Broadcast: News items

Professor Michael Luck

As you know, in July 2023, Council, our governing body, approved the Vice-Chancellor’s proposal to establish a new academic structure, in particular the establishment of a four faculties system.

Council agreed that faculties will enable better academic strategic leadership, make our academic units more resilient and agile, and better support interdisciplinary research and education than our current ‘cluster’ system. See Sasha’s Council paper (login required) for full details on the proposal.

When I joined in September, I took over the management of the move to the new structure, with the expectation that all four faculties will be in place in time for the 2024/25 academic year.

As a reminder, the four faculties will be:

• Media, Arts and Humanities
• Science, Engineering and Medicine
• Social Sciences
• University of Sussex Business School

While there will be some changes in the Business School and in the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, the most substantial changes will be in the creation of the faculties of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and Social Sciences.

Schools and departments will continue to exist as they do now and the primary points of attachment and academic identity for staff and students will not change.

The main changes are administrative – or to the background framework in which we operate day-to-day. Heads of School will report to the Executive Dean of their faculty while Executive Deans will report to me, and also join the University Executive Team (UET). There will also be changes to align our IT, HR, Finance and other systems to take account of the existence of faculties. Accompanying all of these changes, and sometimes preceding them, will be changes to University regulations. 

Appointing the new Executive Deans

One of the first steps in the change is the recruitment of Executive Deans, which will start this month with the aim of having appointments in post by late spring next year.

Senate working group

The Executive Deans will become ex officio members of Senate – the body responsible for the academic standards and the direction and regulation of academic matters of the University – so the establishment of faculties has implications for Senate’s composition. At last week’s Senate, the terms of reference for a Senate Working Group to look at how we will deal with this were agreed. You can see the full paper describing the task of the working group on Sussex Direct (login required). 

Other changes will take place over the coming months. These can be divided into operational and governance changes. I will keep the community informed as we progress, in particular with any significant announcements. In the meantime, if you have any questions about how the new structures will work, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

Professor Michael Luck
Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost