Professor Sherria Hoskins, Provost, provides an update on the University's Academic Reset. In response to feedback received during the collective consultation, a number of changes were made to the business case, with the updated proposal now approved by UEB.
I am writing to provide an update on our Academic Reset.
As you will know, the initial stage of Academic Reset has two key purposes. First is to rebalance our academic staff numbers to reflect changes in student numbers, teaching intensity, and income, including research innovation income, ensuring that whatever programme area students are studying they have the right level of staffing support. Second is to ensure that we are utilising the income we receive from student fees as efficiently as possible, by reducing duplicated leadership and administrative workloads through the merger of school management structures.
A proposal outlining the plans for new structures and staffing arrangements was shared with colleagues that could be impacted by the changes for their feedback. The collective consultation ran for 64 days, ending on 7 May. We want to thank you for the extensive feedback provided during this process.
As a result of the valuable feedback we received, a number of alterations were made to the proposals. These included changes to the selection scoring criteria, an update to the methodology for calculating the student:staff ratio target, and further development of staff workload mitigations.
The reviewed proposal was submitted to, and approved by, UEB on 13 May. You can read the final business case online.
The number of roles that are being proposed for redundancy through Academic Reset is now 20.36 FTE. All impacted staff were notified on 15 May, with details of what roles are available to them, and what the selection process will be for these. We remain fully committed to supporting all impacted staff and liaising with relevant trade union groups.
A summary of school mergers in the Faculties of Creative and Cultural Industries, Science and Health and Technology that are part of Academic Reset, have also been published.
At the conclusion of the Academic Reset programme, I will write again to provide a written update on the changes that have been implemented.
Thank you for your continued support of colleagues impacted by these changes.