The Oxford Praxis Forum
The Oxford Praxis Forum aims to provide senior executives with an opportunity to engage with a top research University. It seeks to foster a particular form of engagement based on three basic observations.
'Republic of the Intellect'
Many top University graduates from the last forty years have gone into the professional and corporate worlds. Any forward-looking project wishing to harness the best available talent must go beyond traditional University sources and access this wider pool.
A Practice Led View of Theory
As senior practitioners, these University alumni are typically confident in dealing with the intellectual challenges they face but are open to new ideas that might help them with these challenges. This leads them naturally to a 'practice led view of theory'
A Collaboratory approach
The best practice-led enquiry models need careful design to ensure close collaboration between the practitioners with relevant experience and the other contributors. The design of this group work, and its virtual organization, will build on the social and technical lessons emerging from earlier work on 'collaboratories'.
The Forum rests on a simple proposition. Senior practitioners are an important source of intellectual talent for the University and by making it possible for them to work in collaboration with the University new practice-led knowledge will emerge.
The Forum also adopts a simple organisation. A Symposium in Oxford each year for invited executives serves as an anchor for a portfolio of projects with practitioners pursued throughout the year. These activities all involve working in collaboration with executives in various customised, practice led enquiries into issues of particular concern to them.
These activities may involve special interest forums, working on 'live' enquiries with individual practitioners, or arranging mini-sabbaticals in Oxford. The results then feed into the annual Symposium.
Professor Sir Douglas Hague CBE, author of many papers and books on Higher Education, Leadership and Innovation has kindly agreed to be its Honorary Chair. We are also grateful for his generous financial support.