Provost's Update No. 4 (May 2017)

Academic Resourcing Committee (ARC) planning

Much of the last 6 weeks has been occupied with work relating to budgets and plans for the next academic year. ARC has been required to make some difficult choices in relation to spending plans in order to meet the agreed surplus target. We’re now getting close to the required figure for 2017-18 although we’ve still got some work to do in relation to targets for 2018-19 and beyond. In order to invest in relation to the University’s strategic priorities, ARC has already approved a number of bids within year and has also prioritised a number of bids for the coming year. Of the bids approved in-year (and rolling forward), around £750k provide additional support for research related activity including doctoral training, investment in a small number of research posts, retention work and the appointment of D-PVCs and Academic Directors. A further £800k has been allocated for teaching focused initiatives (including ITLR), such as the Academic Directors for T&L, new Senior Tutor roles and a range of academic/professional services role to support student experiences and TQ.

For 2017-18, we received around £5m of bids for new spend. Some of these bids – most notably those relating to well-being and some marketing activity will be delivered via APSG. In addition, APSG is also investing to support teaching quality and research impact. ARC and APSG have been more closely co-ordinated and indeed, APSG has committed to reducing standard expenditure by around 5% in order to prioritise strategic investments (including £300k on research impact, £250k already committed to well-being and a further £140k planned and further resource in TQ and marketing).

Other remaining ARC bids have been prioritised, with a focus on T&L, Research, growth for new programmes, support for planned new programmes and STP). We have recently had agreement from Financial Plan Sub Committee (FPSC) to fund the top priority bids (total of £1.4m). This means that we can provide early feedback on decisions for at least a sub-set of Departmental bids. We will shortly be informing all those whose bids are included in this initial approval. In addition, we are working to build a case for a further bid to FPSC to release a the next set of bids (a further £1.4m). Currently we are aiming to make this request at the meeting of FPSC on June 5^th.

Higher Education and Research Act (2017)

As you’ve probably realised, the Higher Education and Research Bill made it into law before Parliament was dissolved for the general election. As a quick reminder, the key changes include

• Next year will see a new regulator and funding council for HE, entitled the Office for Students, which will hold the statutory responsibility for quality and standards, approve new entrants to the sector, and also the awarding of university title and degree awarding powers.
• The OfS will be empowered to make arrangements for assessing of the quality of teaching in universities, in an exercise currently branded as the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). A concession is that TEF will be reviewed independently by the end of 2019.
• Until 2020, the government is expected to allow tuition fees to increase by the rate of inflation for universities participating in TEF and meeting minimum eligibility requirements. After 2020, this can be linked to results in the TEF.
• The OfS will incorporate the functions of the Office for Fair Access. Universities will be required to publish information on the fairness of their admissions, and also information that could be considered “helpful to international students”.
• Universities will now be able to charge higher annual fees for courses that are taught over a shorter period of time, also known as ‘accelerated degrees’.

The seven research councils, Innovate UK, and the research functions of HEFCE, will be brought under a “single strategic research body”: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The research councils will maintain their existing composition within UKRI, but be subject to a single accounting officer. They will continue their existing duties, with added responsibility for interdisciplinary collaboration. A new body, Research England, will be responsible for quality-related (QR) research funding.

Induction and Development for new Heads of Department

This year sees quite a bit of change leadership in academic departments and the large number of new HoDs has provided a prompt for a revision to the existing induction programme. We will continue with an event (1.5 days) in mid-July to brief new HoDs on key features of their new role. And we’ll be looking for volunteers from among existing HoDs to contribute to this event, so we may be in touch with you. Thereafter, we’ll run a number of shorter, focused events during Autumn and Spring terms to explore a variety of themes relevant to the leadership role of HoDs.

Review of promotions process - stage one

In response to the feedback from the Pulse survey and concerns about the lack of clarity in relation to the academic promotions process, we have undertaken a piece of work to gather feedback on promotions and respond accordingly. The work is falling into two parts. The first stage is concerned with ensuring that the process and its operation are as clear as possible. This will result in some revised documentation coming forward which seeks to make it easier for individuals to navigate the promotions process. The second stage of the work will focus attention on the criteria for promotion to different levels and through different routes. We will be establishing a small task and finish group to lead on this and work will start in the next 6 months or so.

ARC capital bids

As part of the planning round activity, a sub group from ARC reviewed a range of capital bids to the academic equipment fund. The recommendation was for approx. £2.8m to be committed to new (primarily) research related expenditure with a similar amount being retained for in year investment including marching funding bids. Outcomes from this assessment will be available shortly.

Adam Waddingham : 26 May 2017 17:28 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem