Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director Engagement and Advancement
This week’s meeting of UEB was split between immediate Gold Command issues, and more regular UEB business, in this case the regular look at our 10-Year Plan programme.
A number of issues were discussed:
- Revised governance and decision-making was agreed, which will ensure closer alignment between the current 10-Year Plan programme and the annual business planning cycle, and ensure a closer link with the University strategy. We will also shortly move away from referring to our portfolio of strategic projects and programmes as the ‘10-Year Plan’ and will instead use the simpler, more descriptive and not time-bound term: Strategic Major Projects. One UEB meeting each month will be used to review progress with current projects, but new proposals can, in future, be brought for discussion at any UEB meeting. A more streamlined decision and prioritisation process will also enhance our ability to respond with agility, to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- There was an update on our current Strategic Major Projects, some of which, as previously reported, have been paused as a result of the pandemic, and others accelerated to ensure we are focusing on the projects that are most immediately related to helping the University deal with the impact of the pandemic, as well as our plans to recover from that impact. A wider update on our projects will be given during the next month. In addition, a bridging strategy to navigate the University through the pandemic’s impact is being developed for discussion with University Council in July, and will then be shared more widely. It will take into account the feedback from the initial phase of our consultation earlier this year on a refreshed University strategy – that work will now be completed in around 12 months’ time once the bridging strategy has seen us through the immediate challenges of the year ahead.
- There was agreement that, alongside responding to the significant financial challenges caused by the pandemic, we will also need to invest further in some of the measures required for our immediate response to COVID-19, ranging from a significant expansion of our digital education and digital infrastructure to increased cleaning provisions as our campuses start to re-open.
- Separately, UEB received an update on progress of the Mental Health Steering Group and agreed the University will adopt the Student Minds Mental Health Charter as the standard for good mental health provision at the University. A series of University-wide workshops will take place in July to raise awareness of the new charter and the associated action plan which is currently being developed with input from stakeholders from across the University.
An important moment for our University community today – the announcement that we expect our Southampton and Winchester campuses will be physically open for the start of the new academic year on 28 September as we welcome back new and returning students, and news that partial re-opening of University laboratories has been approved, paving the way over the coming weeks for lab-based research and enterprise activities to resume and for PGR students to be able to continue their studies.