2. Principles for a 10-year strategy
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The need for transformation
This Green Paper plots a course for the next ten years, against a very different financial backcloth from the past decade, but with a determination to build upon our achievements during that period and to secure for the future an even greater distinctiveness for UCL and even sharper differentiation from other UK universities.
UCL's approach to strategic planning
We do not start with an empty slate. UCL has adopted and implemented three successive strategic plans in the past eight years:
Designing and 10-year strategy for UCL: the White Paper was adopted by the Council in July 2004, following the publication of a Provost’s Green Paper in February that year. Among other things, it committed us to consolidation of our academic activities, to recalibrating the numbers of UK-EU undergraduate students in accordance with the government’s student numbers control, to an increase in international and postgraduate student numbers but with no relaxation of admissions criteria, to modest and planned growth, to the upward revision of the minimum entry score, to a process of financial planning, to external-led reviews of all major areas of activity in the run-up to the next Research Assessment Exercise, to reviews of teaching and learning and promotions criteria, to launching a major fund-raising campaign, to raising UCL's profile nationally and internationally and to pursuing a global vision.
The Council’s White Paper: One Year On (2005) was a review of the implementation of the 2004 White Paper, and included proposals for the UCL Regeneration Programme for managing an overall reduction in staffing.
Modernising UCL: The Council’s White Paper 2007-2012 (again preceded by a Provost’s Green Paper) committed us to many initiatives, including: the grouping of Faculties into Schools to enable further devolution of functions from the centre, the introduction of a Common Timetable, the development of a liberal arts type undergraduate programme and the introduction of a modern languages qualification for undergraduates, improvements in information systems, the development of a research strategy and an enterprise strategy, the setting up of an Academy in Camden and further investment in the estate, including, particularly, improvements to the public realm.
The strategies of the Council’s previous White Papers have been successfully pursued and the processes they introduced for the modernisation of UCL will continue. Fresh strategies have recently been launched in areas such as research, enterprise and for the upgrading and rationalisation of the Bloomsbury Estate. Work is therefore already well advanced under most of the chapter headings of this Green Paper.
The approach
This is a Green Paper. It is in draft form. Its approach has been approved in principle by the UCL Council, but it will not be formally adopted by them as a White Paper until it has been widely consulted upon across the whole UCL community. It proposes an overall approach to the further transformation of UCL. Its ideas need to be explored and tested. Top-down prescription seldom works in any community, let alone in an open and critical institution such as UCL.
The Green Paper
is not comprehensive. UCL is so complex an organisation, and its activities so
extensive and intermingled, that strategy has necessarily to be developed and
expressed in relatively aspirational and abstract terms. The role of the Green Paper is to propose a direction of
travel, building on work that is already in progress in anticipation of the
funding reforms, and to be developed in consultation with those affected by it.
It is focused on aims, principles, commitments and processes. It will be followed by more detailed implementation plans. Ten years is a long period for planning and the proposals need to be sufficiently flexible to provide a framework that is capable of adaptation to reflect changes in circumstances.
Yet it is a more ambitious and comprehensive paper than the previous White Papers, for two reasons: first, significant foundations have been built upon and much has been achieved in the last decade; second, the external environment has changed dramatically.
Some of the proposals may prove contentious, and none of them will work unless there is sufficient buy-in on the part of all actors – particularly the staff whose enthusiasm is essential for them to be implemented.
The first step is to establish the common ground. The Green Paper starts with a restatement of UCL's mission. It proposes a statement of vision for the institution, and then a set of operating principles. On these foundations are built nine key strategic aims, each of which is then developed in the following sections.
The mission
UCL is London’s global university.
The vision
- An outstanding institution, recognised as one of the world’s most advanced universities and valued highly by its community of staff, students, alumni, donors and partners and by the wider community;
- providing an outstanding education to students from across the globe that imparts the knowledge, wisdom and skills needed by them to thrive as global citizens;
- committed to leadership in the advancement, dissemination and application of knowledge within and across disciplines;
- committed to achieving maximum positive social, environmental and economic benefit through its achievements in education, scholarship, research, discovery and collaboration;
- developing future generations of leaders in scholarship, research, the learned professions, the public sector, business and innovation;
- tackling global challenges with confidence;
- leading through collaboration across London and worldwide in the advancement of knowledge, research, opportunity and sustainable economic prosperity;
- operating ethically and at the highest standards of efficiency, and investing sufficiently today to sustain the vision for future generations.
UCL's values
- Commitment to excellence and advancement on merit
- Fairness and equality
- Diversity
- Collegiality and community building
- Inclusiveness
- Openness
- Ethically acceptable standards of conduct
- Fostering innovation and creativity
- Developing leadership
- Environmental sustainability.
UCL's guiding principles
UCL will conduct itself ethically and fairly, and in an environmentally sustainable manner, locally, nationally and globally.
In particular, we will:
(1) respect and promote the exercise of academic freedom through challenge and debate within the law;
(2) offer places to students wholly on the basis of their academic merit and potential to benefit from and contribute to a UCL education irrespective of their social, economic, religious or other background. Admission to UCL may not be bought, or secured under inducement or pressure, but granted only through an open and transparent competitive process.
(3) assess student performance and award degrees and qualifications wholly on the basis of clear criteria and fair process;
(4) be a fair and honourable employer, developing skills and capability amongst all staff; promoting, recognising and rewarding outstanding performance; promoting and celebrating diversity and ensuring equality of opportunity; promoting and supporting the highest quality academic leadership, collegiality and professional management, and challenging unacceptable behaviour;
(5) apply ethical investment and procurement practices;
(6) focus the impact of UCL education and research on improving the lot of people around the world and respect for human rights, and countering ignorance, poverty, ill-health and political tyranny;
(7) as an institution that has been strictly secular from its foundation, respect freedom of thought, conscience and religion but reject indoctrination;
(8) promote tolerance, and secure positive and open relations through dialogue between different groups on campus in relation to religion, politics, gender, ethnicity and sexuality;
(9) be a good neighbour in London and contribute to the local community through initiatives such as staff and student volunteering, links with schools and through the foundation of the UCL Academy, and through maintaining and enhancing a high quality estate;
(10) maintain a safe and attractive campus, and work to safeguard staff, students and the wider community against violence, intolerance, disruptive behaviour and the actions of extremists.
Key strategic aims
UCL is committed to the following aims, which provide the framework for this Green Paper:
- maintaining the qualities of a comprehensive university, committed to excellence in the arts, humanities, social sciences, physical, biological and medical sciences, engineering and the built environment;
- maintaining its openness as an institution, attracting wholly on merit the most talented students from the United Kingdom and from around the world;
- providing education of the highest academic quality, rigorous in its demands, distinctive in its character, imbued with UCL's world-leading research and delivered by academic staff at the top of their field;
- enhancing its position as one of the world’s leading research institutions with a continued focus on single and multi-disciplinary research and a commitment to the application of new knowledge to addressing major societal challenges;
- becoming a global leader in enterprise and open innovation, supporting and promoting effective knowledge exchange, innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration with commercial and social enterprises;
- attracting, rewarding and retaining outstanding staff;
- securing long-term financial sustainability and sustaining the level of capital investment necessary to achieve its academic objectives;
- operating at the highest levels of efficiency, reducing overheads and eliminating waste;
- improving the quality and sustainability of its estate, upgrading its built environment and making optimal use of space.
