Higher education institutions face increasingly complex challenges in responding to rapid changes in the era of globalization and digitalization. This study aims to explore the influence of supportive leadership, social network capability, and cultural intelligence on adaptive university performance in State Universities with Legal Entity Status (PTN BH) in Indonesia. Supportive leadership is predicted to enhance motivation and collaboration among individuals, while social network capability enables universities to build broader connections to support innovation and sustainability. Meanwhile, cultural intelligence is hypothesized to play a key role in helping organizations understand and adapt to diverse cultures in a global context. This research adopts a quantitative approach using a survey method, involving respondents from the deanship of PTN BH across Indonesia. The collected data will be analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to identify direct relationships between variables. This study is expected to provide both theoretical and practical insights into the importance of combining supportive leadership, social networks, and cultural intelligence in supporting universities’ adaptive performance. Furthermore, the findings are anticipated to serve as a foundation for policymaking to enhance the competitiveness of higher education institutions at the national and international levels.