Strictly Private and Confidential
SCHOOL OF CLINICAL SCIENCES
SCHOOL MANAGEMENT GROUP
Meeting held on Tuesday 16 September 2014 at 12.30-2pm, Boardroom Chancellor’s
Building.
Present:
1.
Prof H Critchley (in the Chair), G Cameron, H Cullion, D Cunningham, Dr G
Gray, Dr S Hannah, Prof M Heck, Dr S Riley, A Scott, Prof H Simpson, Prof E
Van Beek, Prof M Whyte.
Welcome from Head of School
The Head of School welcomed all to the Committee and in particular, Professor Moira Whyte
who had recently joined the University as Professor of Adult Respiratory Medicine, based in
the CIR.
2.
Apologies for absence
Apologies noted.
3.
Minutes from previous meeting held on 17 June 2014
Minutes from the last meeting confirmed.
4.
Matters arising from the previous minutes not covered elsewhere on the agenda
There were no items to discuss not on the agenda.
5.
Health and Safety
The University had resolved that Health and Safety training for PIs should be considered
mandatory. This was in light of recent and on-going investigations by the HSE where it was
identified that all PIs must be aware of responsibilities they had to staff members in their
group.
Records would be maintained by Centres to demonstrate that PIs had attended training.
Training on the Little France campus had been organised by Lindsay Murray, LF Health and
Safety Manager which takes a maximum of one hour and would be held on a variety of dates
and times. All times would be advertised via the Safety Bulletin.
6.
Postgraduate Research and Taught
Professor Lesley Forrester had been appointed as the Deputy School Postgraduate Studies
Director.
The School Postgraduate Manager, Helen Cullion, had produced a School induction booklet
which showed who the relevant School team were and provided a template of postgraduate
student progression. An induction event for all new postgraduate students within the School
would be held on 26 September, QMRI which would now be an annual event. The booklet
would also shortly be available via the School PG website for staff who were unable to attend.
One of the key aims for the postgraduate team would be to increase student satisfaction
scores. It was hoped this could be achieved by the sharing of good practice and ensuring that
students achieved relevant progression points during their study.
With respect to postgraduate taught programmes, there had been a much better student
satisfaction rate and Dr Simon Riley would discuss this at the next School Management
Group.
7.
Undergraduate
The recent Edinburgh Student Survey 2013/14 results indicated the following for CMVM:
Primary Theme
ESE 2012/13
ESE 2013/14
The teaching on my course
Assessment and feedback
Academic support
87%
46%
66%
84%
49%
67%
+/- from
2012
-3%
3%
1%
Organisation and
management
Student services
Learning resources
Personal development
Communications
Equality and diversity
Overall Satisfaction
74%
63%
-11%
74%
86%
85%
95%
84%
82%
89%
87%
57%
94%
84%
8%
3%
2%
-1%
0%
The Dean of Clinical Medicine, Prof John Iredale had set up a small working group to
consider the recent Edinburgh Student Experience (ESE) scores and the National Student
Survey (NSS) results, with the aim of increasing satisfaction rates. More NHS consultants
would be encouraged to be involved in teaching which would be facilitated by the transparent
allocation of Additional Cost of Teaching (ACT) money. In addition, academic staff had to
be given recognition for undertaking undergraduate teaching duties and the culture changed to
raise the importance of teaching, particularly in a research-focused college.
8.
P&DR
Information on number of completed P&DRs (staff numbers calculated on those with 1 year
or more service). Figures indicated that within SCS, the vast majority of staff who did not
have a completed P&DR were in the grades UE06, UE07 and UE08.
School
Headcount
Completed
P&DR
Not
Completed
P&DR
College
R(D)SVS
SBMS
SCS
SMGPHS
TOTAL
151
484
198
586
506
1925
131
479
197
521
483
1811
20
5
1
65
23
114
% of
Completed
P&DR to
School
headcount
86.75%
98.97%
99.49%
88.91%
95.45%
94.08%
The Committee asked that Centre Directors ensure that PIs were aware of the importance of
undertaking P&DRs for all staff within their groups.
9.
Athena Swan
Professor Karen Chapman provided the following written report:
Our Athena SWAN website is linked through the front page of the School of Clinical
Sciences website http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/clinical-sciences - here you can
find details of the SCS/SMGPHS joint self-assessment team, our successful bronze
application and action plan with progress updates, and other relevant information.
Our two Schools (Edinburgh’s clinical medical school) plan to apply for a silver award in
November 2015. To be successful, we need to provide data to demonstrate that our
policies and activities have had a significant impact towards gender equality. It is
important to note that “bad working practices discriminate against women but good working
practices benefit all”. We will shortly be asking Heads of Centres, Institutes and Divisions in
SCS and SMGPHS for an update on progress against the action points circulated earlier this
year.
Recent work:
 A workload model for non-clinical academic staff is under development and will be
circulated later this year for comment and implementation.
 An on-line unconscious bias training is now available through the University. Please
click the Overcoming Unconscious Bias link to view the course details and access the
login.
 Several members of the SCS/SMGPHS Athena SWAN joint self-assessment team
have either moved on or have stood down. New members include Prof Nick Hastie,
Prof Mark Arends, Dr Martyn Pickersgill, Dr Donald Davidson, Dr Sonja Vermeren.
We look forward to welcoming them at our next meeting in October.
 Leadership training (a 4 day IAD course) is now available across CMVM. Please
encourage PIs and aspiring PIs (especially grades 7 and 8) to attend this extremely
successful course. Similarly, please put forward women (grades 8 and 9) for Aurora
leadership training.
 The PI training (managing your research group – responsibilities of the PI, the
University and the Researcher, regarding early career researchers, E&D/unconscious
bias, recruitment, PandDR, flexible working, maternity leave etc, difficult
conversations) has now run for 3 sessions (~60 PIs trained) with further trainings
planned for 2nd October and 11th November 2014. This will become compulsory in
order for PIs to place a job advert for a research position on a grant, from next year.
Sign up is via Myed.
 All staff are invited to become Mentors or Mentees under the Mentoring Connections
scheme. Please encourage staff within your Centre/Institute/Division to join this
scheme
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/human-resources/learningdevelopment/dev-opportunities/mentoring/mentoring-connections.
10.
Career Progression for Early Career Researchers
Following recommendations the School website was in the process of being updated giving
guidance to early career researchers.
The Group supported the recommendation that all fellows should have ‘career development
panels’ that consisted of around 2-3 experienced academics who would meet with the fellow
every 3-6mths to discuss progress with aims of fellowship, to ensure that the fellow had the
support administrative, scientific contacts & training required, to conduct P&DR as
appropriate, to advise on publication and funding strategies, networking opportunities and in
general to provide mentorship to optimise career progression beyond the period of the
fellowship award.
11.
Finance
Gillian Cameron, School Finance Manager to provided review on School unrestricted budgets
for Financial Year (FY) 2013/14 and current FY 2014/15.
At financial year end, core funded salaries within the School posted a small deficit of £155k
and unrestricted budgets a deficit of £352k. MSc programmes as a whole, posted a surplus of
£15k. Any deficits within departmental accounts would be carried forward into the current
2014/15 financial year and majority of surpluses awarded as supplementary budgets. Details
would be confirmed with Centres.
Going forward, all Schools within CMVM had received a core salary budget reduction of
around 21%.
12.
Research
RCUK was introducing a harmonised research outcome reporting system using Researchfish.
In the coming weeks PIs with Research Council grants would be expected to undertake the
following when prompted by Researchfish (admin@researchfish.com):
i) PIs with non-MRC/STFC Research Council grants would be asked to check data which had
been migrated from ROS to Researchfish
ii) those who did not have a Researchfish account would be prompted to set one up (from
12th Sept)
iii) PIs with Research Council grants would be asked to add new outcome data to
Researchfish (16th October - 13th November)
The College expected to achieve a 100% return and your support in helping to achieve this
would be appreciated. Where appropriate local admin staff would be asked to assist PIs with
the uploading of outcome data.
13.
Zoo Strategic Alliance
Mary Bownes, VP for External Engagement was working on a strategic alliance with the Zoo,
to give more research opportunities across a range of disciplines in all Colleges. A mapping
exercise was currently underway and Centres had been contacted to provide information of
any research links they currently had.
14.
Date of next meeting
Tuesday 18 November 2014 at 1pm, Seminar Room 5, Chancellor’s Building (NOTE LATER
START TIME)
For information
Overcoming Unconscious Bias online training module: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schoolsdepartments/human-resources/learning-development/dev-opportunities/a-z-courses/coursesm-z/unconcious-bias