Sustaining teaching and learning innovations: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Sustaining innovation is a topic of broad concern to higher education, particularly in a pandemic-driven time of challenge to the sector. This scoping review of the literature examines thirteen studies that have considered sustainability of teaching and learning innovations within the past two decades. From these thirteen studies, we derive key enablers, barriers, and longitudinal insights into sustained innovations in higher education. Although there is consensus on the importance of staff engagement, collaboration and appropriate institutional conditions, some contradictions emerged around the roles of funding, leadership and time. In almost all of the included studies, innovation was framed as an intrinsic benefit, which limited consideration of challenges or innovations that ceased to be useful. Although some insights into the sustainability of teaching and learning innovations may be drawn from existing studies, there is scope for further research which extends longitudinal understandings of how and why innovation may be sustained in higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• sustainability
• innovation dissemination
• higher education
• teaching and learning innovations

Introduction

The need for university teaching and learning innovations to have positive, long-lasting impact has prompted concern for many decades (Kottmann et al., 2020). Evaluations of government investment in teaching and learning in many nations – including Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), France, Germany and Norway – have grappled with deep-seated barriers to sustained innovation in universities. These evaluations do not paint a straightforward picture of positive or lasting effects. They describe: resistance to change; difficulties in extending localised impacts; ineffective innovation dissemination; and little sustained impact beyond one-off investments. For instance, Trowler et al. (2013, p. 20) write of their evaluation of learning and teaching initiatives funded by a UK national body: ‘Change has often mainly been associated with early adopters or teaching and learning activists’. The implication is that longer-term dissemination across institutions is not widespread. Similarly, Kottmann et al. (2020, p. 82) state in their evaluation of teaching and learning innovation in the Norwegian higher education sector: ‘The answer to the question of whether the [Norwegian Centres of Excellence] initiative has stimulated teaching enhancement is somewhat negative … ’. These ambivalent findings are troubling and speak not just to the question of change, but how this change is sustained.

Two prior literature reviews have investigated sustainability in higher education, both considering e-learning innovation and both dating from prior to 2014. Kiteley and Ormrod (2009) considered the uptake of e-learning in nursing education. They identified interpersonal relationships and collaborative networks as an effective way of spreading the influence from innovation, while noting that traditional boundaries between academic and professional roles, as well as departmental structures, can provide challenges. Additionally, they highlighted a lack of guidance regarding how to sustain the continuous development of innovation over time, and how to foster collaboration in the field of e-learning. Stepanyan et al. (2013) drew on limited empirical studies of e-learning in higher education but supplemented this small pool by considering factors that promote sustainability. They propose three key characteristics of sustainable e-learning. First, to be sustainable e-learning must be cost-effective and reuse content where possible. Second, sustainable e-learning must offer benefit to learners, whether through quality of content or metrics such as retention or attainment. Third, e-learning should develop educator and institutional adaptability to constantly changing environments.

These literature reviews provide useful insights but are drawn from a small set of literature from over a decade ago. They do not explain the difficulties with sustaining innovative change reported in the evaluation of government schemes. More recent studies may provide much-needed insights.

One challenge in reviewing the literature on sustaining teaching and learning innovations is conceptualising sustainability. Indeed, the term ‘sustainable innovation’ is an oxymoron. An innovation, by definition, ceases to be innovative once it is embedded into day-to-day practice. This apparent contradiction is recognised within the commentaries on sustainability. For example, Zehetmeier (2014) discusses how professional development programmes can sustain their impact. He notes the limitations of the literature, particularly around long-term impact of programmes, citing Scheirer’s (2005) questions: ‘What happens after the initial funding for new programs expires? Do the programs continue or end their activities or even expand to new sites or new beneficiaries?’. Considering similar issues, Nworie (2014, p. 8) argues that any innovation evolves as it ‘diffuses’ from person to person and thus across an organisation. From this perspective, sustainable activities ‘continue to be modified and adapted so that they exist longer-term in an almost unrecognisable form, or even exert a wider influence beyond what was originally intended’, but this also means the legacy of any such activities may be much harder to determine (Grove & Pugh, 2017, p. 14). While sustainability through evolution is harder to trace, it may also be necessary: adaptation for local contexts may more readily lead to integration into these contexts (Greenhalgh et al., 2004). Thus, there are a number of questions when conceptualising sustainability of teaching and learning innovations (Zehetmeier, 2014): Is the focus of sustainability on the programme itself? Or does sustainability refer to a broader sphere of influence, including both intended and unintended effects? Are these influences institutionalised – that is, integrated into the daily business – so they are no longer recognised as innovations?

A frequent touchstone across the scholarly and grey literature on sustainability in higher education is Rogers’ 1962/1995 innovation diffusion theory (Lundblad, 2003), with its familiar categorisations of innovators, early adopters, early majority, later majority and laggards. For instance, uptake of smartphones across a population can be seen as an example of innovation diffusion. But Rogers’ categories are associated specifically with adoption of new technologies rather than shifting social practices associated with technologies. Indeed, altering social practices remains a challenge for many sectors. For example, organisations have reported continued avoidance of safety rules in high risk situations (Hale & Borys, 2013) without taking account of local sociocultural practices (Kitto et al., 2015).

Social practices are seen by some to be the cornerstone to understanding change processes within higher education. For example, Trowler et al. (2005, p. 435) writes: ‘Social processes at the departmental or subdepartmental, workgroup, level are particularly significant, because it is here that students and lecturers engage together in teaching and learning practices. It is here that changes actually take place … ’. Trowler and Cooper (2002, p. 221) also discuss the way that Teaching and Learning Regimes – ‘a constellation of rules, assumptions, practices and relationships related to teaching and learning issues in higher education’ – influence change. These practice-based perspectives nest within how sustainability is conceptualised in an ‘ecological university’. As Barnett (2017, p. 42) notes, such an institution ‘is not concerned with sustaining life or systems or institutions or persons or technologies or cultures or learning or knowledge … but is rather concerned with advancing or strengthening or developing … ’. Sustainability in the ecological university is also seen as political: a ‘shift from the industrial model of education’ (Kinchin, 2023, p. 926).

The conceptualisation of sustainability as an ecological process is illuminating but it also illustrates how difficult it is to trace borders around the notion of sustainable innovation. The line between ‘change’ and ‘sustained change’ is very blurred. But there is a clearly defined axis: at one end, an innovation is introduced – this is the ‘change’. At the other end is an innovation that has become so ubiquitous and omnipresent that it is taken for granted. Consider the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) – a high-stakes assessment containing short simulations where medical students enact clinical skills, first introduced in the 1970s – which is now employed by medical training organisations across the globe (Harden, 2016). But even a decade ago, it was still considered a novel innovation – a point of change – for the profession of clinical psychology where it was not in use (Yap et al., 2012). As the OSCE is becoming an accepted part of clinical psychology, it is slowly ceasing to be an innovation. Indeed, in medicine, across almost sixty years it has become business-as-usual, a truly embedded assessment practice (Harden, 2016). The concept of sustainability provides a means of thinking about how an innovation moves from one end of the axis to the other.

In this review, while we have articulated what sustainability is in a broad sense, we do not tightly define it. Rather, we are interested in how the literature itself represents sustainability and what study data supports any claims about these conceptualisations. However, we delimit our discussion of sustainability in two ways. The first, as mentioned above, is that we are concerned with the social practices associated with educational enhancement, not simple usage of a tool – for example, uptake of a Learning Management System. The second distinction is that sustainability – in whatever form – must be demonstrated over time. A teaching and learning innovation is not sustained if change occurs but the innovation fades away after a short period of time; therefore a study cannot make claims of sustainability if it only looks at the point of innovation implementation – the point of change. Bearing these two features of sustained teaching and learning innovations in mind, we seek to answer the following scoping review question: what is known about sustaining educational innovations in the higher education literature?

Methods

We undertook a scoping review, following the methodology proposed by Arksey and O'Malley (2005). Scoping reviews are often employed within higher education research to ‘[address] an exploratory research question aimed at mapping key concepts, types of evidence, and gaps in research related to a defined area or field by systematically searching, selecting and synthesizing existing knowledge’ (Colquhoun et al., 2014, p. 1292). Accordingly, we provide a well-documented process for the inclusion of selected literature, generally following Arksey and O'Malley’s (2005) overall five-stage protocol by: (1) formulating a research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) screening the literature for inclusion in the review; (4) extracting data and collating findings; and (5) developing an overview of the studies in a narrative format. We diverged from Arksey and O'Malley (2005) in two ways. Firstly, we took study quality, especially flaws, into account in our findings and interpretation, although in line with scoping review tradition, we did not conduct detailed quality assessments of each study. Secondly, we undertook an additional thematic synthesis.

Identifying studies

In June 2021 and December 2022, we searched the Scopus database for any peer-reviewed, English-language full texts published between 2000 and the year of search, for the following keywords in Title, Author and Abstract fields: Higher education OR University OR College AND Innovation AND sustain*. We also searched for relevant articles using the search term sustain*. We employed this term in our search because it was the best fit for the phenomenon: we wished to focus on the challenge of sustaining innovation, rather than introducing innovation (i.e., the change literature).

In addition, we searched for relevant articles in each of the four generalist leading higher education journals: Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, Teaching in Higher Education and Higher Education Research & Development. We chose to delimit to the last two decades due to the radically changed teaching and learning context during this time, caused by the massification of higher education as well as the introduction of digital technologies.

Screening

Studies were included if they qualitatively and/or quantitatively explored sustaining teaching and learning innovations in higher education. A key inclusion criterion was the presence of data and analysis referring to experiences beyond the immediate introduction of the innovation, to ensure there was evidence underpinning claims about sustainability. Reasons for exclusion included: papers that made claims about future sustainability of an innovation without substantiation; a focus on higher education generally rather than sustainability of teaching innovations; sustainable pedagogy or assessment (i.e., pedagogy or assessment that supports sustained learning) rather than sustainability of teaching and learning innovations; or curriculum development at a disciplinary or programme level (e.g., a new Bachelor programme or a MOOC); or review articles. After searches, 3102 abstracts were yielded for further screening. HC or PM and/or MB read all titles and/or abstracts to remove any clearly out of field studies, with 149 papers progressing to full text screening. Many papers were clearly out of scope due to the multiple uses of the terms of sustainability, both environmental and pedagogical. MB then reviewed the full text of all remaining papers.

Data extraction, collation and synthesis

Thirteen studies were included in the final yield, and data were extracted, collated and narratively described. We also conducted a synthesis across studies, describing enablers and barriers with respect to sustainability, followed by the inductively derived theme of temporal insights.

Results

The screening process yielded a final total of thirteen papers that explicitly articulated sustainability within their study. We categorised these as follows: descriptive case studies (4); and time-based studies of sustainability of teaching innovations (9). As these are highly divergent, each category is summarised in turn, as per Arksey and O'Malley (2005); we then provide a synthesis of the study findings.

Description of studies

Descriptive case studies

The scoping review identified four descriptive case studies considering sustainable innovation across various university levels, from institutional and faculty to a centre for teaching excellence. The case studies are primarily reflective, with limited evidence from rigorous data collection and with frequent references to the original change processes. However, they offer insights into how innovations in higher education are sustained.

Bastedo (2007) describes sustained innovation at university campus level, comparing innovations embedded in two campuses across the same institution and analysing why one sustained where the other did not. Bastedo (2007) suggests three elements which led the innovation to be maintained. First, sustained innovation requires resources, leaders and politics to work in concert. Second, values and ideologies must be institutionalised through language and associated ceremonies. Third, institution-wide innovation needs a focus on interdisciplinarity, reinforced by governance structures that work across disciplines, to be sustained long-term.

Corbo et al. (2016) focused on how educational innovation sustained in two science departments through the lens of an institutional change framework. The authors suggest that, for innovation to be sustained, changes must occur at faculty and department levels as these sites are the foundations of education culture. They also identify a need for adaptation and ongoing investment of attention for sustained institutional change.

Treleaven et al. (2012) also considered faculty-level change processes to be critical to sustaining innovation. The authors propose two key elements for sustaining innovation at a faculty level, based on how the innovation is introduced. First, they suggest disseminating innovation by identifying relevant communities of practice and engaging leaders located throughout the faculty. Second, they recommend embedding innovation in existing policies, aligning with strategic change initiatives (such as programme review or developing new units of study), and engaging with existing student supports. Treleaven et al. (2012) emphasise that engagement with existing systems and policies is a vital element of sustaining innovation.

Workman et al. (2011) draw together three case studies of innovation overseen by a centre for teaching excellence to consider how central units might play a role in sustainable innovation. Although the case studies are very diverse and span different time frames, three central insights emerge. First, Workman et al. (2011) note the importance of funding in sustaining innovation, highlighting a case study where funding for a five-year period allowed the time needed to innovate, evaluate, and embed initiatives. Second, the authors emphasise that sustainable integration of innovation can take time, citing a case study spanning twenty years. Finally, Workman et al. (2011) suggest that the regular evaluation of initiatives plays a significant role in prompting the improvement and evolution of innovation.

Empirical studies

The nine empirical studies located by the scoping review were highly diverse in their focus, theoretical framing, and quality. Studies concern: individual curricula (Huun & Hughes, 2014; Robins et al., 2000); initiatives at single universities (Feixas et al., 2018; Sidhu & Gage, 2021); a particular pedagogical framework across universities (Foote, 2016; Foote et al., 2016); a national initiative (Guerra & Costa, 2021); and cross-national comparative ‘pedagogical reform’ (McCowan et al., 2022). Table 1 details each study. There was relatively strong concordance across findings for such a diverse group of approaches and studies.

Table 1. Summary of empirical studies.

First Author	Year/ Countries of research	Innovation focus and discipline	Conceptual framing most relevant to sustainability	Research question/aim	Methods	Findings	Quality	Key implications
Feixas	2018, Spain	Funded projects supporting ‘educational innovation’ in teacher training at a single university	Innovation acceptance, diffusion, innovation quality and academic development transfer	‘Main aim was to investigate the factors influencing the transfer of innovation projects into teaching practices, into the learning culture of the teaching staff and into the satisfaction and effectiveness of students’ learning.’	Mixed methods – survey, interviews & focus groups with coordinators and members of innovation groups financed in last project call	Highest support for transfer factors: meeting expected results; support of local leadership; compatible with teaching staff views; culture of educational teaching team; and motivation, engagement and enthusiasm as professional conditions which favour innovation.	Low to medium	In order to sustain transfer into practice, funded projects must deliver expected goals as well as be supported by local leaders and the practitioners around them.
Foote	2016, USA	‘Successful’ secondary physics contexts across five universities that had a direct link to a physics pedagogical framework developer and development site	Diffusion of innovations	‘ … what motivates implementers to seek reform, how they collect information about the reform, how they put the reform into use and achieve sustained reform.’	Interviews, classroom observations, course materials, other relevant literature from ‘key implementers’ who were heavily involved in bringing SCALE-UP to the university	‘If developers want their innovations to spread successfully, they cannot expect that spreading awareness of their reform at secondary sites is sufficient … For radical innovations like these, developers should provide more support since, in the cases we studied here, time constraints affected the final form of implementation, even for self-motivated early adopters.’ Once the innovation was adapted, the adaptation tended not to be changed.	Medium	Interested academics with personal connections to reform are important starting points for sustainability. Flexibility and autonomy seen to be motivators; time and support necessary to sustain implementations. Dynamic phase of change may be followed by a static one.
Foote	2016, USA	Successful implementations of a physics pedagogical framework across scientific disciplines	Kotter’s 8-step change model	The goal of this study is to better understand the factors that lead to successful secondary implementations of radical pedagogical reforms	Interviews with 21 key contact people involved with successful secondary implementations of SCALE-UP throughout the United States	The most common enabling influences that emerged are: managerial support; documenting and leveraging evidence of local success; funding; interaction with external experts; multimember team; supportive culture; champions; and professional development. Many challenges are linked to the lack of these enabling factors including difficulty finding funding, space, and management and/or faculty support for reform.	Medium	This study describes how radically different approaches to implementation can rely on similar key factors to sustain practice. It is worth noting the disciplinary nature of this work.
Guerra	2021, Portugal	‘National funded research-based education projects’ 2004–13	Conceptualises sustainability: as occurring over time in the same ‘academic scenery’	Two aims: firstly to ‘characterise’ the projects; secondly to consider the ‘macro, meso and micro actions … that hinder or promote the sustainability of effective pedagogical innovations (before, during, and after the end of the funding period) in science and engineering fields.’	Document analysis of 39 projects; nine individual interviews; survey of 17 key participants	‘Sustainability actions’ for projects include: Bologna process as contextual driver; sufficient length of original innovation; promotion of innovation after funding stopped; alignment between innovation and institutional strategy; involving leadership; on the ground champions; ongoing contact with other communities; ongoing investment in human resources (particularly to avoid use of technical resources); and multidisciplinary teams. An inability to persuade other educators was a key barrier.	Medium	Leadership and on-the-ground support after the funding has ended are critical to sustainability; as are on-going human resources to support technical or other infrastructure. Study notes the role of the broader international community of education, both on a local level and on a geopolitical level, in sustaining change.
Hunn	2014, USA	Three-part innovation (rubric, template, and matrix) to provide coherence between units and support student learning and retention as well as promote faculty autonomy and creativity in a nursing course	Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory and an instructional design framework	To design an innovation that provides consistency across courses	Survey of students and faculty	Mostly, student and staff findings appeared slightly better than previous but not always. The user friendliness improved; staff workloads overall improved despite more initial investment.	Low	The use of templates was not strongly supported by data but continued. While of lower quality, this study hints that reduction in workload may promote sustainability.
McCowan	2022, Kenya, Ghana and Botswana	‘Pedagogical reforms’ across disciplines including ‘community placements’, ‘problem-based learning’, ‘staff development programs’ promoting active and collaborative pedagogies	Trowler’s sociocultural concepts of pedagogical reform	‘highlighting factors which appear to be important for successful pedagogical reform efforts within three Sub-Saharan African contexts … ’	Qualitative case studies drawing on interviews with faculty and management and document analysis	Crucial factors: ‘drivers of the initiative, and the extent to which it is embedded in the structures of the institution and championed by staff members; the presence of a pedagogical vision that is shared...; the necessary resources to implement it in practice, along with the work conditions and incentives required by lecturers; and finally, the opportunities and spaces for teaching staff to … transform themselves and their teaching.’	High	The value of a university philosophy on learning and teaching supports sustainability; policy alone was not sufficient. Many educators were ‘surface adopters’, without a deeper transformation. The importance of being part of both international and national communities to support sustainability. Both on-the-ground and top-down engagement are required.
Quardokus Fisher	2020, USA	Evidence-based instructional practices in Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, as developed by two teaching (non-tenure track) change leaders, called Socially Enabled Actors (SEAs)	Theorizing faculty as learners who needed productive participation, vision, authority, and accountability	Four research questions around the change leaders’ visions, participation, authority and purpose	Ethnographic case study of two faculty over three years	The SEAs developed their teaching vision from an abstraction to a ‘realized project’ and this vision sustained them despite it being beyond their position. The change initiative built on prior commitment by promoting social connections to spread their interpretation of the change initiative further, gaining support from management and developing productive networks.	High	Treating faculty as highly agentic learners with authority and vision, and supporting them can enable sustained change. The authors note but argue against concerns of exploitation.
Robins	2000, USA	Faculty perceptions of curricular changes one year and five years after reform in a medical curriculum	None mentioned	Implicit: To explore faculty perceptions of curricular changes one year and five years after reform	Mixed methods – survey & focus groups of faculty teaching first and second year students	Faculty attitudes toward active and authentic learning reverted after five years to previous and curriculum reform stagnated.	Medium	Despite significant investment and initial uptake, reversion to previous practices still occurred.
Sidhu	2021, Canada	Adoption of either e-learning or community-focused experiential learning approach across disciplines within a university	Organizational change model	‘ … seeks to determine the relative importance of institutional policies and practices that influence faculty adoption of e-learning and community-focused experiential learning’	Surveys to staff who have taught courses that incorporate either e-learning, or community-focused experiential learning	Individual alignment with institutional plans (‘institutional culture’) is most associated with adoption/non-adoption of teaching innovation. Faculty perceptions/beliefs also seen as explaining variance. Funding is tentatively interpreted as less important than workload or the symbolism of funding.	High	This high-quality paper has an extensive list of recommendations. Of these, most noteworthy to sustainability: participation and engagement with institutional plans may be very important; workload/ symbols of regard may be more important than funding. Developing intrinsic motivation may assist innovations persist once institutional funding has gone.

We cluster the synthesis of study findings around the following topics: (1) enablers of sustainability; (2) barriers to sustainability; and (3) insights into temporality and sustainability.

Synthesis of findings

Enablers of sustainability within the included studies

Individual staff, teams and contexts all contribute to sustaining teaching and learning innovations. Contextual considerations could take place locally, institutionally or even internationally. We outline each of these enablers in turn.

Staff engagement with innovation. Individual staff motivation and engagement are seen as necessary to sustained uptake of educational innovation (Feixas et al., 2018; Foote, 2016; McCowan et al., 2022; Quardokus Fisher & Koretsky, 2021). This is linked to the need to have evidence that the innovation has benefit for learners, with associated documented success or evaluations (Foote et al., 2016; Stepanyan et al., 2013), or to have the authority to implement a vision (Quardokus Fisher & Koretsky, 2021). Having time and logistical or technical support is more critical to continued staff engagement than provision of grants or funds. Staff ability to incorporate an innovation into workload is key, while funding may have more value as a symbolic marker of achievement rather than the actual financial contribution (McCowan et al., 2022; Sidhu & Gage, 2021). Individual staff also can motivate or activate others as ‘champions’ in order to sustain implementations (McCowan et al., 2022; Quardokus Fisher & Koretsky, 2021).

Collaborative educational teams and networks. Sustainability of innovation may be underpinned by various forms of collaboration and interpersonal interactions, which productively manage difference and friction as the innovation continues (Bastedo, 2007; Feixas et al., 2018; Foote et al., 2016; McCowan et al., 2022; Quardokus Fisher & Koretsky, 2021; Treleaven et al., 2012). Studies introduced various concepts in association with notions of teams and networks, such as distributed leadership, mentoring or interdisciplinarity.

The on-going integration of the innovation with its immediate educational context. Articles repeatedly note the need for sustainability to be supported by flexible adaptation and re-invention of educational innovations as implementation continues (Corbo et al., 2016; Feixas et al., 2018; Foote, 2016; Quardokus Fisher & Koretsky, 2021; Stepanyan et al., 2013). Some articles suggest the need to embed the educational innovation in pre-existing resources (McCowan et al., 2022; Treleaven et al., 2012).

Institutional support and alignment. A range of institutional features make a key difference to sustainability: on-going leadership support (Bastedo, 2007; Feixas et al., 2018; Foote et al., 2016; McCowan et al., 2022); continuing favourable values and ideology (Bastedo, 2007; McCowan et al., 2022); governance structures that align (and continue to align) with the innovation (Bastedo, 2007); and having embedded the innovation in policies and procedures (Treleaven et al., 2012). On-going funding support at institutional level is seen as being significant for sustainability, but it is also considered important that the innovations are cost-effective, typically framed as ‘value for investment’ (Feixas et al., 2018; Foote et al., 2016; Sidhu & Gage, 2021; Stepanyan et al., 2013; Workman et al., 2011).

Geopolitical influences. Broader geopolitical influences also play a role in sustaining innovation. They could legitimise and incentivise in international networks (McCowan et al., 2022) or through policy movements such as the Bologna process (Guerra & Costa, 2021), thus ensuring innovations persisted.

Barriers to sustainability within the included studies

Across all the included literature, there is a presumption that the innovation was a ‘good’ that needed to be sustained, ‘institutionalised’ or incorporated into everyday business. Thus, more supportive factors are identified than inhibiting factors, and there is little discussion of how to identify if an innovation was no longer of benefit. However, a range of inhibitors are outlined, as we describe below.

Educators unwilling to sustain the innovation. Studies describe how educators could simply avoid engaging with the innovation in an ongoing way. They may be unwilling or unable to relinquish previous practices – either their own or learned behaviour from past teachers (McCowan et al., 2022). They may revert to previous practices, despite enormous investment into innovative curriculum practices (Robins et al., 2000). McCowan et al. (2022) also described ‘surface level’ adoption, a kind of lip service that really did not represent sustainability. Moreover, they note that, as innovations continue, educators become less interested in undertaking necessary training. Guerra and Costa (2021) suggest that educators’ inability to engage their colleagues also prevented sustainability.

Students’ inability to engage with the innovation. While student engagement is mostly seen as a challenge for the initial implementation, McCowan et al. (2022) noted that on-going student resistance to the innovation, or outdated assumptions about student engagement, can prohibit sustainability.

Absence of institutional support and alignment. The absence of institutional factors promoting sustainability impacted on whether innovations continued or were abandoned – this is strongly remarked upon in the cross-institutional studies (Bastedo, 2007; Guerra & Costa, 2021; McCowan et al., 2022). In their examination of eight universities, McCowan et al. (2022) note that mismatches between institutional philosophy, leadership and local-level visions could reverse pedagogical reform over time. Cross-university studies indicate that without appropriate resourcing endeavours, innovation could founder (Guerra & Costa, 2021; McCowan et al., 2022).

Temporality and sustainability

Time played a complex role in how the authors conceptualised and researched sustained innovation. There seemed to be a difference between what might be considered shorter-term innovations (up to five years), medium-term innovations (from three to ten years), and longer-term innovations (seven years or more), but this disparity may be due to factors other than timing as the data were diffuse. At a curriculum level, Foote (2016) suggests that sustained innovations tend to be adaptive at first, followed by a period of consolidation, while Guerra and Costa (2021) suggest that the length of initial funding for an innovation may matter. At an institutional level, Workman et al. (2011) suggest that the timespan for integration of an innovation into business-as-usual can be decades. Equally, after decades, innovation ‘fatigue’ may set in (McCowan et al., 2022). At a geopolitical level, Guerra and Costa (2021) point to the influence of an overall geopolitical moment, such as the Bologna process, and thus how external rhythms may also influence views of timing.

Discussion

This scoping review has revealed the intricacies surrounding how sustainability is conceptualised and researched in the higher educational literature and provided insights into what might sustain educational innovations. Similar to the two previous reviews of the literature base, both published at least a decade ago (Kiteley & Ormrod, 2009; Stepanyan et al., 2013), this review also encountered challenges in identifying studies that specifically investigated the sustainability of innovations over time. Nonetheless, the thirteen studies included in this review offer interesting insights, highlighting the growing interest in furthering our understanding of the dynamics of sustainable education innovation. Five of the studies considered in this review – well over a third – were published in the last five years, underscoring an increase in scholarly attention to this area. In these later studies, what is meant by sustainability tends to be better articulated; for example Guerra and Costa (2021) devote considerable time to providing a definition. We do not, however, suggest the need for a uniform definition. Sustainability is a loose concept and one that may require different conceptualisations from time to time. The broad principle is enough: how innovations persist once the first flush of implementation has passed. Indeed, one of the strengths of the collected literature is the highly diverse research contexts and approaches represented. This may be why some of our studies appear to have had more positive impact than those described within the evaluations of government initiatives (Kottmann et al., 2020; Trowler et al., 2013): some innovations described within the literature have clearly sustained and persisted over years (Bastedo, 2007; Foote, 2016; McCowan et al., 2022; Sidhu & Gage, 2021; Workman et al., 2011).

In the included studies, the different foci of the implementation – including programme, department, and institution – provide unique perspectives on sustainable educational innovation. Moreover, the varying durations of the funded programmes significantly influenced the outcomes and dynamics of sustaining innovations. Therefore, further research is needed to comprehensively explore and understand the nuanced effects of these different foci and timeframes. A more comprehensive understanding of sustainable educational innovation could inform the development of effective strategies adapted to various levels and durations of change.

Innovation, as depicted by the majority of the studies reviewed, was predominantly portrayed as intrinsically beneficial. However, there was limited exploration of innovations (or aspects of innovations) that might require discontinuation or removal, or of situations where an implementation becomes irrelevant. Although some studies acknowledged the importance of adaptation and dynamism, they were grounded in the assumption that innovation is inherently positive and would continue to be so. This was compounded by the lack of reflexivity within some papers, where authors did not consider the dual relationship of being the innovator and researching their own innovations. The prevailing focus on the positive aspects of implementation and the assumption of its enduring significance highlight the need for a more nuanced understanding of the potential drawbacks to innovation and temporal nature of learning and teaching. We suggest that, within discussions of sustainability, authors should explicitly articulate the complexities surrounding innovation, including the circumstances in which modification, cessation, or removal may be necessary, to provide a more comprehensive perspective on sustaining innovations over time.

The role of funding in sustaining innovations was a topic of debate. While some studies proposed that continuous funding from a central unit plays a significant role, others argued that factors such as intrinsic motivation, feasible workloads, and technical/logistic support might hold more prominence than external resources. It is important to consider these differing perspectives in understanding the multifaceted nature of sustainability and the various factors that contribute to its long-term success. Further research is needed to explore and reconcile these contrasting viewpoints, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay between funding, intrinsic motivation, workloads, and support mechanisms in sustaining innovative practices.

Our scoping review indicated a noticeable tendency to revert to familiar practices, hindering the continued embedding of the innovation. The process of fully integrating and sustaining educational innovation can extend over decades or even longer. This observation resonates with the practice-oriented perspective on teaching and learning change discussed by Trowler et al. (2005). Viewing change from an ecological perspective suggests that what may appear as ‘steady states’ are not truly static, but rather require dynamic and continuous effort and dedication from all involved parties. Thinking of stasis as active further underscores the disruptions associated with constant innovation and suggests the merit of time without further innovation (Foote et al., 2016). Recognising the ongoing work and commitment needed for sustainability is crucial for understanding the complexities and challenges associated with long-term transformative efforts in higher education contexts. Future research should further explore strategies and mechanisms that facilitate the lasting impact of sustainable educational innovation, shedding light on effective approaches to overcome the inclination to revert to familiar practices and promote enduring transformation.

There are some limitations to this study. Determining what counted as sustainability was difficult and it is possible that we missed studies that examined sustaining practice over time due to different labels of the same phenomenon. We therefore limit our claims to be a synthesis of findings about sustainability from those studies the directly engaged with this terminology. However, despite the diversity of the studies, there was much similarity. Additionally, we chose to work inductively rather than starting with a particular view of sustainability and this can be seen both as a strength and a limitation.

Conclusion

This scoping review synthesises what is known about sustainability in higher education from a range of diverse studies set in a broad range of contexts. Many of the ideas that underpin sustaining innovation are familiar, such as collaboration and support from leadership. While the studies highlight some indications of the enablers of sustainable educational innovation, the reasons for the success or failure of specific approaches within different institutional contexts remain unclear and complex. These complexities underscore the need for further research to address knowledge gaps and facilitate the development of effective and enduring sustainable educational practices. Our synthesis provides a useful research agenda: What is the relationship between change and sustainability? How does sustainability operate differently across various levels of the institution? How does funding operate within academia, where time and money are not always the same thing? What strategies support the active work of apparent stasis? Bridging these gaps will contribute to the advancement of sustainable educational innovation and its long-term impact in the field.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study received funding support from Deakin University.