A prActicAl guide Benchmarking in european Higher education

5.3 Initiating a benchmarking
exercise in your institution
Contextual background: Institutional profile and
experience with benchmarking
There will be a different starting point for every higher education institution.
Its profile, institutional capacity, organisational climate, focus on quality
improvements, willingness to change, available resources and data, and
degree of autonomy all impact on the nature and size of the benchmarking
exercise.
Self-assured and high-aiming higher education institutions will immediately
seek to benchmark against higher achieving institutions; Other higher education
institutions might seek to benchmark first internally, then with peer
institutions focusing more on functional than strategic areas. The different
motives behind benchmarking exercises will determine the approach, methodology
and choice of partners, i.e. defining a strategy to be the best in the
sector, improving in order to move up in the sector or simply improving by
learning from others without a strategic positioning agenda in mind.
Higher education institutions new to benchmarking should pay attention to
carrying out a thorough self-assessment exercise (which is essential in a
benchmarking exercise), become acquainted with the processes and practices
of benchmarking, and carry out a preliminary internal benchmarking
exercise before looking outside for benchmarking partners. Starting small
with a simple exercise may be the best approach. If major resources are
available, a large scale exercise can be investigated. Key will be to plan the
exercise thoroughly, train staff and have the right expertise at hand to produce
the desired outcomes. For higher education institutions with significant
experience with benchmarking concepts and approaches, targets can be
placed at an advanced level.
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