The University of Sheffield
Vice-Chancellor

Vice-Chancellor’s Update

The big challenges: What are we doing?

There is a lot in the news at the moment about austerity, cuts, and the uncertain future. Some of you may be wondering what your University leadership is doing about these issues. I will understand, however, if you are not too concerned and are just getting on with your daily and weekly work. Certainly for many years as a Physicist, the plans and preoccupations of my University’s central management were of only passing concern, and my real attention was fully focused on my teaching and research.

But these are more complex times, and the place of universities as part of our national life is being challenged in the face of economic pressures and changing assumptions. So to some extent the questions of strategy, planning, policy and change have become all our business.

This is one of the reasons I have felt it important to write and speak to you regularly to share my concerns, my ideas and my reasons for optimism. I have appreciated the encouragement I have often met in return, but some people tell me that they think I can be a bit too upbeat about the future problems we face, that I can give the impression that things are rosier than they are.

If so, it was certainly not my intention. I have never wished to see things in too golden a light. I think it is important to face realities as they are, to understand our challenges, to do our work with our eyes open. But I also know that a vital element in shaping our own future is that we are rightly confident about our abilities. We need to recognise our battles, but also our strengths, and to build our tactics around a clear understanding of both.

So in case I have not shared enough of the darker issues with you, let me redress the balance. The idea is not to scare or overly concern you, but rather to convince you that there are things we can and should be doing in the months and years ahead, in order to preserve what we value about our University.

If you feel a little disconcerted and treat that as a spur to action, that will be fine. If it makes you fearful, then please go back and read this again. It should make you confident that we have the ideas and the people to make a difference, and that our plans are based on foresight, not denial.

So let’s start with the priorities that we have set ourselves. Our Strategic Plan contains considerable detail, but we know we need to focus so we have identified just six priorities that we know will be essential to our future. These are to:

So why does the environment we are now in almost dictate that we should work on these issues in particular?

THE NATURE OF THE CHALLENGE

Some of you may have read the recent article by Sir Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor of Exeter University, in The Times Higher Education (18th April, 2013). In it he outlines in stark terms an avalanche of major issues that none of us can afford to ignore – austerity, which is liable to lead to significant cuts in public funding; a lack of sustainability in the student loan system; and real terms cuts in research funding.

The figures he mentions are alarming – IFS estimates suggest cuts in the budget of the Department of Business, Industry and Skills, which includes funding to universities, of 6-8% in 2015-16, and further reductions of 12.7% over the following two years. This implies a total cut of something like 42% from 2010/11 to 2017/18, and we can only begin to imagine what this would mean on the ground for teaching and research.

Such worries about funding and the reality of austerity go beyond other concerns about privatisation and MOOCs, access to the professions and a devastating 40% reduction in undergraduate part-time study. And beyond that we have serious worries about admissions, and about visa restrictions that are off-putting to international students.

British Higher Education finds itself charting its course on what Steve Smith has called ‘a Sea of Change’. The weather is unpredictable and may well be stormy. If our voyages are not to end in significant losses, we will need the skills that fit us not only for safe harbours but for turbulent open waters.

So what should we be doing now?

I agree with Steve Smith when he says, “I do not think [universities] are broken. But that does not mean that they can stay as they are.” His conclusion about the change required is tough, but ignored at our peril:

“What we are facing is an even more pressing danger because of the likely continuation of austerity measures in the UK for another five or more years. Some institutions and some knowledge economies will embrace the forthcoming changes and challenges; others will not.”

I agree it will take ‘government, university leaders and staff’ to tackle this. Fortunately for The University of Sheffield, we have already started this work.

WHAT SHEFFIELD IS DOING

This past year we have taken some important steps in the right direction. Our Engineering research income from grants and contracts overtook that of Cambridge for the first time, and it is clear that the work of the AMRC is having a crucial impact on our overall research position, not to mention our ability to think in new ways about widening participation through the ‘earn as you learn’ collaborative model being pioneered through our technical apprenticeships. Research income is rising right across the University; grant capture in the year to this March was 36% higher than in the preceding year. At a time when research budgets are flat at best, this is a remarkable collective achievement.

Through 2022 Research Futures, led by PVC for Research and Innovation, Richard Jones, we are systematically identifying strategic areas of our university ripe for further investment and development. Research excellence is founded on excellent people; the first cohort of our Vice-Chancellor’s Fellows have been appointed and will join us in September, as we actively seek out those who show early potential to become outstanding in their field.

We are working hard on our global reputation, and are getting to grips with how we should position ourselves in a new and more competitive world of higher fees, online learning and global brands. Our students are open with us about what matters and what they would like to see change, and we are listening.

Together with our Students’ Union, UUK, the Russell Group, the NUS and many members of parliament across all parties, we are working hard on concerns relating to visas and how the UK values its international students. The Home Office has agreed to pilot a proposal relating to applicants from India, and we are sharing our research on the net economic impact of international students with colleagues across the UK. We are not about to give way to the more narrow politics of fear, and are rallying evidence and the power of a shared story to press for change.

Work on philanthropy is also being developed in core areas of strength and application in Sheffield –subjects where we make a global difference in people’s lives. Our new Medical School is providing our students with arguably the best facilities for health education in the UK, and our Research Income is up…

Oh dear, I can see that I will be open to accusations of being too upbeat again. So let’s get back to why I am worried.

It is not just Steve Smith who is warning us not to be complacent. We hear from sources in Government that there are widespread perceptions that universities are ‘awash with cash’ and should take more of their share of austerity and cuts, with potentially dire consequences.

THE CHALLENGES WITHIN

But my other worry – and I know this is shared by many of you too – is that our barriers and limitations are not always external. Sometimes the first and most important battles have to be won within your own borders.

I know it can be really difficult to overcome barriers that defeat our initial enthusiasm. Where we face a challenge, I believe we are good at changing locally and temporarily. But sometimes we can be hampered in our efforts.

I am sad to say that in the minds of some, and occasionally with reason, ‘the University’ is seen as the central obstacle that will dampen innovation, restrict new approaches and confine fresh thinking. We have to get to the bottom of this. We cannot waste our energies on inflexible approaches that may have provided useful standardisation in the past, but that might threaten the very agile and responsive approaches in departments and faculties that will be vital to our sustainability in future.

This is why you should be interested in what your University management is thinking and doing, because it is looking in its own mirror and checking to make sure that departments have the flexibility to evolve in the ways they and our students want.

ADAPT AND SURVIVE... FOR A REASON

In short, we must be able to adapt, and so must you. To flourish and still be ourselves. Anyone who has seen the film Forrest Gump will remember Forrest’s answer when Jenny asks him who he dreams he is going to be. His answer is the only one that works in the long term. He says, ‘Aren’t I going to be me?’

And if we can face up to the challenges internally and externally, it is who we are at core that gives me most cause for optimism. As a University we are not so consumed with our own importance that we believe the only really important challenges are the ones facing us. We know that we are part of a society and a world that is also faced with massive questions about its future and how to live. Questions we can help answer. Areas where our discoveries and our students can make a powerful difference.

I have seen in Sheffield a desire to be something that is about more than ourselves, to put our scholarship to work for the good of others. We have never believed in the divine right of universities simply to exist and be funded in isolation – we were founded at a time of public need by people who believed we could make a difference. We did then and we still do, and we need to make that case again in our own time and to show what it means.

I was asked in an open meeting what sort of University I wanted Sheffield to be. I said I wanted an adaptable University that could keep its values in the face of changes ahead. I believe you want that too.

On my recent trip to India, I repeatedly heard about the influence of Gandhi. He had described the need to ‘live in the world with my eyes open’, but that challenge and change must begin first with ourselves.

So let’s be the change we want to see. Don’t leave this thinking to ‘the University’. You are the University. What will you do?