Case Studies [Structures]
Transition Edinburgh University
Structure: Used to have a steering group consisting of staff and students. Since funding for the initiative ended the group has been swept up into the Estates unit of the University, and formed the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability.
Challenges and opportunities: The university funds staff members in this department, and many projects are still ongoing. However, the internal funding and top-down management that entails has meant that much of the student momentum has been lost. This structure also means that a lot of time is spent on monitoring indicators, since that is what the university audits to
measure success.
Transition University of St Andrews
Structure: Is a constituted group with a steering group consisting of students, academic staff, estates staff, and local residents. Students form the largest part of it. It is not officially part of the university but has good and strong relationships to it, for example by being in the same building as the Estates team. It was formed this way to be able to apply for funding to which the university did not have access and to enable free thinking grassroots action.
Challenges and opportunities: Having academic staff on the steering group has been key to achieving continuity within the group. There is a tension between the desired top-down professional management within the university and the bottom-up, creative, and free visions of the Transition group. There is a balance between following the rules that the university sets up, as well as the requirements associated with the external funding, and just getting things done.
It has managed to be independent from the university to a certain extent and responsive to bottom up ideas and projects, but this has meant it has been reliant on a lot of volunteer time and is liable to institutional memory loss.
Transition Heriot Watt
Structure: Formed a steering group of academics in order to apply for original funding.
The initiative was within the university and placed in the Athletics Union’s structures due to internal university politics. At the moment the steering group consists of staff, mostly managers from different departments.
Challenges and opportunities: This means they have a lot of buy-in from many different departments and have good contacts across the university and potential to get things done. However, the steering group role is not voluntary but part of their paid position, which means there is not necessarily much interest or energy for the sustaining the initiative.
The following outlines the different structures that have been tried out at different universities to give you some further insight into what structure
you may develop:
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