Innovation Sandbox

Focus: Designing and Launching New Universities

This pathway is designed for founders and senior leaders who are in the later stages of designing or the early stages of launching a new college, university, or higher education institution. These institutions are building their academic and organizational models largely from the ground up and are actively grappling with foundational questions about curriculum, governance, accreditation, and sustainability.

This pathway is intended for higher education institutions that plan to serve students directly and offer degrees or other formal credentials. It is not intended for vendors, platforms, or organizations primarily selling products or services to existing institutions.

Participant Experience

Participating institutions will engage in a shared cohort model centered on concrete planning and decision-making, such as curriculum design, governance structures, accreditation pathways, and financial modeling. To keep the experience tractable and high-impact, teams will be asked to focus on one or two signature design challenges that are central to their institutional vision.

Programming will combine facilitated cohort sessions, peer exchange, and targeted expert input over the course of the year. While the core experience is shared, we anticipate differentiating some elements for pre-launch institutions (with greater emphasis on design and planning) and newly launched institutions (with greater emphasis on stabilization and early operations).

By the end of the year, participating teams should have greater clarity about their core institutional model, key design decisions resolved or underway, and a credible plan for the next phase of launch or stabilization.

Ideal Applicant Profile

This pathway is designed for Institutions with the following characteristics: 

• Launch Stage: Have launched already and are in the first few years of operation or have not yet launched but have viable plans to launch within the next two years.
• Dedicated Leadership: Have a committed leadership team with clear roles, authority, and decision-making responsibility.
• Concrete Planning: Have advanced beyond the purely conceptual phase and are actively engaged in concrete planning and institutional decision-making.
• Financially Viable: Have secured resources (or can credibly demonstrate access to them) to support near-term operational and design work.

Illustrative Examples

Below are several hypothetical examples to give prospective applicants a sense of the kinds of efforts that would be considered in scope for this pathway: 

• The launch of a new university in a nation where liberal education has not traditionally been the norm, combining broad-based undergraduate learning with locally relevant professional pathways to expand access to high-quality, integrative education while remaining responsive to workforce and cultural expectations.
• A new college that includes an embedded co-op model that dramatically reduces costs and enables computer science students to graduate debt-free with significant paid professional experience during college.
• A new model for nontraditional college students built on a novel calendar, modular and mastery based curricula, teaching-focused faculty, and stackable micro credentials. The long-term aim is to create a scalable network of global campuses.

APPLY HERE 

Focus: Intrapreneurship and Significant Redesign Projects in Existing Universities

This pathway is designed for senior academic and institutional leaders at existing, accredited (or accreditation-seeking) colleges and universities who are pursuing major, institution-shaping change from within. Unlike Pathway 1, which focuses on the creation of new institutions, this pathway centers on intrapreneurial efforts to design new academic structures or fundamentally transform core elements of an existing institutional model.

Who Should Apply:

We are seeking projects that are high-stakes and structural in nature. Appropriate efforts might include the creation of substantial new academic entities, major curricular or degree reforms, large-scale reorganization of academic units, new partnerships, or significant changes to faculty structures or roles.

We welcome applicants at two specific inflection points:

1. Implementation-Ready: The initiative is designed and positioned to move into active implementation during the 2026–27 academic year.
2. Early Implementation: The initiative has recently launched (within the last 1–2 years) and the institution is navigating the complex reality of stabilizing the new model.

Participant Experience

Participating institutions will engage in a combination of whole-group programming and smaller cohorts (3-5 institutions), organized to encourage peer exchange, targeted feedback, and collective support.

The experience will focus on the practical challenges of institutional change, including governance and decision-making, stakeholder alignment, sequencing and pacing of reform, and sustaining momentum. Participants will benefit from facilitated cohort conversations, peer feedback, and targeted perspectives from experienced institutional leaders and subject-matter experts.

By the end of the year, participating institutions should expect to have made concrete progress on implementation and to have greater clarity about next-stage decisions, risks, and tradeoffs associated with sustaining their change effort.

Ideal Applicant Profile

This pathway is designed for Institutions with the following characteristics: 

• Implementation Ready: The initiative is either launching within the next two years OR is currently in early-stage implementation (not just an exploratory committee).
• High-Stakes and Structural: The work is consequential at the institutional level and goes well beyond a single course, isolated pilot, or short-term program.
• Innovation Mindset: The institution embraces the idea of a “university as a design studio” and treats its academic and organizational model as something to be intentionally designed, tested, and refined over time.
• Leadership-Backed: The effort has explicit sponsorship from senior leadership (Provost, President, or equivalent), with authority and resources committed through the 2026–27 academic year.

Illustrative Examples

Below are several hypothetical examples to give prospective applicants a sense of the kinds of efforts that would be considered in scope for this pathway: 

• A newly launched graduate degree organized around complex global challenges (e.g., energy and climate, technological disruption, and social polarization) that enable students to integrate knowledge across disciplines while reducing fragmentation and redundancy in degree requirements. Faculty roles, assessment, and credentials are redesigned to support coherence, collaboration, and engagement with real-world partners.
• A university-wide reconfiguration that positions the humanities as a central, integrative force across high-demand fields by connecting humanistic inquiry to student interests and aspirations shaped by AI, technology, work, and social change. Humanities faculty collaborate with data science, engineering, and professional programs to embed ethical reasoning, interpretation, historical perspective, and judgment directly into curricula, assessment, and experiential learning.
• A newer institution, founded 15 years ago, with an innovative learning model recognizes the need to revisit its faculty systems to preserve its founding vision. It has recently undertaken an institution-wide redesign of hiring, workload, incentives, and collaborative structures to balance experimentation with stability, individual scholarship with collective responsibility, and innovation with educational quality.

APPLY HERE

Focus: Expanding High-Impact Innovations Beyond a Single Institution

This pathway is designed for institutions that have already developed a mature, high-impact “signature innovation” and are now looking outward to expand its reach. By signature innovation, we mean an initiative that is deeply integrated into the institution’s core academic or organizational model, has been operating successfully for multiple years, and can demonstrate meaningful impact.

The central question in this pathway is not whether the innovation works, but how it should travel. Unlike Pathways 1 and 2, which focus on internal design and transformation, Pathway 3 is explicitly focused on building an outward-facing impact strategy. The work centers on strategy, translation, and expansion to help institutions determine how a context-specific innovation might responsibly and effectively extend beyond its home institution.

Participant Experience

The experience is structured as a guided arc that unfolds over the year, beginning with clarifying what makes each innovation effective and distinctive, and moving toward a structured exploration of possible expansion strategies.

Through facilitated cohort sessions, peer exchange, and targeted expert engagement, participating teams—typically including senior academic and operational leaders—will test assumptions, surface tradeoffs, and work through questions related to governance, partnerships, intellectual property, field positioning, and sustainability.

By the end of the year, institutions should have a clear strategic direction for expansion, a plausible 12–24 month roadmap, and leadership-ready materials to support internal decision-making and external engagement.

Ideal Applicant Profile

This pathway is designed for institutions with the following characteristics: 

• Mature, Well Refined Model: Have developed a mature, high-impact model, program, or initiative that has been operating successfully for multiple years and is integrated into the institution’s core academic or organizational model.
• Proven Impact: Can demonstrate clear evidence of effectiveness, using quantitative data, qualitative outcomes, or both.
• Dedicated Team: Have a committed internal team prepared to engage in outward-facing strategy and sustained peer exchange.
• Open and Curious: Are open to multiple expansion pathways (e.g., open dissemination, network-based adoption, formal replication, training models, licensing, or new entities).
• Leadership Support: Have senior leadership support for considering various paths to expand impact (e.g., external partnerships, intellectual property decisions, and strategic investment).

Illustrative Examples

Below are several hypothetical examples to give prospective applicants a sense of the kinds of efforts that would be considered in scope for this pathway: 

• An engineering school that is widely recognized as a pioneer in embedding ethical reasoning, systems thinking, and interdisciplinary collaboration into technical training, with a model that has been in place for several years and has demonstrated clear educational impact. Having established itself as a field leader, the school is now seeking to explore how this deeply integrated approach might be adapted, shared, or scaled to influence engineering education more broadly beyond its own campus.
• A group of universities around the world have each developed and sustained unique models for the “rooted globalism” model of liberal education, embedding global awareness and systems thinking into shared core curricula while grounding students in local histories, national principles, and civic responsibilities. With evidence that these models have reshaped undergraduate learning in their respective contexts, these institutions are now exploring whether a coordinated approach might be a feasible way to extend these insights and approaches to new partners or contexts.
• A private institution that has developed an effective model for community- connected, project-based learning across undergraduate and graduate programs, with documented benefits for student learning and community engagement over several years. Having achieved sustained success internally and begun informal exchanges with peer institutions, the university now seeks to clarify whether and how this model could travel—through more formal partnerships, shared infrastructure, or other expansion strategies—to support adoption by institutions interested in building similar programs.

APPLY HERE

Yes. The Future Universities Alliance is a global network. We actively seek a diverse cohort representing different geographies, regulatory environments, and cultural contexts. Due to U.S. federal regulations, we are currently unable to accept applications from institutions within U.S. embargoed countries. Also, please note that all programming and cohort sessions will be conducted in English. 

No. We ask that institutions select the single pathway that best aligns with their most pressing strategic priority. If you are unsure which pathway fits best, please submit an inquiry to futureuniversities@duke.edu prior to the March 6 deadline.

No. The Innovation Sandbox is designed exclusively for higher education institutions (or founding teams building new ones) that serve students directly and grant (or intend to grant) degrees or credentials. Vendors, platforms, and service providers are not eligible.

The idea of treating the “University as a Design Studio” is a core value of the Alliance. It means we are looking for leaders who treat their institutions not as static bureaucracies to be managed, but as dynamic organizations to be intentionally designed, tested, and iterated upon. We value hypothesis-testing and structural innovation over incremental improvement.

The program runs from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. During that time, participants should expect: 

• To send 2-3 representatives to the Global Summit: October 3–5, 2026, at Duke University.
• To participate in monthly sessions with a cohort of peer institutions (60-90 minutes each).
• To elect to participate in optional events, mentors sessions, and cohort-based learning. 

This depends on the pathway, but generally, we require a "Core Team" of 2–3 individuals. This usually includes a Senior Sponsor (Provost, President, or Founder) who attends key events, and 1-2 Project Leaders who manage the day-to-day work and attend all cohort sessions.

Yes. We expect 2–3 representatives from each participating institution (including the Executive Sponsor and Project Lead) to attend. The Summit is the critical anchor event for the network and sets the foundation for the collaborative work of the year.

We strongly encourage team consistency to build trust within the cohort. However, we understand that roles change. If a Core Team member leaves, we ask that you identify a replacement with equivalent authority and context to step in immediately.

Beyond the pathway-specific checklists, we look for three main things:

1. Strategic Priority: Is this work central to the institution's future, or just a side project?
2. Leadership Commitment: Is there visible, tangible backing from the top?
3. Readiness: Is the team ready to move from "designing" to "doing" and from “piloting” to “full implementation.” 

Yes. The Innovation Sandbox is designed as a confidential environment for candid peer exchange. We adhere to the “Chatham House Rule” during cohort sessions to ensure that specific comments and plans are never attributed to you or your organization without consent. While confidentiality is the default for our working sessions, we also provide distinct, opt-in opportunities for participants to showcase their insights and leadership (e.g., case studies, thought pieces).

 No. The Innovation Sandbox does not provide blanket cash grants to all participants. Instead, we offer: 

1. Summit Support: The Alliance covers lodging costs for up to three participants per institution for the Global Summit in October 2026. Participants with financial need may also apply for funding to cover the cost of airfare to the event.
2. Discretionary Fund: Once accepted, institutions may be eligible to apply for modest funding to support certain project needs (e.g., site visits, conference attendance).

Institutions that have the means are expected to cover their own airfare to the Summit. However, institutions with financial constraints may apply to the discretionary fund for travel assistance.