Programme Excellence Project (PEP) governance and partnership with faculties and departments

As a reminder, our first briefing was PEP: Why we are doing it and how does it link to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)?

PEP governance

PEP and its strategic delivery for 2027 entry is overseen by robust governance, reporting to Education Committee and ultimately Council. Since the project was established, having a resilient and transparent governance structure has been a priority, as an essential requirement for the project’s success. The PEP governance structure and full details on Terms of Reference and membership are available on the PEP SharePoint. As you will see, if you take a look, we have deliberately made every effort to ensure diverse representation from across the UCL community in our governance structure.

PEP is overseen by the PEP Project Board, chaired by Professor Kathryn Woods, Pro-Vice-Provost (Education - Student Academic Engagement). The PEP Board reports to Education Committee, with onward reporting into Academic Committee and Council, including as part of ongoing reporting on the UCL Strategic Plan (2022-27). Membership of the Board includes colleagues in the Office of the Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience) (OVPESE), Student Registry Services (SRS), Strategic Planning, Finance, as well as a mix of academic and professional service colleagues from faculties and departments, and the Education Student Sabbatical Officer.

The Project Board provides strategic oversight of PEP (including delivery and risks) and its reporting sub-committees, while also offering a steer on centre-piece work like the development of the UCL Curriculum Definitions, UCL Curriculum Design Principles, and the Module Operating Model. As an example of its contributions, this communication series was developed following a suggestion by the Board.

The PEP Project Board also oversees several other committees which help to steer the direction of the project. These include the following:

1. PEP’s Academic Advisory Group. This group consists of representatives from all UCL Faculty education teams, as well as the UCL Higher Education Development & Support Institute (HEDS). This group provides academic input into proposals for the delivery of PEP, especially where they may involve changes that impact on the organisation of teaching, examining and courses of instruction, and UCL strategy, policy and procedures. This group also advises us on the local reception and management of the PEP processes.  

2. PEP Operations Group. This group oversees the practical delivery of the project on a regular basis and draws in perspectives from relevant teams, including Curriculum Information Management, Academic Policy Quality and Standards (APQS), SRS Compliance, and Faculties. 

3. The PEP Strategic Delivery Board. This Board is chaired by Daniel Farrell (Director of Student Operations) and oversees the implementation of the practical changes necessary to enable the redesigned curricula. For example, a change to our courses and course structures required respective changes to be actioned by Admissions, Finance, Strategic Planning, and a range of other teams. This group, and the PEP Delivery Sync which reports in, oversee that effort. 

Working in alignment with academic governance and through stakeholder engagement 

Whilst the PEP Project Board ultimately owns decisions made about PEP, existing academic governance structures retain their governance authority over course and policy review and approval. For example:

• Approval of new courses. Business cases are first approved by the Financial Performance and Planning Committee (FPPC), before being sent to the Programme and Module Approval Panel (PMAP) for course approval. 

• Course amendments. These are overseen by the Programme Amendment and Review Committee (PARC) on behalf of Education Committee. 

• Changes to curriculum policy. These are considered by Education Committee, and its reporting committees.

Throughout the project the PEP team has also actively engaged academic and professional service colleagues and students to participate in developing the Curriculum Design Principles and Module Operating Model, recognising that these frameworks will have deep and long-reaching impact for the future of education and student experience at UCL. We have done so to tap into the expertise that exists in the community, and to understand different disciplinary views and perspectives. The Curriculum Design Principles and Module Operating Model were reported to and approved by Education Committee under the PEP governance structure.

Partnership with faculties and departments

We are enormously grateful to our ongoing close working partnership with departments and faculties. Over the last two years, many areas have taken the opportunity provided by PEP to make major changes to their courses. Below we provide some excellent examples from the IOE, Faculty of Arts & Humanities and Faculty of Life Sciences.

Professor Nicola Walshe, Pro-Director Education for the UCL Institute of Education (IOE), shared with us: "The PEP2B quality enhancement review process has been an exciting and ambitious opportunity for teams to work together to review and develop their programmes, ensuring we are offering the very best educational experience for our students. I am extremely proud of the collaborative and committed approach IOE colleagues have taken, especially considering some significant challenges in the process, and I hope this marks a shift towards a more continuous and streamlined approach to programme development in the future."

Ben Fowler, Director of Education and Student Experience for the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, added: "PEP has been a great catalyst for collaboration across our faculty. The main example of this is in our undergraduate modern language delivery, which is spread across several departments, and is where we have set up a working party to agree a consistent and high-quality approach to teaching, course structure and assessment across each of the levels.

"Students will enjoy a more consistent experience if they study a language in two different departments or combine a language with another subject. For staff this will reduce the time spent on managing, enhancing and updating courses in the future as we can manage languages together rather than individually.

"Making these changes through PEP has been far quicker than going through the standard amendment process. Although staff have felt the short-term frustration that's inevitable when it comes to making these changes, we have been able to focus on the benefit to our future selves in 2027/28 when we will experience the benefits of the outcomes of the effort."

Dr Hazel Smith, Director of Education and Student Experience, and Professor Sandra Martelli, Associate Director for the Division of Biosciences Undergraduate Education for the Faculty of Life Sciences, shared: "PEP has intersected closely with our work to modernise and unify the Biosciences undergraduate curriculum. We needed to introduce major reforms to a suite of six overlapping programmes that collectively covered the full range of Biological and Life Sciences but did so in very different ways and from different perspectives. These reforms included the introduction of a common first year, and the development of a new core curriculum that would integrate cross disciplinary knowledge with research, professional and computational skills across all years of study.

"PEP has greatly facilitated the programme teams working together to agree and implement the changes that were needed. The process was intense and occasionally painful but going through it has really helped us maintain focus on our goals. The results will enhance the experience of our students by increasing coherence across degrees, clarity of learning outcomes, and introducing a more structured approach to skills development, assessment and feedback, while retaining the incorporation of cutting-edge research, which has always been the great strength of the Division."

Final thoughts

As you can see, PEP is very much a team sport, and we have an amazing team here at UCL! Thank you to each and every one of you who has been involved with PEP to date for your vital contributions and support. We appreciate you.

Our next briefing will focus on UCL’s Curriculum Definitions and Curriculum Design Principles, including how they were developed through consultation with the UCL community before being approved by Education Committee, and how they will help us deliver our ambitions for Excellence in Education.