VC Bulletin June 2023

Vice-Chancellor's Introduction

I wanted to start my Bulletin this month with some very positive news. I am delighted to report that we are now back in the Top 50 of UK universities in the Complete University Guide, being ranked as 47th. That is a rise of 22 places from last year and is one of the biggest rises for any individual university this year. The significance of this rise is detailed below. 

June is also a significant month in our calendar with the end of the formal assessment period, a somewhat quieter campus as some students travel home for the summer and with the promise of our Graduation celebrations in July. 

But as one year comes to an end, we inevitably look at the next academic year with plans underway for 2023/24 and beyond. This is reflected in this Bulletin which looks back at our recent student and research success and a welcome visit from Australian partners, but with a focus on the months ahead.  

You will have seen the news about the Government’s recent proposals which could prevent international postgraduate students on taught courses from bringing family members to the UK from January 2024. There is a degree of uncertainty about these proposals as details have yet to be published. However, University Executive Board (UEB) members and colleagues across the University are looking at this closely and the impact this could have on student recruitment and support services, while drawing up plans to adapt to any changes.  There was concern that the changes could have gone further and be even more damaging for international student recruitment. This remains an area of concern for us and the sector generally, with the financial importance of international student recruitment very significant.

Such external challenges are always more difficult to predict, but what is clear is that the income we receive from home students will continue to remain fixed at least until a new government term of office begins and almost certainly not within their first year in office. This is within the context of continued cost escalations. The latest government led Transparent Approach to Costing data from the whole sector indicates that last financial year on average a financial loss of 6% was made for each home student taught. That figure will currently have increased significantly due to the effects of high inflation with the level of loss continuing to grow. We need to plan for these known challenges, including the potentially large increase on employer costs of between 5-10% predicted for Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS) pensions next year. This is why our ‘reset’ activities are so important - we need to take control of our future and make choices now as an institution to provide a secure financial footing to deal with such financial challenges and uncertainty. I would encourage you to read the ‘reset’ email and to engage locally in supporting the many enhancements to our operations that will be taking place over the coming 12-18 months. You can read more about some of our other activities in this bulletin.

I also have an update on our 2023/24 budget, and our newly published Education, Global, and Research and Innovation Strategies. Along with our People Strategy published last year, these strategies underpin our University 2030 Vision and 2025 Strategy to achieve our ambition to be the top modern university in the UK and one of the top 100 young universities in the world by 2030.

Rise in Complete University Guide

A rise of 22 places from 69th to 47th in the Complete University Guide is very welcome news, with a number of important factors contributing to this improvement as outlined in this article. 

We all realise how sensitive these league tables can be to small changes in National Student Survey (NSS) and Graduate Outcomes results, which means that some annual fluctuations are always to be expected, both upwards and downwards. However, externally these rankings do matter and at this time this is very helpful for us in terms of our student recruitment markets, particularly internationally. We should celebrate this result as a positive step forward after a challenging trajectory over the Covid years and following on from the rise in last year’s Guardian League Table, as well as our strong Research Excellence Framework (REF) results.

Of course we do not want to get carried away, but I think it is important to recognise the work that colleagues across the University put in day in and day out to provide excellent teaching and student support. While it is good therefore to celebrate such a result, it is also important to reflect on the fact that what makes us the University we are and gives us our success, is our determination to live our values alongside our shared sense of purpose in pursuing our long term strategic aims. 

Over the summer we can expect to receive our updated Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) results which will be seen as an even more important measure of teaching at our University and one that is fixed for a number of years. Achieving silver this time round would be a very good result that we can be proud of under the new more stringent methodology, but being awarded Gold would of course be exceptional. We don’t have a date for the release of the results, but we will let you know our results as soon as we can.

Away from waiting with some nervousness for these results, we continue to be focused on our reset activities. This will not only help us take more control of our future but will also benefit our ranking positions by ensuring our resources and efforts are focused on our key priorities. The aim for all these changes is to enable all of us to be as effective as we can be in doing what we do so well, teaching our students and delivering research with impact.

Our Reset in Action

Since I wrote to all of you back in March talking about ‘our reset’ a number of key programmes and activities are now well underway. I said we needed to work with confidence and at pace if we were really going to make the changes needed to set us up for long term success. That is exactly what has been happening and I want to provide you with a brief summary of some of these key activities here.

IT Moratorium and freeze of new role gradings

We’ve taken the difficult decision to implement two moratoriums. One is to pause on IT related purchases until July 2024. The other is to freeze any new role gradings and evaluations for six months. Both came into force on 1 June. These moratoriums will involve some short term pain for a few but they are important in order to review and assess current practices as well as freeing up resources (people and money) to focus on strategically important work that enables us to move forward with our plans. 

Leadership structures - Academic and Professional Services

UEB has also been reviewing options for leadership structures in key areas of the University. As you know Paul Hayes, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, will be retiring early next year and Bernie Topham will be leaving us in the summer. At the time of communicating their leaving I said that I would be taking some time to review the right structures going forward. 

To bring our academic leadership in line with much of the HE sector we have created the roles of Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education). The Provost will provide leadership of all aspects of academic life as well as acting as my deputy. The DVC Education will provide leadership across all areas spanning the educational experience of our students, strategic education partnerships and educational pedagogy. These roles are currently being recruited and more information will be supplied in due course. Both roles will report to me.

I have also been reviewing the leadership of our professional services following the decision by Bernie Topham, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, to leave us over the summer. The decision has been taken not to replace the COO role at this time as part of our overall approach to cost saving and I will take on direct line management responsibility for IS and Estates and Campus Services. Chris Chang, DVC (Global Engagement and Student Life), will take on oversight of Marketing, Advancement & Communications as well as Sport & Recreation, in addition to his current role leading DSAA. This structure will provide stability and clear lines of accountability while we consider the longer term plan for leadership of these vital areas of the University.

Building power outage

You will know that we have had a significant power outage impacting the Dental Academy, Library and Students’ Union buildings. Firstly I’d like to thank our colleagues in Estates and Campus Services for all they have done working with our external supplier SSE to try and identify the root cause and ensure a prompt installation of generators so that we could reopen these buildings.

They worked round the clock as these complex issues were assessed and an interim solution implemented. Our IS colleagues have also been amazing in their support to ensure networks and IT equipment were back on line. I’d also like to thank colleagues in the Dental Academy and Library who showed patience and flexibility at what would have been a very frustrating period. Our focus is on identifying the primary cause of the outage and implementing a permanent solution.

Situations such as these are always frustrating and far from ideal, but it’s also testament to our resilience that we can face these challenges in a pragmatic and professional way.

Education, Global and Research and Innovation Strategies

The University Strategy 2025 and Vision 2030 set out our overall ambitions and direction for the future - to be the top modern university in the UK and one of the top 100 young universities in the world by 2030.

UEB has approved four more detailed strategies to provide clarity on what we need to do to deliver our strategic imperatives and our overall Strategy 2025, and to ensure we are on course to achieve our 2030 Vision. 

The People Strategy, published in December 2022, led by Chief People Officer Fiona Hnatow, sets out our people-focused ambition and direction until 2030, while the following three newly published strategies set out our remaining priorities through to the 2025/26 academic year:

• Education Strategy - led by Paul Hayes, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor
• Global Strategy - led by Chris Chang, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement and Student Life)
• Research and Innovation Strategy - led by Jeremy Howells, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation and External Relations)

In essence, these underpinning strategies set out what we will do as illustrated in this graphic: 

All areas of the University will make a contribution to each of our four strategies by working in partnership.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets set in 2020 when we launched our University Strategy are being updated to reflect our current position in 2023 while maintaining our focus on our 2030 Vision. These updated KPIs and targets will be shared with colleagues to support engagement and progress monitoring across the University.

Accessible PDF versions of the Education, Global and R&I Strategies will be published in the coming weeks.

2023/24 Update on Budget Preparation

Work continues on the preparation of the 2023/24 budget. As previously indicated, the starting point for this work was a substantial deficit, caused in the main by the ongoing reduction in the recruitment of home full-time undergraduate students, increased levels of inflation and additional costs to support our strategic ambitions, for example the Digital Plan and Medical School. The actual budget that governors will be asked to approve in July will have a substantially smaller deficit than this starting point for a number of reasons:

Savings - all budget holders were asked to submit a Savings Template, outlining savings they would make to help the University achieve an acceptable budget for 2023/24. Templates were received from all budget areas. I know this cannot have been an easy task and I am very grateful to budget holders and their staff for the seriousness with which they undertook this.

Voluntary Severance Scheme (VSS) -  the total of VSS applications is now known and decisions will be made over the coming weeks. These decisions will also contribute to reducing the deficit for our starting budget.

You will understand that there are significantly more uncertainties in the development of the 2023/24 budget than would normally be the case. As well as the ongoing work on savings and VSS there remains uncertainties about student recruitment and continuation rates in September 2023. This means that the budget presented to governors will be subject to greater changes as management accounts are presented throughout the year. I will include updates in future bulletins to keep you informed.

The local and global impact of our researchers

The positive impact of our research in the local community has been a particular highlight in our faculties in recent weeks including: 

• Laurel Forster’s collaborative project which reached a significant milestone with the unveiling of a stone plaque in Guildhall Square to recognise those who took part in the Women's Community Activism project.
• Work to build the UK’s first “PLAYCE” in Portsmouth - a versatile and colourful exercise space based on a scientific model to encourage people to get moving.
• Nine fully-funded PhD studentships to explore Portsmouth’s heritage, culture and collections as part of a project with Portsmouth City Council.
• And a record 13 PhD bursaries awarded to Portsmouth through the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership, which are estimated to bring in over £1m of income to the University thanks to funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.

Our reach and reputation is also being extended onto the world stage, through international summits and conferences and the listening public:   

• Eun Young Oh's policy brief was presented to G7 Summit leaders in Japan with recommendations for how financial technology services could help low-income or disadvantaged groups.
• International experts in consumers’ behaviour and information systems will be drawn to Portsmouth later this month for the 8th Colloquium on European Research in Retailing, and 6th International Conference on Information and Knowledge Systems. Simone Gumtau will also be hosting the British Academy Summer Showcase which will include a film screening about ‘Art and Gender in South Sudan’ by Louis Netter and Tamsin Bradley.
• And our Life Solved podcasts featuring our researchers goes from strength to strength, recently hitting 10,000 subscribers with topics ranging from space’s epic fails, rulebreaking jazz music and how to survive a zombie apocalypse!

Well done to all involved.

Australian visitors on campus

Visitors from Edith Cowan University (ECU) - our Australian strategic partner university - were welcomed on campus, including their Vice-Chancellor & President Professor Stephen Chapman.

Both institutions share a commitment to support students’ development as global citizens and have partnered to develop a distinctive suite of undergraduate dual degrees. This new model of internationalisation builds on the strengths of both institutions, with the co-design of six programmes that give students the opportunity to receive two degree awards, one from each university. 

The dual degree courses have been co-designed by academic specialists at each institution and allow students to complete two years of study at their home institution followed by a year of study at the partner university and then return to their own institution for a final period of study before receiving two degree awards, one from each university.

Nineteen UoP students are due to travel for their period of study at ECU this July with our first cohort of ECU students arriving onto the UoP campus this September.

During the two-day visit, Professor Chapman visited our Faculties and Ravelin Sports Centre to see our first-class facilities in person. I joined him for a student mixer in Park Building where Professor Chapman was able to meet our students and answer their questions. It was a fun event with our highly engaged students. We were jokingly referred to as VC1 and VC2 (I of course had my opinion on which of the two of us was no.1, but unsurprisingly that was not a shared view!) 

This webinar for staff has more details about the partnership for interested colleagues. 

Celebrating our students

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than hearing about our students succeeding in meeting their goals, helping fellow students to achieve and showing new levels of commitment, passion and determination. It was good to hear student success stories at the recent Students’ Union Awards (UPSU) and Sports Awards where students have enriched the lives of their peers through sports clubs, student societies and events, and work in the wider community. Colleagues were also recognised at the Students’ Union Awards including:  

Exceptional Teaching Award - Jovana Radulovic (Head of the School of Mechanical & Design Engineering)

Student Partnership Awards Staff Award - Harriet Dunbar-Morris (Dean of Learning and Teaching) and Louise Fell (Sports Development Officer) with Anna Clodfelter (UPSU Chief Executive) and Megan Selley (UPSU Projects Specialist)

Congratulations all! 

I would like to thank colleagues who organised these memorable events for our students, as these celebrations are more than just feel-good moments. They can propel students forward by recognising and celebrating excellent role models and in doing so motivate others. I am very proud of our students, and I know you share that sense of pride, our very reason for existing as a University being for the success of our students and our partners.

Next staff engagement events

There are two dates for your diary in the next few weeks:

• Café Conversations at Chimes, 2.00pm on 29 June - an informal in-person opportunity to meet with senior members of the Executive Board over a cup of coffee to ask questions and discuss ideas.
• All-Staff Briefing and Q&A, 3.30pm on 10 July - an opportunity to hear from our senior leadership and ask questions during a virtual session. You can submit your questions in advance anonymously on this form.