Sustaining educational leadership through critical-constructive mediation: the role of academic development units in Swedish higher education

This study examines how academic development units (ADUs) maintain and sustain educational leadership within Swedish higher education institutions. Drawing on a national survey of ADU directors and a purposeful subsample of five focus-group interviews including deans and programme leaders, drawn from a larger dataset, we use reflexive thematic analysis to explore how ADUs are described by participants as fostering continuity in educational leadership. Framed through the lens of critical-constructive academic development, the findings show that ADUs’ influence is primarily relational and epistemic; that is, enacted through sustained practices of dialogue, interpretation, and trust-building rather than formal authority. As organisational actors, ADUs mediate between educational strategy and pedagogical practice, interpreting institutional priorities while maintaining space for reflection and critique. The study reframes ADUs as mediating infrastructures of care and critique, illustrating how they are described as maintaining continuity in educational leadership through relational and epistemic practices within complex university systems.