Professor Bob Garratt. May 2026

IFD exists to bridge higher education students’ learning with the identification and resolution of live community issues. Currently much discussed, but with few good examples. In this short article I share personal experiences over 50 years of such learning, in the hope it excites others to use this powerful form of higher education.

I was immersed in Action Learning at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, in 1967. Michael Lloyd had just been appointed Principal, arriving with a messianic mission: the whole school – faculty and students, spending the majority of their education working on live projects with real community benefit. Lectures were available, but only as back-up.

Michael had come from a live project of almost biblical proportions in Northern Ghana, the Volta Dam Resettlement Project. From a life-challenging encounter with President Nkrumah, he accepted the challenge of moving 80,000 people to avoid the flooding of valleys that would contain the Volta waters. Faculties of Architecture and Engineering moved on-site for three years and proceeded to design and build new communities, including their inland fishing lifestyle, a mammoth national undertaking.

At the AA, students chose their own projects across their five years, exploring problem identification and issue resolution under a general tutor. As questions formed, specialist tutors from any appropriate discipline were available on demand –  the ‘taxi rank’ principle. There was a strong academic curriculum, a tough professional assessment framework, and a continuously running lecture series. Many existing educationalists were horrified. The professional institute’s education committee expressed grave doubts.

A personal example. I was asked to tutor three second-year students who had identified an urgent housing issue in a south London Borough. A large tenants’ building was ridden with damp, lack of maintenance, and causing serious health problems, especially in children. The students were initially simply angry and demanded immediate Council action. This got them nowhere.

We took them through proper problem identification, hard facts about the building’s condition, each tenant family, and the Council’s failure to act. They discovered that Housing and Social Services weren’t co-operating with each other and were actually grateful someone had gathered the facts. Local councillors were less pleased, as the problems were now starkly focused and amplified appearing in the local press, complete with photos of rotting windows, rats, and general deterioration.

The students designed a rehabilitation scheme with additional specialist tutors. The Council said it would take years and cost too much. The tenants, now organised,  scanned the area for disused council properties in better condition, and with the students proposed a comprehensive rehousing process instead. It was accepted. The old building was demolished. A local park and sports ground were created, which the AA students helped design.

The students had learned far more than any paper-based design process. They absorbed hard knocks from real-world councillors and tenants and learned to use their ‘Ps’ (programmed learning) and ‘Qs’ (skilful questioning), honing their naïve intelligence to tangibly useful effect. All three passed with flying colours. One became an internationally recognised starchitect. Another designed modest villages for minority communities in the Arabian Gulf. The third became an opera singer. All agreed they had flourished through Action Learning.

Over 40 years I have transferred these processes to business and charity development across Africa, Southeast Asia, and China with proven results in a large UK bank, engineering, and IT companies. It has been particularly powerful in developing younger managers into nascent professional directors, who in turn seek the ideas and energy of students to broaden their own analysis and issue resolution.

Few UK higher education institutions have taken this up. The threat of breaking down long-established academic walls remains real.

This is where IFD’s bridge between education and community issues matters so much, rich development for students and tutors alike.

The Institute for Futures Development (IFD) was established to help connect universities, businesses and communities through real-world challenges that turn learning into practice. If you would like to join our quest, or find out more, please contact us at community@ifd.global