Prof Michael Farthing
Vice-Chancellor
I am keen that everyone at Sussex should take the opportunity to read and comment on the Green Paper that takes forward the preparation of a new strategic plan for the University.
The Green Paper, endorsed by our Council, lays out the proposed basic framework for the emerging plan and identifies more of the key strategies needed to deliver it, 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: 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 document, ‘Setting the scope of our ambitions’. 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 we should sharpen the themes that 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’ that these strategic plans imply: growing by 25% in terms of turnover above current plans for 2011; growing by 2,000 in terms of student numbers; and 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.
The important discussions that PVCs Bob Allison and Joanne Wright are leading on research themes and curriculum development are reflected in the Green Paper.
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 can we get the right sets of responsibilities at each level, and have the best organisation that 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.
Comments are invited on this next stage by Wednesday 19 March. I will be seeking views 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 will be vital in shaping the strategic plan, which will be developed for presentation in draft to Council on 4 April.
A longer version of this column is available on the VC’s blog at www.sussex.ac.uk/vc/blog.