Regular readers will know that one of my hobbies (in fact, other than family and higher education policy, pretty much my only hobby), is that I’m a fairly obsessive fan of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Sometimes the streams cross – we’ve been to a number of European countries in recent years on our Study Tours, I’ve been blogging on European HE for Eurovision week for a while now, and both last year and in 2023 I was graciously allowed to run a session at Membership Services Conference on Why SUs are like Eurovision (and what we can learn from the world’s most watched televised live event).
I often wonder what would happen, for example, if in an SU every academic society (and only academic societies) were allowed to put up one candidate for sabbatical President – and we told students that they could vote for any candidate other than their own.
We might end up with more, more diverse, and more experienced candidates. We might get the “least unpopular” winner in a similar way to the way that STV voting does – because a candidate would have to secure broad as well as deep appeal.
There would be all sorts of interesting horse trading between bits of a university’s student body that reflect real politics. And just as in Eurovision national finals, we’d have to accept that plenty of really good candidates (songs) often don’t end up on the (Eurovision) stage at all.
It’s not going to happen, of course, but “big metaphor” thinking can be really useful in challenging your assumptions and getting the brain going on possibilities. And as such, in a way that’s hopefully more helpful, I’ve been thinking about the trend in recent years towards faculty-based sabbs, “super reps”, school and faculty convenors and such like.
And I’ve also been thinking about the abject, dismal failure of 2022’s American Song Contest.
Christer on a bike
Big talent shows have a long history in the US – American Idol is still running over there – but after the X Factor failed and rating for The Voice started to falter, back in 2022 one man from Sweden had an idea.
Christer Björkman, the architect behind Sweden’s successful Melodifestivalen (which is used to pick their Eurovision entry) thought he might be able to replicate the formula that had worked so well in Scandinavia.
His vision for the American Song Contest was to create a platform where each US state could bring its unique cultural identity to the stage, generating the same kind of grassroots support and competitive energy that fuels Eurovision.
Björkman thought that the US’s regional diversity might mirror the national pride seen in Europe, offering a musical melting pot that celebrated different styles and voices. But while the ambition was clear, the execution struggled to translate Eurovision’s community-driven ethos into a country where the necessary regional infrastructure and cultural rivalries hadn’t been cultivated – leaving ASC without the grassroots connections it needed to succeed.
As each week went on and ratings faltered, you could see how the network was tinkering with the format, the pacing, the presentation and even the rules in an attempt to make it work. But ultimately, it failed – and will almost certainly be looked back on as a doomed attempt to import European culture to a US audience.
Why ASC failed
But it’s not necessarily clear that it was just a cultural issue – and may well be that that was an excuse. Eurovision thrives because of a quite deeply embedded sense of national pride – and the unique, grassroots processes by which most countries select their entries. National competitions like Melodifestivalen in Sweden, Sanremo in Italy or even Supernova in Latvia create massive local buy-in long before the big night in May.
Fans feel connected to “their” song because they’ve seen it compete, debated its merits, and rooted for it to represent their identity on an international stage. And then come the big week(end) in May, that enthusiasm spreads with huge press interest in the often uncontrollable and unpredictable tales of individual artists and entries and their often “interesting”attempts at staging.
The problem was that the American Song Contest lacked those crucial elements of local ownership and investment. A centralised, heavily branded approach seemed more like a generic talent competition, and it felt disconnected from the states it was meant to represent.
Without state-level engagement, fans had no real stake in the entries. There weren’t regional competitions where communities could rally around their song, argue its worth, or feel like they had a hand in sending their representative to the national stage. It came across as manufactured rather than organic.
States also don’t have the same cultural identity that countries in Europe do. While Eurovision taps into deep, often playful rivalries and centuries-old histories, American states don’t carry the same kind of independent cultural weight. It’s true that Texas and California have distinct vibes, but they don’t have national anthems, flags (in the same sense), or ambassadors performing on a global stage. So the stakes felt lower – and the pride much less personal.
Eurovision also works because the participating countries genuinely share in its governance and evolution. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), through its heads of delegation, ensures that every broadcaster has a say in decisions. The meetings act as a collaborative, almost parliamentary system where concerns, ideas, and feedback from all corners of Europe are heard. That makes countries feel like active stakeholders – rather than just participants in someone else’s game.
The American Song Contest wasn’t like that. The show felt like a corporate product developed by a single entity (NBC). States were more like props or passengers than co-creators, which undercut any sense of shared ownership. Eurovision succeeds because it treats its participants as equals, no matter how small their population or how successful their previous entries. Everyone has a seat at the table—whether they’re a perennial powerhouse like Sweden or a wildcard like San Marino. That inclusivity feeds into the contest’s democratic spirit, making it feel like a festival of Europe rather than for Europe.
The rotating host system helps too. When a country wins Eurovision, it gets the opportunity to host, giving it a chance to showcase its culture, traditions, and creative vision to a global audience – as well as bringing something new to the staging and branding. Portugal managed a minimalist focus on the sea in 2018, and Ukraine infused Slavic folklore and resilience in both 2017 and 2023, when Liverpool hosted on its behalf. The host country’s distinct character each year is a key part of Eurovision’s identity—it’s a show with continuity, but not repetition.
But the American Song Contest was entirely centralised. No matter who won, there was no sense of anticipation about how a future host might reinterpret the event. The show didn’t have a built-in mechanism for regional or state-specific ownership to grow year over year. Instead, it was static – produced with a single vision that never handed creative control to the “winners.” Without the excitement of seeing how, say, Louisiana or Oregon might put their cultural spin on hosting, it missed out on the reinvention that keeps Eurovision fresh.
What’s that you say? What on earth has all that got to do with students’ unions? Well.
Dividing the student leader pie
In recent years plenty of SUs have been experimenting with elected officer positions that represent particular parts of a university – faculty-based sabbs, school convenors, departmental super-reps, and so on.
The theory is always that previous groups of officers haven’t been sufficiently academically broad enough to enable an SU to present a credible face to the university, and nor have they helped the SU to be fully and authentically representative – so as well as (or in some cases instead of) cutting the student leader pie by portfolio, it’s been cut by programme(s).
The problem is that in many cases, it hasn’t really worked. Many of those who’ve ended up in those positions have found a role in search of objectives – few students to work with, a set of pretty centralised SU services and initiatives they are notionally in charge of, and an election where even the chance to vote for your “own” leader can feel just like last year’s election rather than something that “feels” authentic.
Freshers week is centralised. Freshers fair is centralised. Advice is centralised. Support for socs is centralised. That big campaign or welfare project is centralised. Where does that leave faculty or school or departmental reps or officers – sales reps for the centre?
That’s not to say that every rep or officer in a role like that has failed – there are examples of outstanding representation going on in some of those unions with distinctive change happening – but generally, my guess is that the solution is fairly “top down” and centralised rather than growing the communities that will grow those student leaders and create what should feel like a progression from a student helping out to a student being in charge.
School plays sell out
One thing that really brought it home to me recently was a conversation with an SU officer about leadership. They were clear that the CEO was the “leader” of the staff – but what (or who) were they a leader of? It’s too easy to say “students” when underpinning structures feel weak – which students? How? Especially when these student politicians’ diaries are full of meetings with those who we represent students to, but not representatives of those students themselves.
I suspect that faculty-based sabbaticals or departmental reps, much like ASC state representatives, can feel like leaders in search of a constituency. Without strong, pre-existing communities to anchor those roles, they risk becoming hollow constructs – important in theory but disconnected from the ground-level engagement needed to give them real substance, relevance, direction or support. Student leaders need people to work with and co-ordinate, and people to hold them to account. Sometimes, we elect them and plonk them there, and they have neither.
The key similarity for me is the absence of authentic community-building that precedes these roles. In Eurovision, those months of national competitions (with we don’t tend to hold in the UK) build pride, debate, and investment long before the main event. Likewise, a successful SU model probably need to focus on cultivating strong academic communities – groups of reps planning together, academic societies, faculty or departmental events to help out after Freshers, and lots of opportunities for grassroots involvement in that academic area that naturally evolve into leadership roles.
Instead of feeling like an organic progression, these positions I think can come across as imposed, where the infrastructure for meaningful participation hasn’t been fully cultivated. That leads to the same issue both ASC and faculty-based positions face – a centralised solution that doesn’t feel representative or authentic to the people it’s supposed to serve. And that lack of underpinning inclusivity feeds into the spring election’s democratic spirit – making it feel like a festival of the SU rather than of students.
Boom bang a bang
I think there are many ways an SU might turn that around. Faculty or departmental welcome events – properly devolved down to a coordinating group of students to plan and lead them – don’t have to be broadway musical quality, because school plays sell out. Crucially, students can see other students making them happen – and want to be the one organising them next time (or at least, for those on one-year PGTs, in January).
Bigger and better supported academic societies is one option, as is “mini SUs” in each faculty of the sort we see across Europe. I’ve talked before about being careful, if that sounds out of reach, of never treating course reps as individuals, but causing them to meet in groups and plan projects and initiatives together.
There’s also something about faculty-specific things – SU awards nights tend to celebrate reps and socs, but at that level many SUs in Europe just have faculty based events celebrating student achievements. Why aren’t student-led teaching awards a Grand Final that build on school and faculty versions? Why aren’t nursing students invited to run a project on placement attribution, or business students encouraged to run a huge case competition? And so on.
Duties matter too. The first societies coordinator I ever worked with once said that the problem with societies rather than sports clubs is that they have fixtures, and they want to do better than last year in them – but what do Faculty sabbs or School convenors have that feel like tentpoles in the calendar to make better next year?
Making this year’s departmental matriculation event, or student faculty festival, or even just “they are each asked to submit a proposal for SU priorities to the AGM” provide the sorts of rhythms of improvement that students can see themselves contributing to and going on to lead.
I could go on – but hopefully you see the point. That Saturday night that people see in May is important – it’s technically amazing, with a big budget, well produced and run in a very slick way – just as most SU elections are.
But the fuel for the success isn’t just wizzy cameras or a clever voting system – it’s the country-by-country scaffolding, and the way that whole nations, for months on end, fuel the final 36 participants through what they are doing to select and champion their entry along the way. And it’s the way that almost every entrant always says that they’re proud to represent their country – and had dreamed of doing so since they were young.
Put one way, as Christer Björkman learned the hard way – you can either treat SUs and their student leadership as a new album of songs led by a centrally run talent search, or like a Now! Album that’s a compilation of existing hits. It’s almost certainly the latter that will make the most students feel involved and represented – and give the team the credibility that universities sometimes say it lacks.
Put another way, if you grow the capacity of the countries or faculties or communities or whatever to have a thriving community and a distinct culture, they’ll eventually work out how to have a successful contest to decide who leads all on their own. But if you’re only organising the contest itself, you’ll often struggle to get countries and candidates involved at all.
