Vice Chancellor's Office

Organisational structures for growth

2008-05-29T11:55:00.001+01:00

Our ambitious plans for growth command support from across the University. We now need to ensure that we have the right structures for delivering that growth in the years ahead.

Senate subjected proposals for organisational development to extensive and detailed scrutiny and discussion this week. I am of course pleased that, after due consideration, Senate formally welcomed the proposals and recommended to Council that they should approve the creation of new schools.

What struck me most was the honest and straightforward expression of views in the meeting. We had a mature and considered debate, drawing in views from all parts of the University - academic staff, deans and heads of department, Professional Services and support staff, and students.

I clearly heard in discussion the sense of disenfranchisement from current decision-making that is felt by many of the staff and students who sit outside formal management and representative roles. I believe this to be at the core of many of the issues and concerns being discussed.

We have endeavoured to engage and involve people in this process, and much positive work has happened. But I am committed to ensuring that, in setting up and running our new structures, we fully involve and engage staff and students. Indeed, one of the express goals of the new flatter structures is to involve more people in key strategic decisions.

Not least, this is because the growth and development of the University is not something that is going to be delivered by me or members of my executive alone. As I said to Senate, it will be realised only by all of us working collectively together.

Senate discussions also reinforced the importance of disciplinary identity. I have been clear that maintaining this in any structure is vital, for staff identity and for the student experience. How we achieve this, while giving real autonomy and freedom to the new schools in how they run themselves, will need careful thought.

I also heard clearly the importance of ensuring that our support staff, who have rightly allowed this academic debate to move forward over recent months, have the reassurance that their interests are properly considered in the next phases of work.

There remain important details to be worked through - in terms of governance arrangements, management structures, appointments processes and so on. With support for the principles of academic organisation now in place, we can embark on working through these matters in earnest.

We will be creating robust and professional project-management arrangements for implementation - with oversight from a representative board, as agreed at Senate. We will also want to learn the lessons from the last restructuring and from experience elsewhere in getting this process right for Sussex.

In all of this, the importance of sustaining the student experience as changes are seen through is paramount, as eloquent testimony from students at Senate with experience of change elsewhere bore witness to.

Finally, I believe that Senate started to share a sense of the significant academic opportunities that lie ahead within these new structures. Now that the direction of travel has been set, I am confident that we can start to build that positive future together.

Developing our organisational structures

2008-05-15T11:05:00.002+01:00

We have this week published the Senate paper that sets out proposals for developing our organisational structures.

I want all staff and students to read and reflect on that document, and understand why this evolutionary development is being proposed now.

As I said at the open meetings with staff on Tuesday (13 May), it is important that we get our organisational structures right to ensure we can deliver the ambitious growth agenda that is envisaged for Sussex.

I do not believe that our current structures are optimal for this. For example, two-way lines of communication between departments – which are the academic heart of the University – and the senior executive are too long. In a range of ways, responsibilities and accountability at departmental, school and institutional levels are unclear. As a result, Sussex finds it difficult to respond in a timely and flexible fashion to new opportunities and challenges.

The plans now before Senate would devolve financial and management responsibility much closer to the academic heart of the University, and at the same time create a direct connection between our academic leaders and the executive. Such structures would support faster decision-making and involve a greater number of leaders in key strategic issues.

The proposals would create a new set of around 12-14 academic units that become the primary focus for planning, resource-allocation and management purposes. These units would need to have a certain critical mass and would be formed from one or more of the existing academic departments.

Some people have asked if we can go further and push responsibility to existing departments. I do not believe we can do this with the current size of all of our departments. But I see this as a flexible structure, which can develop as academic areas grow and change over time.

The new units formed of more than one current department are likely to be most effective when related disciplines are brought together. While this should have benefits in terms of strengthening inter-disciplinarity, it is also vital that disciplinary identity remains in place – and our new structures would provide for this.

The proposals set out in the Senate paper are not invented by me or my executive. They are based on discussions with deans, heads of departments and other staff, and reflect academic responses to the opportunities provided by this framework for devolution.

Appointing strong and effective heads of school and providing the right support would be important for making these new structures work. All heads would be members of a new university senior management group, which would include the current executive group and would meet regularly to look at key strategic issues.

Once decisions have been made, we should move with due speed, but taking time to get the implementation right. I see 2008-09 as a transitional year, working towards new structures operational in 2009 – with current systems and processes maintained as the new ones are developed. This includes the important matter of aligning the professional and support services with the new structure.

We will ensure that any of the changes proposed are properly managed and that staff are fully informed and supported during the change process, and will do our utmost to ensure staff and students see how they will benefit from these developments.

You can access the document and comment.

Embracing the growth agenda

2008-03-06T09:22:00.000Z

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.

From function to organisational structure

2008-02-06T14:23:00.000Z

Getting the right academic structures will be important for achieving the ambitious plans emerging in the green paper on the University’s strategic plan.

During the past few months there has been wide debate about a range of academic developments that might be required to create a step change in our academic activities at Sussex. The future size and shape of the University is becoming clearer and current high-level thinking has been articulated in the green paper which is being considered widely across the University.

At meetings I had last term with academic staff from across the University that helped to inform these academic developments, I took the opportunity to discuss some aspects of our current organisational arrangements, particularly the relationship between departments and schools.

Most departments expressed a strong wish to have greater autonomy, including direct control over their financial resources, in order better to meet the needs of staff and students and to achieve their teaching and research goals. At the same time the value of schools and the work done by Deans was highly regarded. I was told that any change to the organisational structure should be evolutionary and should be implemented as soon as possible. The need to continue to recognise individual academic disciplines, however small, within the structure was also widely supported.

I have had now meetings in recent weeks with academic staff to explore the implications of these ideas further. Devolution of responsibility to departments would be difficult under the current structure, which has nearly 30 such units of widely varying size. Such devolution could however work effectively with a smaller number of units, possibly by creating clusters of related activities.

Maintaining a strategic level above departments could also be achieved, although it might be more efficient to reduce the number of these larger groupings, so there is a clear downward flow of administrative support to departments.

High-calibre leadership at all levels would be an absolute requirement: there would need to be a clear commitment by the institution to prepare, support and reward individuals taking on these new roles. This organisational model would inevitably bring the departments and the executive much closer, especially with respect to budget setting and financial management.

At the planning conference for more than 80 senior academic, Professional Services and support staff on Friday 1 February, we discussed a concept of three faculties – Science, Arts and Social Sciences – with departments of these new faculties aggregated in such a way that they each have a minimum of about 30-35 FTE (full-time equivalent) academic staff, but at the same time preserve the identity of individual disciplines.

I have now asked that Deans work speedily with Heads of Department, School Administrative Managers (SAMs) and Technical Services Managers (TSMs) to make recommendations by the end of this term about the possible academic groupings within such new faculties. As soon as we have a mature proposal then clearly this will need to be considered by Senate and Council.

Support staff structures would be developed to match and support the new academic structures – with SAMs and TSMs working with Professional Services teams to develop options, ensuring the right support is provided at each level

I should emphasise that this evolution of our organisational structure is not about cutting costs but is aimed to devolve resources and responsibilities deeper into the institution, to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the management process and to speed up decision making.

The papers on this are available at www.sussex.ac.uk/vc/ambition

Taking our ambitions forward

2008-01-25T16:36:00.000Z

I am keen that everyone in Sussex should take the opportunity to read and comment on the Green Paper which takes forward the preparation of a new Strategic Plan for the University.

I am pleased that, with the endorsement of our Council, we’ve published this week the Green Paper which lays out the proposed basic framework for the emerging University Strategic Plan and identifies more of the key strategies needed to deliver the plan, putting a sense of scale and detail around these ideas.

It also presents a series of questions for the wider University community to comment upon. You can access it at www.sussex.ac.uk/vc/ambition and I want to encourage everyone to read and respond to it: to be an effective plan this needs to be owned by us all.

The document explicitly builds on the earlier and extensive consultation throughout the autumn term on the “Setting the Scope of our Ambitions” document. I am grateful to the hundreds of staff and students whose ideas and involvement have taken us forward to this stage.

For example, based on these discussions, I am keen that we should sharpen the themes which we want to characterise Sussex – which might be around the “3 I’s” of “innovation, internationalisation and impact”. I want us to have a memorable, identifiable purpose and ambition. What do we want our University to be known for?

We have also begun here to put a sense of scale on the “step change” which these strategic plans imply – growing by 25% in terms of turnover above current plans for 2011; by 2,000 in terms of student numbers; a capital plan of £180m over 10 years. These are significant and serious ambitions for any institution. But with commitment, I am confident they are the right scale of challenging and ambitious targets we should aim for.

Much of the growth will need to come from research and business engagement, and the enterprise agenda will be a theme of the next Planning Conference for our Schools and departments in early February. But wider than this, I believe Sussex should place renewed emphasis on community engagement and outreach where we have much to offer and to gain.

I have already written in my blog about research themes before Christmas. PVC Bob Allison’s work continues, and the Green Paper itself does not yet draw out specific overarching themes, but provides a framework for their development, since they must draw on academic initiative, not top-down direction. But it is vital that these are seen as encompassing and open to all areas of University activity.

In relation to curriculum development, the work which PVC Joanne Wright has been supporting with different academic groups from across Schools and departments points to serious academic developments in areas such as business and management, international security, biosciences and creative arts. This reflects work already in hand – with business and management needing to be a strong and early area of growth.

I myself have started positive discussions with a range of colleagues about how we can strengthen leadership across the University, particularly reinforcing the role of heads of department as academic leaders and managers. How we can get the right sets of responsibilities at each level, and have the best organisation which flows from that? This needs to be organic development – building on the best of what we have, not ripping up the plant and starting again.

Finally, it is critically important to me that these plans are sustainable – whether financially or environmentally. Much growth will be delivered from our own efforts, bringing in new income from student numbers and research. But we should look to make use of external levers for change and development – for example in bidding to the HEFCE Strategic Development Fund, and the Green Paper flags this important initiative.

I repeat that want to continue to hear from colleagues in the Sussex community. Comments are invited on this next stage by Wednesday 19 March or sooner of course.
In the meantime I will want to discuss ideas at the open staff forum on 12 and 14 February and I look forward to discussion at Senate on 14 March.

All of this input and engagement will be vital in shaping the Strategic Plan which will then be developed for presentation in draft to Council on 4 April.

Cross-cutting research themes at Sussex

2007-12-18T11:40:00.000Z

Why should Sussex adopt the concept of cross-cutting research themes?

I have been asked this question on a number of occasions during the past 3 or 4 weeks so I thought I had better come up with a simple aide-memoire as to why I, at least, think it is a good idea. If you agree, you might find this slightly simplistic approach helpful when discussing the concept with others, both in and outside the University.

I would like to suggest that the key issues can be encapsulated as ‘The 3 i’s’:
Identity, Innovation and Income

Identity: I believe that the establishment of 4 or 5 major research themes for the University will help underscore Sussex’s research identity nationally and internationally. For me the themes should ‘big’ but not grandiose, and should be addressing major global issues by involving researchers from all of our major disciplines - arts and humanities, social sciences and science. The key questions which these themes attempt to answer should comprehensible to everyone. The themes will enable all of us to provide a brief but comprehensive answer to the question....’And what research is Sussex known for?’

Innovation: Sussex has a record of being at the leading edge of a number of research domains. Some of this innovation has arisen through the long tradition of inter-disciplinary working. The new research themes, in my view, will thrive in this environment and we should seek new ways to bring scholars from different disciplines together to fire up the process which will create the themes. Innovation through inter-disciplinarity! Another ‘i’, if you like!

Income: Sussex urgently needs to increase its research grant and contract income to ensure that it regains its rightful place in peer group league tables. I believe that the new themes will increase research capacity in both a virtual and a real sense. I predict that ‘big research groups’ with ‘big ideas about solving big questions’ will attract ‘big money’. I accept that ‘bigger is not always better’ but there are plenty of examples particularly in science and social science that large grants often go to large research consortia.

Please join the process to define the research themes and populate them with good ideas.

Contact Bob Allison, PVC Research to find out how you and your group can contribute.

My first 100 days

2007-12-12T14:22:00.000Z

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.