| HE Updates |
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| Introduction to Uniac |
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| Our Services |
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| 1. A European View on the Risk Environment: An Analysis for UK Higher Education |
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| Executive summary |
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| As the UK’s leading provider of internal audit and assurance services for higher education (HE), we support institutions in managing risks effectively to facilitate strategic ambitions and comply with legal and regulatory requirements. |
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| Human capital, diversity, and talent management |
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| Digital disruption, new technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) |
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| Climate change and environmental sustainability |
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| Helen Thorne |
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| Key risk trends |
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| Commentary on significant and increasing risks |
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| 1.1 Cybersecurity and data security |
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| It’s no surprise that cybersecurity continues to be the top rated strategic risk for the majority of European businesses and organisations covered by the ECIIA survey. |
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| 1.2 Human capital, diversity, and talent management |
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| For the third year in a row the challenges of attracting, recruiting, and retaining the right people is rated as the second most significant strategic risk across all business sectors. |
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| Considerations for HE |
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| 1.3 Digital disruption, new technology and AI |
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| The growing understanding of the risks and opportunities from digital disruption, particularly AI, have resulted in this becoming the fastest rising strategic risk area in the 2025 survey. Respondents said they expect the risks from AI to continue to ... |
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| Considerations for HE |
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| 1.4 Changes in laws and regulations |
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| On average, addressing the implications of changing laws and regulations continues to be rated a highly significant strategic risk across multiple European business sectors. |
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| Considerations for HE |
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| 1.5 Macro-economic and geopolitical uncertainty |
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| After a huge leap in the ranking of geopolitical risks in the 2023 ECIIA survey in response to consequences of the war in Ukraine, European businesses’ perceptions of risks arising from macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty have fallen back this ... |
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| Considerations for HE |
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| 1.6 Climate change and environmental sustainability |
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| In the ECIIA’s 2019 report, 8% of respondents to their survey rated climate change and environmental sustainability as a top five strategic risk. |
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| Focus of internal audit effort |
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| As in previous years, the ECIIA survey examined the extent to which CAEs think that internal audit effort is aligned with their most significant risk areas. For the top 10 strategic risks in the survey, table 2 below shows where CAEs expect to spend i... |
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| Focus of internal audit effort |
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| Table 2 |
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| 2. Risk Register Analysis |
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| Executive summary |
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| Estates infrastructure |
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| Risk management practice in higher education |
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| How Uniac is supporting institutions |
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| If you’re interested in learning more about our risk insight activities or our audit and assurance services please get in touch. |
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| Overall risk trends |
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| Figure 2 shows this difference between average inherent scores and mitigated scores, giving an overview of how effectively institutions believe that they are managing strategic risks. |
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| Commentary on selected risk areas |
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| While our analysis of risk registers shows a risk landscape broadly similar to 2023, delving into the detail identifies some notable changes in how risks are conceptualised and perceived and in the extent of institutions’ confidence in their mitigatio... |
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| Financial Sustainability |
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| Ranked 5th unmitigated 3rd mitigated |
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| Risk commentary |
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| Estates infrastructure |
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| Although estates risks appear on just over half of risk registers in our sample, the ranking of both the average inherent risk and residual risk have increased this year, moving up to 4th position for inherent and mitigated respectively from 9th and 1... |
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| Risk commentary |
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| Selected risks showing substantial changes in frequency, description, or scoring |
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| Student outcomes and student experience |
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| Student outcomes risks appear on two thirds of strategic risk registers and student experience risks on three quarters. |
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| Audit committees and governing bodies may wish to discuss the interrelationship between student experience and outcomes, drawing on available data, to inform consideration of risks and mitigation strategies. |
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| Staff lifecycle |
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| Modern Slavery Act 2015 |
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| Introduction |
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| Home Office guidance |
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| Structure, content and compliance of the Modern Slavery Statement |
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| Supplier due diligence |
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| The identification, assessment and measurement of modern slavery risks in the business and supply chains |
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| Risk Management - May 2024 |
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| Introduction |
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| Strategy |
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| Risk registers |
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| Roles and responsibilities |
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| Risk and assurance |
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| 5. Corporate Governance Failures in Accountability and Ethical Decision Making |
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| Executive Summary |
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| Higher Education Corporate Governance & Compliance |
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| Recent corporate governance failures |
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| Conclusions |
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| 6. Asset Management |
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| Introduction |
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| Importance of Asset Management |
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| Asset Management Systems |
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| Roles and responsibilities |
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| Benchmarking |
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| Our Team. |
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| March 2025. |
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