All entries for Thursday 06 February 2020

Admissions Update

We have now passed the UCAS deadline for the submission of undergraduate applications. I know that you have already had an update on the numbers from SROAS so I won’t repeat that information. The reassuring information is that overall we’re ahead of the sector although we’re a bit behind our competitor set and international applications have held up more strongly than domestic applications. Notwithstanding this news, we feel that conversion activity over the communing months will be important as we work towards securing enrolment targets for the autumn intake. And it will come as no surprise to hear that PGT application growth is strong with substantial increase in international applications but continued downward pressure on HEU numbers.

Coronavirus Update

There are some important updates on the situation with respect to the coronavirus situation – a separate email on this will follow shortly.

League Tables

You will be aware that we regularly and routinely undertake analysis of the University’s league table performance, in both domestic and international rankings. And you’ll have seen periodic updates on insite on the outcomes for individual tables. I thought it might be helpful to share some of the analysis that was presented to Council towards the end of last year (see attached). This uses a relatively simple method to assess our positioning jointly in relation to both the international and the domestic rankings. It offers a strong message around Warwick’s performance relative to many of its competitors, highlighting strengths across both sets of rankings. The League Table Group sees the rankings as essentially crude indicators of our underlying performance in research and teaching; but we’re also aware that despite their limitations they are used by a variety of stakeholders. Accordingly, we continue to monitor and evaluate league table performance and we work closely with colleagues in marketing to explore how best to promote the reputation of the University for the quality of its research and teaching.

Pulse Survey

The Pulse Survey is still open for responses and there will be some further reminders going out to colleagues to encourage completion. The current response rate stands at around 59% - a little bit lower than at this time last year with some of the lower response rates being in academic departments (and I think you may have already had some Department specific information on this). When the reminders about survey completion come out it would be great if you could encourage colleagues to complete the survey. It is something that is taken seriously and is subject to careful consideration – including the free text comments which are of value in understanding the range of issues that are of concern to staff.

Sustainability

Following on from the Climate Emergency Declaration at the start of this academic year, we have established a “Climate Emergency Task Force” help co-ordinate and drive the actions we need to take to meet the carbon targets that have been set. The group has started its work and you can expect to see more information about the work that is currently being done around energy, buildings and transport as well as new initiatives including work around travel policy and offsetting. The brief given to the Task Force is as follows:

• Make recommendations to enhance the consideration given to issues of environmental stability within University structures and governance .
• Engage with relevant professional services departments (including Estates and Procurement) to map and inform work programmes directed towards carbon neutrality (scope 1, 2 and 3).
• Engage with Faculties to inform departmental planning through mapping of educational and research activity, and identify opportunities areas to reduce scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions. For example, finding ways of using less space in carrying out University activity will directly reduce carbon emissions and be more financially sustainable.
• Evaluate current environmental sustainability activity in the context of the University’s policies relating to environmental sustainability, the climate emergence and broader corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks. (Appendix 2 ISO 26000 - Guidance on social responsibility).
• Engage with CCSG in relation to its Sustainability Strategy
• Map current and planned activity, identify gaps and draft a Roadmap for Environmental Sustainability.

We will be asking academic departments to think about local interventions that might have a positive impact on our emissions (you’ll see this on the ARC planning pro forma) and we’ll send out some further guidance on things that might be considered at Departmental level. We are working on travel policy and there’ll be a further update on this as soon as we have been able to make progress.

Size and Shape 2.0

Following on from the work that was completed in 2018 regarding the broad plans for institutional size and shape, we are now starting to explore the next phase of this work and to give some thought as to what our portfolio of degree programmes might need to look like moving towards 2030. Some of you will have already started to look at restructuring and refreshing core curricula and Education Executive is encouraging and supporting additional review and refresh work. But there are longer term questions about how disciplines are developing; how student expectations may evolve and how career and employability expectations may change. All of these will have a bearing on what we should be delivering at the end of the current decade. Within ARC and beyond, we are staring to give some thought to this and during the planning round, we are keen to hear more from you on the longer term developments in your discipline areas.