The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is exploring a new location and facilities as part of a Discovery Project looking at the infrastructure required for delivery of the faculty’s vision.

A key driver for the Discovery Project is faculty location and environment. This includes co-locating colleagues effectively, and the recognition that the structure and layout of the current Medical School Building does not support the way we need to work, teach, and research in the future.

Engagement sessions have taken place with key stakeholders over recent months. The overwhelming feedback was that a new and very different space is needed to enable the faculty to realise its full potential.

Several potential sites have been considered for the development of a new space, but there is only one large enough – the site of the former bonded warehouses and gasworks to the north of the Jubilee Campus. The Discovery Project will explore this location as the main development site.

A number of elements are being considered at the development stage, including:

• the need for significant further infrastructure and facilities development at Jubilee Campus which will be required to support the current and additional students and staff
• requirements for activity that will need to remain embedded in and adjacent to the QMC
• dependencies with other faculties and facilities on University Park

This a is a large-scale, complex project, with construction elements not expected to start for at least two years. In the meantime, the university will continue to maintain and invest in the existing facilities.

The Discovery Project team is working in partnership with Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) to ensure that where we have critical adjacencies – for example in some types of clinical research. These are provided for in plans for their Tomorrow’s NUH programme and our timescales continue to align with the revised Tomorrow’s NUH timeline.

A new Strategic Change Board for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science has been established, chaired by the university’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jane Norman, to oversee the development of the new infrastructure and other major faculty improvements across education, research and culture.

Professor Norman said: “We recognise that current disparate locations for the faculty have evolved over many years, and we want to ensure our next steps are taken strategically. The next phases of the Discovery Project will continue to be informed by stakeholder engagement.

“Our teaching and research collaborations with Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), are crucial and will be maintained regardless of the location of the new building. NUH’s status as a teaching hospital and the excellent relationship between the University and Nottingham University Hospitals will be maintained.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, which are giving careful consideration. I hope that you can share in my excitement about this time for the faculty.”

The University Executive Board supports the change programme and will  invest in additional staffing to manage the project going forward.