Bigger Isn’t Stronger – If We Forget What Makes Us Meaningful
The Danish education sector is being reengineered. Fewer institutions. Larger units. More students. It sounds efficient. Scalable. Politically attractive. The logic is familiar: volume creates leverage.
But leverage for what?
Strength, we’re told, comes from size. Bigger enrolment, fewer campuses, larger systems. It’s a logic that’s easy to measure, easy to manage, and easy to sell. But beneath that logic lies a strategic paradox: the more we consolidate, the more we risk erasing what makes institutions matter.
The February 2025 report from Denmark’s National Commission on Student Wellbeing underlined this tension with clarity. Despite years of structural reforms, young people are not thriving. They’re not lacking resources or digital tools. They’re lacking presence, purpose, and connection. The system is working – just not for the people in it.
The message is clear: you can’t fix meaning with scale.
As governance models grow more systemic and delivery models more centralized, something intangible slips away – identity. When institutions start looking the same, talking the same, and organizing the same, they stop standing for anything in particular. Growth doesn’t strengthen them. It flattens them.
This isn’t a nostalgic plea for small schools or institutional romanticism. Growth can be good. Consolidation can make sense. But without values and strategic clarity, volume becomes noise. Bigger isn’t stronger. It’s just louder.
The latest EPX reform and the political agreement on the institutional landscape confirm the trend: more scale, more merging, more momentum. But that leaves a critical challenge for boards and rectors – not just to administer change, but to define direction. In a system defined by policy velocity, institutions need something slower, deeper, and more durable: a sense of self.
The winners won’t be those who scale the fastest. It will be those who scale with intent.
For us, three provocations stand out:
- Volume is not a strategy. It’s a tool. Growth is not a goal in itself. It’s a means to an end. The question is: to what end?
- The bigger the institution, the sharper the identity must be. Scale doesn’t negate difference – it demands it. As sameness grows, uniqueness becomes a strategic asset.
- Leadership space doesn’t protect itself. In large systems, proximity fades. But meaningful leadership depends on presence – on being close enough to matter.
These are not theoretical concerns. They are leadership imperatives in a sector under pressure. And they remind us of a simple truth: scale without substance is just surface. Structure without meaning is just movement.
If we want to build education systems that endure, we need to build around what can’t be counted – purpose, identity, and belonging.
Without that, all we have is noise.