Abstract:

How do you build digital imagination across an entire education sector — from executive leadership to the administrative core that keeps institutions running?

In Denmark, Sector AI (SAI) unites all 7 universities of applied science in a shared national effort to strengthen the administrative backbone of higher education through practical experimentation and strategic alignment on AI. By cultivating digital imagination — the capacity to envision new, value-creating ways of working with AI — SAI is working to empower both principals and staff to shape the intelligent institutions of the future.
But how do you – in practice - build digital imagination across an entire education sector — from executive leadership to the administrative core that keeps institutions running? And what happens when not everything goes according to plan? Along the way, we have faced challenges of leadership alignment, resistance, and tool fatigue — and learned as much from our challenges as from our successes, lessons we now share to help others build truly intelligent institutions for the future.

Extended Description:
In education systems, the administrative workforce — those who design, support, and sustain the institutional machinery — are rarely the focus of AI capacity-building efforts. Yet these professionals form the operational backbone of higher education, shaping everything from data flows to student services.
SAI represents a paradigm shift in the sector, where all seven business academies have joined forces in a coordinated, multi-year initiative that develops the digital imagination of both leaders and administrative staff — the ability to envision and implement new, value-creating uses of AI in everyday work.
Rather than focusing narrowly on tools or technology, SAI takes a practice-driven and strategic approach. It combines local experimentation with sector-wide coordination, ensuring that insights and solutions are shared across institutions. Principals and resource directors participate alongside administrative staff, creating vertical alignment between vision and execution.

The program equips participants to identify opportunities where AI can reduce routine tasks, streamline processes, and enable more human-centered service for students and educators alike. At the same time, it builds shared governance structures and a common language around AI ethics, quality, and change management — preparing leaders to steer digital transformation responsibly and at scale.

By treating administration not as a support function, but as a strategic driver of innovation, SAI demonstrates how an entire national sector can move beyond pilot projects and hype. The result is a sustainable model for cultivating digital imagination — and with it, a blueprint for how educational systems can evolve their institutional DNA for the age of artificial intelligence.

Keywords:

Artificial intelligence, digital transformation, institutional change, governance, operational excellence, sustainable transformation.