Embracing the growth agenda

I am looking forward to discussion at Senate next week (14 March) on the development of the University’s strategic plan.

It is important we understand the context in which we are developing this strategic plan. Over the past five years, the University has had to manage a severe financial deficit, the impact of this on operations and staff, and growing areas of underperformance.

As such, an overall strategic plan has in the past been largely irrelevant, as the institution has had to fight for survival – with the consequent effect of under-investment in disciplines and some disciplinary areas under threat of closure.

Having started to turn the corner with respect to financial stability, the production of this new strategic plan can be created on an entirely different basis to previous plans. We have the prospect of developing the University from a position of strength.

Through difficult decisions in the past, the University today enjoys a very modest surplus that starts to create financial headroom to allow the University to reinvest in the academy. The aim of this plan is to use this surplus to grow the University and its disciplines in a sustainable fashion.

By developing increased critical mass, the University enhances its degree of independence and reduces the risk of external control from the Funding Council that would arise if it was felt that the University was ‘at risk’ from financial loss and resulting instability.

However, we cannot afford to be complacent, as this prospect of financial stability is one we need to work very actively to maintain and strengthen. The evidence sadly continues to amass that the current performance of Sussex is simply not an adequate basis for planning a successful future: achieving a step change in our performance is vital.

The most recent example is the annual grant letter, which we have just received from HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England). The grant – which reflects our performance in research, teaching and learning, and business engagement – will be about the same in cash terms in 2008–09 as it was in 2007–08. The effect of inflation means that this is a reduction in real terms.

Through prudent financial planning and cautious forecasting we had anticipated much of this – but that does not make the position an acceptable one, as it reflects contraction rather than growth in our core research and teaching capacity.

The new strategic plan unashamedly sets ambitious targets for growth and development – and identifies strategies in each area of activity through which we will seek collectively to achieve those targets. The alternative of simply maintaining the status quo is reduction in activity and decline.

The risk of inaction now is a threat to principles that Sussex holds dear and that all colleagues have said we must sustain. The white paper rightly restates upfront the principles of maintaining a broad disciplinary base and protecting high-quality but vulnerable subjects at Sussex. But they risk becoming little more than empty rhetoric if we cannot achieve this step change in performance.

I believe that the strategic, organisational and management directions of travel set out in the white paper are the right ones for a robust and successful future. I want discussion at Senate and Council to be grounded in the realities of our current circum-stances, so that we can seize the opportunities that lie ahead of us.