With the higher education sector facing financial pressures like never before we’ve noticed increasing calls for greater collaboration between institutions. Governments and sector leaders are pushing partnerships as a route to efficiency, urging universities to pool resources, consolidate services and streamline operations.

On the surface, this makes perfect sense. Collaboration can reduce costs, enhance impact and create opportunities that no single institution could achieve alone. But here’s the risk: in our drive to become more efficient, do we also risk becoming indistinguishable? If universities become too similar, what happens to the unique identities that attract students, staff and funding in the first place? And - let’s face it - we already have a lack of distinction between institutions as it is!

Collaboration matters, but…

Paul Greatrix summarises the sector’s increasing focus on efficiency in his recent article, Avoiding the cult of efficiency (March 2025), highlighting the UK government’s strong stance on university collaboration as a way to tackle financial deficits. There’s no denying that working together can help universities weather the storm. Joint research initiatives, shared administrative services and cross-institutional teaching partnerships all have real benefits.

But while Paul focuses on the potential for efficiency at the cost of effectiveness and quality, I also want to add to this discussion the risk that collaboration in service of efficiency creates clone-like experiences that can also impact student, staff and partner decision-making in terms of which institutions they choose to study at, work for or partner with.

The importance of differentiation

Efficiency can’t be the only goal. Universities aren’t just service providers, they’re distinct communities with their own values, missions and contributions to society. Or, at least they ought to be. If collaboration erodes those distinctions, it stops being a partnership and becomes a merger in all but name. And it might even become a merger in name too.

For any university to thrive, it must be clear about who it is, what it stands for and what makes it different. Without differentiation, institutions risk blending into an indistinguishable mass, where choosing a university becomes less about fit and values and more about arbitrary factors like geography or fees.

And here’s the thing: collaborations formed because of institutional distinctiveness are likely to be even more powerful. Collaborations are at their best when each party brings something unique and distinctive to the party. But do we really know what that is?

We’ve been allegedly standing for collaboration already. But have we really?

Back in 2022 we conducted a desk study here at Pickle Jar that looked at brand values and strategic pillars of institutions. Collaboration features in the list of the top six things that UK higher education institutions claim to stand for. And while there are some outstanding examples of collaboration in the research and administrative spaces, I wonder if collaboration hasn’t succeeded as well as it might in higher ed thus far or at a grander scale quite simply because we don’t have clear differentiation or clarity on what the unique dish is that we’re all bringing to the table. Sometimes it feels like hosting a pot luck dinner party with everybody showing up with a pot of chilli.

Brand differentiation and identity

Brand differentiation isn’t about marketing (that’s the piece that communicates the difference but marketers alone can’t decide that for our organisations). It is about identity. It’s about the problems an institution is tackling, the programmes and projects it leads, the perspectives it brings and the partnerships it fosters.

Over the last year we developed our own brand voice pyramid model in a bid to pose questions to institutions, departments and subject leaders to really tease out the uniqueness or difference of their identity. We ask:

What problems are we tackling?
What programmes are we leading?
What projects are we leading?
What perspectives do we bring?
What people make up our institution?
What partnerships do we generate?
How is our place special?

If institutions neglect these questions in pursuit of collaboration, they risk losing the very essence of what makes them attractive to students, faculty and funders.

*The brand narrative pyramid offers seven core questions to help an institution, department or subject area differentiate itself*

Can we truly balance collaboration and individuality?

The most effective collaborations bring together distinct voices, perspectives and expertise to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Universities should pursue partnerships that amplify their unique strengths rather than dilute them. But to achieve this we need to know what those unique strengths are!

So how can we maintain distinctiveness while also embracing collaboration?

1. Be clear on institutional identity
Keep your university’s core values, strengths and ambitions at the heart of any partnership. Have the courage to be truly distinctive in defining and owning these.

2. Align on complementary strengths
Effective collaborations bring together different areas of expertise. Avoid partnerships that simply merge similar institutions without adding distinct value.

3. Maintain autonomy in brand and messaging
Even within a partnership, each institution should retain its own voice and distinct storytelling approach. Creating shared press releases and micro-sites that simply display an array of logos in the footer and reduce brand voice and message to a bland compromise doesn’t do anyone any favours.

4. Use collaboration as an opportunity for differentiation
Instead of generic joint ventures, highlight how your institution’s unique perspective contributes to the partnership.

5. Avoid efficiency-driven homogeneity
Financial sustainability is crucial, but not at the cost of innovation and differentiation. Efficiency should support collaboration, not define it.

Collaborate to thrive, not just survive

Universities need to embrace collaboration, not as a desperate cost-cutting measure, but as a strategic opportunity to grow and evolve. The most successful partnerships will be those that enhance, rather than erase, what makes each institution unique. By balancing collaboration with clear brand differentiation, universities can ensure they remain both financially sustainable and intellectually vibrant.

In the drive for greater efficiency, universities can’t afford to forget that what makes them competitive, appealing and valuable is their uniqueness. And right now we also can’t afford to be ignoring the work that defines what makes us unique. To attract students, staff and investment, institutions must remain distinct. Otherwise, we risk creating a sector where efficiency has won, but innovation, diversity and excellence have lost.

Defining your distinct brand voice and identity

When you’ve worked with over 300 education institutions, you’ve heard it all. Every conversation about institutional differentiation reveals the same claims from almost every institution. And “yes, but we really are excellent” (or fill in another word: inclusive, global, research-led, real-world focused, community-driven, cutting-edge… I could go on) doesn’t cut it. And so when we at Pickle Jar work with our clients on brand differentiation, we’re not afraid to push, to challenge, to reflect back to you, and to ask the difficult questions in service of teasing out the things that really stand out. If this is on your mind, bring us in on the conversation and see how we can help.

The collaboration conundrum: how can universities work together without losing themselves