MCDS Is Coming. Here’s What Every University CIO Should Be Planning for in 2026

The higher education sector has been crushed by IT complexity; juggling excessively complicated ecosystems and accelerating demand against limited resources, capability and budgets. Couple this with seismic technical disruption and it’s no wonder most institutions are struggling just to keep things afloat. 

2026 could be the year it starts to change.

You may have heard about the MortarCAPS Data Standard (MCDS) over the last year. Put simply, it’s the common data language the industry has been waiting for. There has been fanfare, excitement, and healthy scepticism. Though surprisingly little pushback... apart from some entrenched incumbents. Co-founded by CAUDIT it has gained almost universal support across the HE sector in ANZ, and some global reach with Canada embracing it.

This last year has been spent defining the initial versions. Now the first pilot implementations around MortarCAPS Data Standard are coming online, and vendors are starting to move. When we began designing MCDS, we anticipated vendor engagement; we didn’t anticipate this level of momentum. Salesforce, AWS, TechnologyOne, Workato, Microsoft, many others, they’re all leaning in. Standard solutions and interoperability are on the horizon.

Is this the silver bullet the sector has been needing? Quite possibly. Obviously take my view with a healthy dose of that scepticism, but the traction is breathtaking.

My view is that alignment to MCDS must be a core part of your IT strategy going forward. Ask yourself, does your organisation have a firm grasp of what it is and what that means? Do you, for example, know what is happening with recognition of prior learning and sharing of curriculum data? Or do you know what is happening with a common analytics model?

So the smartest thing you can do in 2026 is start early. You don’t need to implement the standard tomorrow, but you do need to understand where and when it touches your world. It’s time for your enterprise architects to earn their keep and start baking it in.

If you're planning your roadmap, start . 

Check out our MortarCAPS Data Standard playbook and Self-Assessment pack: https://ingenuity.com.au/mcds-playbook-readiness-assessment/. Or if a conversation is easier, reach out, 20 minutes now usually saves six months later.