VC Bulletin March 2022

VC's Introduction

Like many colleagues I have been watching the news over the last few days with a sense of horror as events unfold in Ukraine. As a University we must do all we can to support our Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian staff and students at this extremely difficult and worrying time. I start my bulletin this month with a short reflection on this.

It seems incredible that it was two years ago that we first learnt about Covid. At the time I don’t think any of us could have predicted the impact that it would have on all our lives. Last week the Government removed the remaining legal restrictions in England and now we must learn to live with the virus. I reflect on these two years in this bulletin.

Since my last bulletin we have heard more from the Government on their response to the Augar Review and you can read my thoughts here. This, along with the OfS consultations on student outcomes and teaching quality, creates uncertainty for the whole HE sector. While we try to assess the possible implications of these reviews we mustn’t let them distract us from the work at hand and focusing on the things that we can control. With that sentiment in mind, in this bulletin I have a lot to update you on. I provide updates on our strategic imperatives and international student recruitment. I’m also delighted to share news about successes in research for both the Research Group into Breast Health and for Professor David Thurston, a former pharmacist at the University. These show the potential of the fantastic research that is undertaken here in Portsmouth.

I also share some stories I have received this last week about our students that show what fantastic students we have and how what we do at the University makes a difference to people’s lives in many different ways.

While the weather has been turbulent recently the longer days are welcome and it feels as though spring is on its way. This is such a busy and important time of year as we undertake vital teaching with final assessments for our students only two months away. Thank you to everyone for your continued hard work and I wish you well for the coming month.

Ukraine crisis

By now you will have seen my message to all staff and students about the crisis in Ukraine.  It is undoubtedly a heartbreaking situation for those involved and horrific to watch. We have made it a priority to contact all Ukrainian and Russian staff and students known to us to offer what support we can. If you know of a colleague or student impacted but not sure what to do, please help highlight the support available to them.

Like many other organisations and institutions we are urgently reviewing our educational, research and business partnerships and collaborations to assess any potential ties to Russian organisations that we may have. We must not inadvertently in any of our agreements and partnerships be supporting or appeasing a Russian regime that has initiated this terrible act of aggression.

As a University we are proud of our supportive and inclusive University. We welcome staff and students from across the globe, all nationalities, all taken on their merits as individuals. Sadly we have a number of staff and students who have experience of conflict within their homelands. That is why the work we are undertaking with city partners to make Portsmouth a City of Sanctuary is so important as well as our own endeavours to become a University of Sanctuary. We all want Portsmouth, and especially the University, to be a safe place for all.

While we do not have the power to directly influence the situation in Ukraine we can support each other and in particular our Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian colleagues and students. We will continue to watch the situation unfold and hope that soon peace will return to allow the Ukrainian people to return to the normal life in their country that they have the right to enjoy.

The Government’s (long-awaited) response to the ‘Augar Review’ 

Last month, the Government announced its response to the 2019 post-18 review of education and funding - the ‘Augar Review’. Deliberately or otherwise, the Government’s response highlights the independence of two things that people sometimes confuse as one. These are what universities are paid to educate our students – which is to remain at £9,250 per year per student for the rest of this Parliament – and what students pay for their education once they graduate – which is to increase. Whatever one thinks of the fairness of making graduates pay more, there is nothing the University can do to affect the Government’s decision.

We must focus on what we can control. This is providing our students with an excellent experience while they are with us, and setting them up for success once they leave. Nothing in the Government’s Augar response alters or affects this priority, although the fact that graduates will now pay more for their education reinforces the importance of both issues.

Our financial forecasts assumed fees would continue at £9,250 per year so the fee freeze also alters nothing for us. It will mean that since higher fees were introduced in 2012, they will only have been increased to keep their real value once in over a decade. As a university whose income is heavily dependent on home undergraduate teaching, this goes some way to explain our current tightened financial situation and highlights the importance of diversifying our income (so the news below on increased international student recruitment is very welcome).

Finances will remain tight for some time to come. This does not mean there will be no investment but it does mean any investment must generate a return and must deliver squarely in relation to our four imperatives.

Strategic Imperatives

This month there has been significant progress on a number of fronts aimed at addressing our strategic imperatives. First, every Faculty and Professional Service has been developing their local enhancement plan for the annual resource planning round, and in doing so they have been ensuring that they are targeting their resources on delivery of our strategic imperatives. This may well lead to some difficult decisions or trade-offs, but it is good to see that we are challenging ourselves as to whether an activity supports delivery of our imperatives.

Second, the Executive Planning Group (EPG) reviewed the progress against the areas of focus in the University Executive Board's (UEB) strategic imperative action plan. Whilst there is naturally a lot of detail that sits under the headline areas of focus I shared with you last month, the following are examples of the types of activities that are contained within the plan:

• Prioritised and funded short-term improvements to our campus estate including furniture in teaching rooms;
• External review of our sales funnel with a view to improving our overall attractiveness and conversion rates of applicants;
• Move of international admissions into UoP Global (and as you will read elsewhere we have doubled our target for international recruitment for our February intake);
• Earlier delivery of timetables for 2022/23 at least 4 weeks prior to the commencement of teaching;
• Review of our EQuiP quality enhancement process to ensure it is consistent with the new proposed Office for Students (OfS) quality thresholds for student retention and progression to professional employment/study;
• Introduction of a student enterprise programme (which to date has exceeded its target of 150 registrations);
• Launch of the Inclusive Leadership programme for staff.

I hope this wide ranging, but by no means exhaustive list, demonstrates that all of the University community have a part to play in addressing our strategic imperatives. It is pleasing to see the ambition, openness and responsibility being demonstrated by all colleagues to improve the experience and outcomes for our students. We know it will take time for our efforts to be rewarded, but we are undoubtedly making progress in the right areas and ultimately, through our collective hard work, we will succeed. 

International student recruitment

Student recruitment remains challenging and much work is being done across the University to increase the number of applicants, and importantly to convert those applicants into students.

But there is some good news as our international recruitment for the February intake exceeded our February target of 700 students with 1,400 students recruited. This offsets some of the 1,500 shortfall in UK students compared to target this year.

While student fees for full-time UK undergraduates remain fixed at £9,250 a year, there is greater flexibility for us to set international student fees which are dictated by market forces. This is significant as the potential to increase our income from international students could help us offset some of our rising costs including energy bills, national insurance contributions and changes to pensions.

Staff Inclusive Culture Survey - response rate and next steps

Thank you to colleagues who took part in last month’s Staff Inclusive Culture Survey to help us build a positive, inclusive culture for staff and students - different voices, one community. The final response rate was 52% which is an improvement on the 31% who responded to the previous gender culture survey in 2018, and the 33% who took part in the race equality survey in 2019. This reflects colleagues’ greater focus on equality, diversity and inclusion more broadly across the University. It is lower than the 69% for our more widely themed staff ‘pulse’ survey in 2021, but is in line with similar staff culture surveys across the sector, where our independent provider People Insight have found response rates have ranged from 30% to 60%.

We don't yet know the findings, as the responses have gone directly to People Insight to analyse and to maintain anonymity. Next steps over the coming weeks include a survey report which will provide an overview of the findings to help identify institutional level themes and areas of action. Every Executive Dean and Head of Professional Service will also receive access to the redacted survey findings (and their nominated EDI Representative), along with the Co-Chairs of the central University Athena SWAN and Race Equality Self Assessment Teams, and the HR Business Partners, to identify any local actions at a faculty or department level which are needed.

Adidas - researchers working in partnership

We pride ourselves on our ability to work collaboratively with industry and partners through our research and innovation. It’s exciting to see that our Research Group in Breast Health, headed by Professor Joanna Wakefield-Scurr, has been working in partnership with adidas - the major global sports brand - on their new sports bra collection from everyday use through to elite sports with a campaign featuring US Olympic skier Mikaela Shiffrin.

There are many other recent examples of working collaboratively with partners including developing marine craft maintenance prognostics, using eXtended Reality technology to boost the city’s visitor and cultural economy, improving governance across football nationally and applying traditional forensics to tackle wildlife poaching and trafficking. It’s encouraging to see us prioritising collaboration as a key part of our strategic imperative to increase our globally recognised research and innovation.

Reinvestment in research - spin-out company success

I’m also pleased to share a great example of how investment in research pays dividends over the long term. We’ve recently received a financial contribution of £260,000 from globally important research into anti-cancer medication, which was established at the University.

Spirogen Ltd, a spin-out drugs company co-founded in 2000 by Professor David Thurston, a former pharmacist at the University, was sold to AstraZeneca for $200m in 2013.

We agreed to sell our share in the company and as part of the deal, the University would receive payments when various stages of successful clinical trials took place including recent developments for the treatment of ovarian cancer and leukaemia. This is the second payment that the University has received, along with an initial lump sum.

The benefits of this type of investment are multi-level. Not only does this research benefit society, but it demonstrates our ability to develop collaborations and successfully translate globally impactful research through to commercial success. It also builds upon our international impact and reputation, whilst the money will be reinvested back into the University to support further research and innovation. We can also embed research and innovation expertise within undergraduate and taught postgraduate curricula wherever appropriate, and allow us to enhance our postgraduate research culture and grow our supervision capacity to support increased numbers of postgraduate researchers. I’d like to congratulate all involved.

New Enterprise Programme fully booked

This cross university and fully booked programme for students, staff and alumni, launches today (March 2) with over 150 registered on it. The programme will include the chance to win a £3,000 grant to develop the best business ideas, sessions from our Entrepreneurs in Residence, and the offer of a mentor to all participants. The team would welcome any colleagues who would like to volunteer as a mentor. For more information or to express an interest in being a mentor please contact alec.chapman@port.ac.uk. 

Covid now and then - two years since first lockdown

This month it will be two years since the Friday afternoon (13 March) when we took the decision to suspend all face-to-face teaching for students as a precaution against coronavirus. It was a decision which was unthinkable only a few days earlier, but within 24 hours the Premier League had suspended all football games, music events were being cancelled and other universities were taking similar steps. The following week colleagues started to work from home and by Monday 23 March, the Prime Minister made a televised broadcast to announce the first national lockdown. Very soon the streets were largely empty.

Now two years on we are in a different place, with the Government ending all legal Covid restrictions last week in England and free mass testing to stop from 1 April with the mantra of ‘living with Covid’. While some things have changed irreversibly (and for the better) such as our blended and connected approach to teaching and learning, many things have returned from pre-Covid times such as the upcoming Varsity and Global Week which were among the first of our events to be cancelled in March 2020. These events do so much to enrich the experience of University for our students so it’s great to see them back.

We are prepared and have plans in place should the threat of a new variant emerge, but I’m increasingly confident that 2022 will be a much better year than what we experienced in 2020.

Heartwarming reports about our fantastic students

My inbox is usually cluttered by public comments about our students from rubbish on the streets to rowdy behaviour in houses. It is rare to be given positive stories, but here are two I received this week that I think are worth sharing.

Firstly, the global office received an email from a 86-year-old resident of Portsmouth who was caught outdoors in the storm last week after the buses and trains were cancelled, having attended a hospital visit. She was frightened but was, in her words, ‘kept afloat’ by a student of the university who held her and walked her back to her home to safety. She was so grateful and discovered that he was one of our Bangladesh Students who said that he did it as he hoped someone would do the same and help his mother if she needed it. She is so impressed she wants to donate to the Bangladesh society. An amazing act of kindness which makes me proud of our students and reflects well on our international student community.

Secondly, I was also quite amazed to learn this week of one of our PhD graduates from Nigeria who graduated in 2012, but was writing to share his pride of his three brothers who have also all graduated from our University - two with PhDs and one with an MSc, with the latest graduation being at the ceremonies last year. He wanted to share his family's success and the fact they all have great jobs in both the UK and Nigeria. He wanted to express his gratitude to the ‘Great Team of the University of Portsmouth’!

What you do at the University really matters and does make a difference to people’s lives.