A Formula for Campus AI Transformation: Simplicity, Empowerment, and Value
Inside the University of Warwick’s strategy to implement AI across its institution
According to the 2024 AI Landscape Study by EDUCAUSE, the vast majority of higher-education institutions are working on an AI or AI-related strategy. Only 11 percent of the institutions surveyed said they have no AI strategy in the pipeline. Interestingly, most of the respondents said that the main drivers behind building these strategies were due to the growing use of AI by students and concerns about its misuse.
Other institutions, like the University of Warwick in the U.K., are embracing the potential of generative AI and are motivated to build a strategy that offers a better experience for their staff and students. Raja-Saleem Javaid, chief information and transformation officer at Warwick, spoke with Ian Wilhelm of The Chronicle to share how the university is setting out to achieve this.
Three Principles Guide Warwick’s Transformation Effort
“We’ve achieved more in 60 years than many institutions have achieved in centuries. What that speaks to, in my mind, is our culture of ambition and reinvention,” says Raja of Warwick’s progress and incessant commitment to transformation since its founding.
“When we talk about transformation, we don’t just mean digital or systems or processes. It's about aligning their university culture, operations, and strategies in order to deliver transformation efforts faster and simpler so that it can have a more immediate impact on students, staff, and the wider community”, he explains.
Raja and his team run Warwick Transformation, a program aimed at improving the University’s professional services and anchored to three principles:
1. Simplicity: For Raja, simplicity isn’t just about eliminating inefficiencies or “removing waste.” It’s about rethinking processes from the ground up. Identifying what truly matters and designing around that
2. Empowerment: The program seeks to shift decision-making power to the people doing the actual work. This means not just trusting them, but giving them tools, processes, and authority to make these decisions.
3. Value: Besides financial, Warwick’s transformation program considers the full cost of every investment, including time, energy, and attention. It asks whether that investment enables staff and students to deliver meaningful results. Value is measured through its impact on student experience, staff wellbeing, and the university’s wider community role.
Developing an AI Strategy That Adds Value
Like many institutions, the University of Warwick has used AI in research for decades. But as AI became more widespread in recent years, it began to influence nearly every aspect of university life. That’s when Raja and his team began developing a university-wide AI strategy.
Raja, who has extensive experience of working in the private sector at leading firms like Rolls-Royce, observed that industries like finance and retail were aligning their AI efforts with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s AI principles — an intergovernmental standard on AI that guides policymakers on how to develop and deploy AI that maximizes its positive impact and minimizes its risks. With the ethical implications of AI top-of-mind within academia, Raja saw the OECD model as something to apply in higher ed.
“It’s not about what AI can do,” he says. “We look at what AI should do. It’s not about putting AI into everything. Let’s take a bit of a pause and think about where it can actually add value in the work that we do.”
The university’s AI strategy is based on five strategic goals that are focused on using AI to personalize education, accelerate research, streamline administrative operations, foster innovation, and ensure ethical and inclusive implementation.
With those five goals as a foundation, the University of Warwick has created a center of excellence — a collaboration between the institution’s research and professional services departments — that is looking at how it can build a strategy and deploy the right AI solutions. This center ensures that any work is done on a high level instead of across several, disjointed, cross-departmental efforts that cannot be reused or scaled.
A Personalized Student Experience
One of the many use cases where the University of Warwick has applied AI is in assessing and scoring scholarship applications. The process was accelerated by a factor of 20. “But it’s not just about saving time,” says Raja. “We’re also aiming to reduce unconscious bias and bring greater consistency into the process.”
The university is also exploring AI-powered student triage, using these tools to handle student queries more intelligently. The “intelligent layers” of these tools either manage questions directly or reroute them to the correct department.
Warwick is also in early discussions with an external supplier to explore tools that could personalize the learning experience. The idea is to use student data such as learning preferences and engagement patterns, to generate short, tailored suggestions. These might recommend study techniques, highlight areas where a student is struggling, or alert instructors to intervene. The interventions are meant to complement classroom learning, not replace it, emphasizes Raja.
Removing the Administrative Burdens Associated With Research
Warwick has previously used algorithms to speed up research tasks, but their recent efforts are focused on making the research process more strategic and scalable. Raja and his team are exploring how AI can support the early, more bureaucratic stages of the research process, such as reviewing grant applications, bid frameworks, and research contracts.
“What we're trying to do is allow researchers to focus on what is core and important to them,” Raja explains. “We want to remove all the burden of work.” This means reducing or removing the more administrative elements “but then finding ways of building repeatable algorithms that we can use within the research itself.”
Those efforts, he notes, have already been well-received by Warwick’s research community.
Speeding Up Processes Across Campus Operations
Warwick is applying AI across several core administrative functions to reduce friction and improve response times. For staff and students, an AI-powered chatbot on the university’s IT help desk now delivers real-time support using a growing internal knowledge base. This means fewer emails or phone calls.
In human resources, the university has used AI to streamline the shortlisting and onboarding process, especially for academic and research hires. Raja says that the time-to-hire has dropped by roughly 50 to 60 percent in some cases.
Contract review in procurement has become faster and more consistent, helping staff spot opportunities for renegotiation and cost-savings. In finance, the university has cut reconciliation time in half for certain transactions.
“They’re the things that matter to people — and when you remove that administrative burden, it helps them focus on true value,” says Raja.
Extending Impact Through AI Partnerships
Warwick has long-standing industry partnerships with companies like Jaguar Land Rover, Bosch, and Rolls-Royce. They’re now taking this spirit of collaboration and applying it to AI.
Raja and his team engaged with major players early on like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google to understand their technology roadmaps and explore opportunities for collaboration. For example, the university is working with Microsoft to explore collaborative research opportunities in areas like agriculture tech and health tech. These kinds of partnerships are expected to support AI-driven innovation that advances both institutional and industry goals.
And the team at University of Warwick is also looking to do more than just procure. They’re hoping to co-create with these entities and not just the big players. Warwick is in talks with smaller, more agile companies, including startups.
Raja says Warwick’s willingness to experiment makes it a strong partner for emerging tech companies. “Our DNA has an innovative spirit. We give things a go and either fail fast and learn from it, or succeed and scale it wider.”
For Campuses, Transformation Can’t Wait
Raja’s advice for other institutions? Don’t wait for perfection. “It’s better to have 80 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing,” he says. Bold moves, even imperfect ones, create the momentum transformation requires. That includes backing staff to experiment, fail, and adapt — without fear of blame. “Our job as leaders is to unlock and make things happen,” he says. For Warwick, that means investing in leadership development and creating a culture of trust. “We should accept that transformation is messy,” he adds. “But if you don’t move fast, you risk being left behind.”
This content was paid for and created by the University of Warwick. The editorial staff of The Chronicle had no role in its preparation. Find out more about paid content.
Built with Shorthand