EUNIS Congress’ 21st Birthday – A Historical Perspective on its Proceedings

Abstract

Established in 1993, the EUNIS organisation is Europe’s equivalent to the United States of America’s EDUCAUSE and Australasia’s CAUDIT organizations. Its objective is “to contribute to the development of high quality information systems” by “bringing together those who are responsible for the management, development and the policy for Information Technology in Higher Education in Europe”. EUNIS has adopted a number of approaches to achieving its objective, one being its well-established annual Congress alongside, for example, specialist Task Forces, the recently established EUNIS Research and Analysis Initiative (ERAI) and its e-Journal, the EUNIS Journal of Higher Education IT (EJHEIT) launched in quarter four of 2014. 2015 marks the 21st year of the EUNIS Congress, affording a timely opportunity to reflect on the range of issues addressed and to provide biographical summaries of topics presented, based on details extracted from available Congress programmes and other historical information sources. The actual and projected work of the ERAI, through EJHEIT and the Congress, in analysis and dissemination of synopses of contributors’ presentations is outlined. Complementing this information are some general findings from analysis of the accumulated abstract summaries from around 2000 authors from 41 countries provide over 1200 papers since the beginning of this century. The contexts of “continuing professional development” (CPD) and of “what makes a good Chief Information Officer (CIO)” are qualitatively explored through an analysis of the available data. EUNIS’ objective has a focus on senior IT professionals; on communications and social networking. Gartner research (2010) suggests “achievement through, by and with people”; “collaborative working”; “ability to inspire people both inside and outside their organization” as some key success factors for a successful CIO. “Focusing on leadership and people skills – the ‘soft’ things … is in fact the biggest determinate of their success, or failure.” This statement, whilst set in an organizational context has wider relevance with EUNIS’ various initiatives playing an important role.