My first 100 days

As I approach the completion of my first hundred days at Sussex, it seemed a good time to reflect on what we have accomplished so far.

Planning the future: For me, an early priority was the establishment of a robust process for planning our future. I must congratulate Paul Layzell and the planning team for their creative and energetic approach to making this work. I have particularly valued the many face-to-face meetings that have taken place during the last few months, the multitude of helpful comments received through the ‘questions of ambition’ consultation and a large number of informal, unsolicited commentaries provided by staff, students and alumni.

The majority of respondents to the questions of ambition were positive, which encourages me that Sussex is indeed ready for “step change”. Most of us seem to accept that Sussex is not where it should be in any of the currently published League Tables and that continuing with ‘business as usual’ is simply not an option.

We will need however to address a number of concerns: what will happen to researchers who may not find an obvious place in one of the new cross-cutting research themes? How will we deal with departmental and school deficits and is cross subsidy on the current scale acceptable in the longer term? How will we diversify our main income streams to reduce financial vulnerability in the future?

Council and Senate recently discussed the results of the ‘ambitions’ survey and supported the processes to refine the nature and content of the proposed Sussex research themes and to identify innovations in our approach to teaching and learning, such as flexible learning and technology enhanced learning, and the further work up of some totally new teaching programmes to make our portfolio more attractive.

Joanne Wright (PVC Education) and Bob Allison (PVC Research) are already assembling groups of individuals to begin working on these tasks. If you have ideas as to how we move these agendas forward please get involved and directly influence Sussex’s future.

I must also congratulate Bob for organising the ‘Research Christmas Stocking’ event which attracted more than 250 academics to a ‘research dating party’ aimed to facilitate new research collaborations across disciplines and provide another opportunity to populate the research theme concept with new ideas.

Growth: I am keen that we should achieve significant growth through this planning process, both in student numbers and research grant and contract income. We shall be paying particular attention to the development of programmes that will attract undergraduate and postgraduate students from overseas, and will ensure that we publicise appropriately those research activities in the University that will be attractive to international students.

Senate has just considered a proposal to establish a Doctoral School at Sussex which we anticipate will provide additional cohesion to the campus experience of our post graduate research students. This will not in any way detract from the vital roles that supervisors and departments have to play but will ensure consistency of support across the University and provide new opportunities for academic and social interaction.

As we increase student numbers it will be vital to ensure that appropriate infrastructure is in place to support increased activity. I deeply regret the problems that we had with the new Stanmer Court development earlier this term. I can only thank Olly Crawley and all the other students who worked with us most constructively to get the building back on track. We certainly learnt something from the process and will ensure that we do everything possible to avoid similar debacles in the future.

Campus development: I believe we may need to expedite the campus development programme (‘The master plan’) to ensure that we have adequate high quality residences for home and international students, that the library and other learning resources can be used flexibly and are appropriate to take us forward in this 21st century, and that the social environment on campus for students and staff is amongst the best on offer. I am pleased that our library has come forward with an attractive proposal to dramatically extend opening hours. We will be monitoring usage during the Spring and Summer terms to assess whether this should become a permanent feature of campus life.

One complaint that has come to me directly from all parts of the campus is the lack of good quality social and eating space. To that end we have completed the first phase of the catering review which has recommended that we increase the quality and diversity of our current provision but reduce the number of outlets to enable this to happen within a financially efficient framework. The proposal was generally well received by staff and students who attended the recent open meetings, and we will therefore be taking this forward to the next stage. This will include a more detailed development plan and an early pilot to ensure that the approach will work in practice. I would hope that we will be able to provide excellent facilities for staff and students throughout the working day, and in the evenings and during weekends. I would like to think that in the future, ‘The Falmer Campus will never sleep!’

Partnerships: I have been talking to a number of important partners in Brighton and Hove and in the wider South East Region. Sussex’s future will depend on both having a sound local academic and financial base, and a network of serious partnerships.

We are actively working with Julian Crampton and his team at Brighton University to seek new opportunities to enable us to build on the success of BSMS. We are specifically looking at ways in which we might work more closely in a variety of academic areas such as creative arts, languages, social work and possibly other health related sciences. We are getting academic colleagues together from both Universities to consider the options for joint working to ensure that any emergent strategy is academically led. We are also part of a multi-member South East physics consortium which I hope will attract substantial HEFCE support and allow us to do something together which we could not do on our own. To facilitate the development of partnership working, I plan to host a series of social events over the next few months to bring together a variety of potential partners from industry, higher education, local and central government, alumni who have expressed a wish to work with us on new ventures and other friends of the university.

Organisational structure and leadership: Ultimately, once the future strategic directions of teaching and learning and research and enterprise have been defined, we will need to consider whether the current organisational model will be adequate to deliver the new vision. I plan to hold a series of meetings early in the New Year (as I did when we were discussing the ‘ambition questions’) to gather opinion on the desirability (or not) of further devolution of management responsibility and the organisational structure that is most likely to produce the best academic result for Sussex.

Whatever structure we finally opt for, we will need effective leaders at all levels. For some, leadership seems to come easily, for others it is less intuitive. I believe strongly that we must help our staff to prepare for leadership roles and to support them both during and after they have done the job. We are now offering ‘Ashridge training’ to current heads of department as part of this process. I would like us to feel that taking such a role at Sussex is something to aspire to, is part of professional development and is appropriately recognised and rewarded.

We have a lot still to do before this academic year is out. I would like to thank you all for the warm reception that I have received and for the support and enthusiasm I have witnessed to take Sussex forward to even greater heights.

Happy Christmas, Season’s greetings, Happy holidays etc. (depending on your penchant!), and a joyous and productive New Year.