UCL Learning and Development
Network
Richard Martin
Faculty Operating Officer (Engineering)
Imperial College London
Secondment Abroad
Working outside the constraints of existing practice
Establishing UCL’s first overseas campus
1. How the opportunity came about
2. The challenges that it entailed
3. What I gained from the experience
Context
- UCL School of Energy and Resources, Australia
- Rapid implementation following signing of agreement with key sponsors
- Need to operationalise processes developed in planning phase
- Preference for secondments during establishment phase
- Opportunity v Risks
- Duration of secondment
- Substantive post
Activities: infrastructure
- Opportunity to design student workspaces from scratch
- Acting as “user” rather than project director
- Using lessons learned from student spaces in Bloomsbury
- Installation of video-conferencing and room recording facility in all teaching rooms
- Hybrid of local and corporate ICT provision
Activities: financial systems and staff
Financial set-ups and systems
- Registration as a legal entity
- Requirement for new systems and interfaces with London
- Outsourcing to third parties
Staff
- Building a team and processes completely from scratch
- Taking opportunity to establish team culture afresh
Activities: Accreditation
- State and Federal legislative
process
- What is this University
College of London?
- Challenged everything taken
for granted in “steady state”
institution
Activities: shaping the student experience
- Opportunity to put this even more at the centre of our approach
- Scope to innovate/“experiment”
- High-level fee paying model core to sustainability
- Very “hand made” application process
- Intensive teaching mode; tailored to industry
- Saturday exams – on campus and across country
- 9-month industry placement
- Bologna compatibility
What has the secondment meant for me?
• Out of comfort zone (professionally and personally)
• Opportunity to innovate
• Profile raising locally and at home institution
• Legacy.......
• Stretch yourself
• Don’t turn down opportunities
• Consider working in smaller unit (or vice versa)
• Commercial/entrepreneurial exposure
• International exposure
Thank you