A peer cohort for higher education leaders
Smart Data: The Decision Advantage
From reporting to decisions.
HESA x Plaid Analytics
Smart Data is for provosts, vice-presidents and the senior teams they rely on — the people responsible for an institution's most consequential decisions: which programs to protect or sunset, what to tell the board about next year's enrolment, whether to trust the numbers a strategy is built on. It's built for the postsecondary leader who has no shortage of reports but not enough confidence in the numbers to make the most strategic decision.
The financial ground has shifted beneath the sector, and the cost of a wrong decision has risen with it. New international student arrivals fell roughly 60% in 2025, and federal permit forecasts[1] have repeatedly overstated actual approvals[2]. A few provinces have added funding, but for most institutions it offsets only a fraction of the revenue lost[3]. Nationally, provincial transfers in 2023–24 remained below their level five and ten years earlier in real terms, while costs continued to rise[4]. Total student numbers similarly declined, but over a longer horizon: Canadian colleges have already experienced a drop of about 60% while universities will take about six years to reach similar decreases[5]. For many institutions, the difference between thriving and declining increasingly depends on getting these strategic decisions right.
Most institutions are not short on reports. They are short on the confidence to act on them.
Smart Data is a peer cohort and learning program from Higher Education Strategy Associates and Plaid Analytics designed to equip institutions to make better decisions informed by trusted data. Over a series of virtual sessions, senior leaders alongside peers facing similar challenges will work through the questions, trade-offs, and decisions that good data should inform: forecasting under the caps, institutional strategy, program viability, governance, and AI readiness. Each session pairs a real data issue and topic with closed-door peer discussion under Chatham House Rule, so leaders can speak candidly about what is and is not working inside their own institution to learn from one another.
What changes
What leaders can do differently
Defend a consequential decision before the board — whether an enrolment forecast, a program investment or a difficult reallocation — with data leaders understand and can stand behind.
Respond more quickly to changing internal and external conditions by moving beyond manual processes and infrequent reporting cycles, and by connecting data across decentralized functions, from recruitment and admissions to enrolment planning.
Assess program viability across the full lifecycle — from identifying new opportunities to deciding when a program should be redesigned, consolidated or sunset.
Evaluate AI proposals or data sharing requests with a clear understanding of the associated strategic, privacy and security implications, including alignment with rapidly evolving institutional policies and FIPPA or FOIP requirements.
Nine working sessions
The curriculum
Nine working sessions move from the decisions under the most pressure to the connective work — governance, systems, culture — that makes good decisions possible over time. Each session blends structured input from HESA and Plaid, candid peer discussion, and the occasional outside case study or guest perspectives.
Deciding under uncertainty
Enrolment in an era of uncertainty
Scenario planning over single-number forecasts.
Program viability & reallocation
How to decide what to keep, grow, scale back or sunset, and how to track performance over time.
Governance, trust & AI
AI governance & risk
Privacy, shadow AI, and auditability; readiness before opportunity.
Governance that works
Operational enablement through live metadata, clear ownership, and data lineage you can trust.
Who counts?
What is a student? An employee? A course? Definitions, institutional truth, and the cost of inconsistency.
From data to strategic decisions
Smart questions first
Defining the decision before collecting the data. Why are you collecting data – what questions are you trying to answer?
Making the case
Turning analysis into an argument that the Board, Senate and deans will act on.
Beyond the dashboard
Scenario-aware and conversational analytics.
From data to strategy
Aligning data work with institutional direction.
Investment
The model
Smart Data is offered through an institutional membership at $9,000 per institution: nine working sessions launching in Fall 2026, plus a data-readiness self-assessment, guest contributors, and two synthesis briefs. Institutions may designate a team of up to five senior leaders so that the cohort builds shared judgment inside each institution, along with cross-institutional sharing. Institutional teams may include leaders from portfolios like Provost, Vice Presidents, CIO, strategy leaders, registrar, institutional research, enrolment, and finance.
Get in touch
Interested in joining the founding cohort or exploring whether Smart Data is a fit for your institution?
Schedule a conversation[1] Study permit holders and 2026 issuance targets: IRCC, 2026 provincial and territorial allocations under the international student cap (November 25, 2025). Decline in new student arrivals: IRCC, 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration (2026–2028 Levels Plan annex).
[2] New study permit approvals versus IRCC forecasts, 2024–2025: Office of the Auditor General of Canada, International Student Program Reforms (2026).
[3] Ontario's four-year, $6.4-billion postsecondary funding commitment, announced February 2026: Government of Ontario.
[4] Usher, A., Balfour, J. & Jeon, J. (2025). The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada, 2025. Toronto: Higher Education Strategy Associates.
[5] Usher, A., Jeon, J. & Balfour, J. (2026). The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada, 2026 [blog]: https://higheredstrategy.com/the-state-of-post-secondary-education-in-canada-2026/