There’s always plenty of change during the course of the year in a university
environment and this year has been no exception.
This Year’s Developments
•Clinical Sciences Building (Walsgrave) (Nov)
•Main academic partner for NHS’U’ (Feb)
•Maths & Statistics Move (Feb)
•Merger with Warwick HRI (April)
•Invitation from Singapore (May)
•Move to University House (Easter)
•Learning Grid
•Careers Service Matrix Award
Singapore
Senate and Council have approved the University’s positive response to the invitation
from the Singaporean Government and we are currently in a period of evaluation.
People from the Economic Development Board of Singapore are here today and a
delegation led by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor will be paying a return visit in December.
University House
A large number of us moved into University House at Easter including most of the
student service departments. This has enabled us to create a kind of one-stop shop for
students, it’s a move that’s gone down well.
One indicator of the popularity of the new Learning Grid 24-hour study facility is that the
Library gets a weekly footfall of 25,000 admissions through the gates and the Learning
Grid is already getting a weekly footfall of 7,000.
University Management
We have also seen changes in University management. I’d like to make special
mention of Jon Baldwin, the University’s new Registrar, who is here today. Jon joined
from UMIST this summer and we are very pleased to have him as part of the team.
Budget
We have also seen an increase in budget this year, this is mostly due to an increase in
student numbers however the increasing amount of research and turnover from
Warwick HRI, Warwick Manufacturing Group and Warwick Medical School are also
contributing.
Current Numbers
•11,890 undergraduates
•6,613 postgraduates
•1,552 academic staff
•Roughly 4,500 core staff
•533 hectares of campus
•30 academic departments
•50 research centres
•£244.40m income
Three Topics
I’m going to cover three topics today and then open up for questions on any subject
from the floor.
The three topics are:
 Warwick Research
 HR Developments
 Preparing for 2006
I’ll spend about 10 minutes on each.
The Future of Warwick Research
Research is vitally important to Warwick. We carry out extremely high quality research,
it ranks among the best in the UK. Furthermore we have a tradition of being a
research-led institution, for that we have to thank the stewardship of the University over
the last 40 years.
Creating and disseminating knowledge is the crux of what the University is about – it’s
no good making discoveries if you don’t share them. Warwick is particularly good at
sharing discoveries, we were praised in the Lambert Report for it.
The Government is also putting more money into research and we need to make sure
that we get our fair share of that money, more than our fair share.
Some of you here will be hoping that you’d never hear of the Research Assessment
Exercise (RAE) again (I might even have been one of them!). But we are going to have
another one in 2008 so it’s important that we are prepared for that as individuals and as
an institution. However this is likely to be the last RAE in this format, after this round
the Government is likely to move towards continuous benchmarking as outlined in the
Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-14.
The base that we are starting from is last year’s core quality-related research income of
£22 million. In the last year Research Support Services have counted 492 new
research grants adding up to an additional £47 million of research income.
Warwick Medical School have come from nothing to a couple of million a year, Warwick
HRI have joined the fold and Warwick Manufacturing Group have made a significant
contribution with their Premier Automotive Group Funding for the International
Automotive Research Centre.
Having said that, there has been a noticeable increase in activity amongst all academic
colleagues.
RAE
The next big question for the institution is how we work to prepare for RAE 2008. The
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Stuart Palmer, and Pro Vice-Chancellor, John Jones, are
talking to all Heads of Academic Departments working out how to put our best lights
forward.
The new RAE will be slightly different, it won’t be departmentally-based as it has been
in the past. This doesn’t make a lot of difference to us though our performance should
not be affected.
Science Innovation and Investment Framework
One piece of recent news is the Government publication of the Science and Innovation
Investment Framework 2004-14, they are essentially advertising to us in advance what
their priorities are. We should align ourselves to these priories where possible, I’m not
suggesting that we start developing new areas of study but we should certainly make
the most of any potential overlaps!
Full Economic Costing
Another Government innovation which the University has picked up with enthusiasm is
the concept of full Economic Costing (fEC). Every research grant application will be
costed on a full economic basis by this time next year – this means that staff time and
estates costs will now be accounted for and bid for.
The only bad news is that research councils will still only pay 60% of the fEC cost of a
project on the assumption that RAE money will cover the excess.
fEC will have more impact on independent funding, an area which we are working to
develop. A recent good news story that you may have heard about is the success of
the Arts Faculty bid to the Andrew W Mellon foundation. Colleagues in the Centre for
the Study of the Renaissance are leading a £190,000 project into the lives and beliefs
of people during the Renaissance. This is a relatively small-scale grant but an
important foot in the door with American Foundations.
Developing Human Resources to Fit Warwick
The most important asset that we have is our people. If we have good people who are
happy because they’re employed in a fair and equitable way then we will continue to be
productive and successful.
We have been working with UCEA (the Universities and Colleges Employers’
Association which also comprises representatives of all the national trade unions) to
negotiate:
•a national pay settlement to address low pay
•a new single pay spine to ensure consistent treatment of staff
•equal pay for work of equal value through job evaluation
We want you all to feel appreciated and have a scheme that provides good terms and
conditions, competitive pay and career development opportunities.
We are moving to a single pay scheme because without doing that we can’t compare
jobs like for like. After consultation with trade unions we chose to adopt the Hay
scheme – but we need to make sure that we adapt it to fit our particular circumstances.
We must stress thought that in adopting a single job evaluation scheme we are
evaluating jobs not people. It is dangerous to get performance confused with job
evaluation.
Job evaluation is not a threat though, other organisations that have implemented a
single scheme have found that most people are at the right pay level and more people
end up with increased pay than end up with reduced pay.
The minority of people that are being paid over the odds will have their salary frozen –
there will be no salary cuts – to allow other people to catch up.
All of this has to be worked out locally with the trade unions represented on campus
and we are in the process of doing that.
Contribution Pay
We currently run a contribution pay system for professors and all people at the top of
their grade and above. We are looking to roll this out to all staff to combat the
demotivating effect of getting stuck at the top of a grade.
I was curious about this so I asked the Finance Office for some reports – over the last
five years the amount we pay in salaries, for staff members who have been here all that
time, has increased by 6% per year. That compares very favourably to inflation and
demonstrates a real growth in earnings.
Towards 2006 – Preparing for our Future Students
This slide represents a Rogue’s Gallery (referring to the slide with pictures of Charles
Clarke, Stephen Schwartz and Mike Tomlinson).
All of these reports and acts are relevant and important to the University but they all
have different urgencies for us.
Following the Government’s 2004 Higher Education Act, Council has agreed that from
2006 onwards all full-time Honours students will be charged £3,000 per annum in
tuition fees.
There has been much press coverage recently on Martin Harris, the man who is
heading up the Office of Fair Access (OFA). He has announced that universities need
to spend the equivalent of at least 10-15% of the fees-derived income on bursaries and
outreach work. Last Spring Council decided that we would spend 30% (the upper limit
of what Martin has advised).
Our number one priority is to recruit excellent students, regardless of background, who
will achieve excellent results, our number two and three priorities are to look
everywhere for them.
We need to ensure that we offer places at Warwick to students who have the most
potential to succeed.
Finding Students with Potential
So, how do we find students with potential?
I firmly believe that future potential cannot be determined by a candidate’s existing
grades alone – this is why we are looking at portfolio admissions, or looking at a variety
of criteria to get a rounded picture of an applicant.
Peter Lampl, of the Sutton Trust, has been very vocal about what he calls the
unfairness of A-Levels. Any additional criteria that we look at, such as testing, would
be in addition to A-Level results. Oxford and Cambridge do this already, as do many
business schools.
How it fits in to Steven Schwartz’s vision of post-qualification admissions (PQA) will be
interesting to see. PQA in particular is not going to work well for international students
who will be put at a competitive disadvantage.
Raising Aspirations
HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, sets benchmarks for
widening participation. At the moment we measure up reasonably well.
• 76% of our (non-mature) undergraduates were educated at a state school
The action points for us are in increasing participation amongst what HEFCE define as
‘lower social classes’ and applicants from ‘non-traditional backgrounds’. The Student
Recruitment and Admissions Office and the Centre for Lifelong Learning are working
hard to raise aspirations in and applications from these target groups.
Bursaries and Scholarships
We are very proud of the Warwick Graduates’ Association Scholarships, this year their
annual fund campaign raised enough money for 105 scholarships of £2000 per annum.
We want to build on this success.
We are looking to support one out of every three students in need. The statutory
amount prescribed is £300 and we will be offering much more than this.
For the very poor the Government will step in to cover the £3,000 fees. We will see
activity in the next level up, those students that come from families in the income
bracket up from that.
By 2010 we will be putting about £5 million per annum into student bursaries. The rest
of the additional income derived from fees will be put towards enhancing the student
experience such as new modern classrooms and more e-learning (without replacing the
face-to-face contact).
Question and Answer Session
I think that the University has been disingenuous about the introduction of the
Hay single job evaluation system. I, and my colleagues, feel that it is well suited
to the well-salaried people in Senate House but won’t help people at the lower
level. It’s an American system that’s been adopted to preserve your own salaries
and perks, but the rest of us will lose out. Why did we not go with HERA?
No choice of any one system was made to protect the interests of one body of the
University over another. The decision was not made unilaterally but in full consultation
with trade union representatives.
An extensive 3-4 month pilot of the chosen system was carried out and trade unions
were fully involved. There are always positives and negatives to each scheme but we
feel that we’ve chosen the one that is best suited to our university. 50% of other
universities have chosen to go with Hay. No university or employer has used HERA
(Higher Education Role Analysis) yet so it is an unproven system.
Personnel have run over 90 meetings over the last 12 months will continue to try and
address understandable concerns about the process.
What are the University’s plans for postgraduate teaching in the next few years?
Postgraduate teaching, along with research, is vital to the University. We hope to
enhance it, particularly as regards research.
Applications to taught masters courses are down across the board especially amongst
overseas students. The pound is strong and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get
visas.
What are the consequences of top up fees for postgraduate recruitment? So far
we have only focussed on undergraduates. Should we restructure our
postgraduate courses?
Australia have also implemented undergraduate fees recently. We have been keeping
a close eye on how it’s gone over there and it’s not had the negative impact on
postgraduate recruitment that you’d expect. We don’t know why, but we’ll continue to
pay attention to the situation over there.
Undergraduate fees are being ameliorated on economic grounds, what about
subject specific grounds?
We will be carrying out monitoring and market research to assess the impact of fees on
undergraduate recruitment across the board.
We are not entertaining differential fees in different subjects but we may offer varying
bursaries for different subjects.
What is of more concern is that the popularity of certain subjects seems to be falling
nation-wide. Chemistry for example is suffering a downturn and we have watched the
closure of several Chemistry departments in UK institutions. I should point out that
Warwick’s Chemistry department is under no such threat.
With the advent of fee-paying undergraduates in 2006 students will have greater
expectations of the University. We already see this with international students
who are already paying – so how do we support this increase in expectations?
There is no doubt that we will have to supply enhanced student services once we start
charging fees. 70% of the additional money derived from fees will be spent on further
improving student services, facilities and support.
This doesn’t mean that we’re going to hold their hands but it does mean that there will
be improved services.
What will be the impact of fees on Lifelong Learning courses?
We are only charging fees to full-time honours students, we are as yet undecided about
what to do for students on other courses. We do however need to monitor take up on
full-time and part-time courses. We don’t want to force students to study the same
degree part-time because they can’t pay the fees.
Regarding the merger with HRI, when will people at Wellesbourne and Kirton see
the benefits of being part of Warwick?
We are very pleased with the fruits of the merger that created Warwick HRI. We are
already seeing collaborative research between Warwick HRI and other university
departments. So we hope that they’ve seen some benefit already, not least the stability
that being part of the University brings.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor and the Director of Personnel are continuing to work on
resolving the last niggles of the integration. In the meantime University members need
to continue the natural process of integration by finding collaborative work to do here, at
Wellesbourne and at Kirton. Warwick HRI is a real asset to the University.
Why not award honorary degrees to long serving members of staff?
Honorary degrees are awarded to celebrate distinction beyond the graduands local
environment. Awarding honorary degrees to long serving members of staff would not fit
well with what an honorary degree represents.
I do agree with you however that it is important to celebrate and reward long serving
staff and lay members of the University. This is why I host the Long Service Dinners.
Furthermore I think that we should expand these to high-performing members of staff.
We will be concentrating on developing this idea in the next few years.