part of a comprehensive dataset that supports Faculty and unit planning processes through Dalhousie’s Integrated Planning Framework.

The Provost & Vice-President Academic and Vice-President Finance & Administrative serve as executive sponsors of UniForum at Dalhousie, and its activities are overseen by the Provost Committee with the support of the Senior Director, UniForum.

In appreciating what UniForum offers Dalhousie, it is also important to understand what UniForum is not. 

• It is not focused on job elimination or even necessarily cost reduction; in some cases, our results might illuminate areas where we need to invest more resources or staff time. While service efficiency should always be a goal, service effectiveness and satisfaction are just as important, as are the careers and career opportunities of our employees. 
• UniForum isn’t the only appropriate measure of performance. Other variables also need to be considered when exploring how best to improve the services we offer our Dal community.