Campus News
Consultative Committee for Support Staff – new staff reps appointed
April 3rd, 2023
As a result of the recent nominations (and in some cases, online ballots) for membership of the Consultative Committee for Support Staff, please note that the following staff representatives have been appointed for a three-year period ending 30 September 2025.
- Constituency A – Laura Dovey
- Constituency B – Annie Knight
- Constituency C – Alex Herring
- Constituency E – Nicholas Gregg
- Constituency F – Joseph Meehan
Further information is available on the Consultative Committees SharePoint site.
The staff representative for Constituency D is Dave Bicker, whose term of office expires 30 September 2023.
There is a still a vacancy for Constituency G (Technical Staff seat – Digital and Technology Services (DTS) and Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences) – click here for more details – closing date for nominations is Friday 14 April 2023.
Please note that the next meeting of the Consultative Committee for Support Staff is on Tuesday 25 April 2023; please forward any agenda items to the appropriate staff representative for the area you work in (staff representatives are grouped by job family) – the deadline for agenda items is 12.00 noon on Wednesday 12 April 2023.
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on Consultative Committee for Support Staff – new staff reps appointed
Appraisal and Development Conversation (ADC) update: March 2023
March 30th, 2023
The university has carried out a review of the Appraisal and Development Conversation (ADC) process, which was launched in August 2019.
The aim of the review is to ensure that the ADC approach is effectively engaging everyone in the achievement of the University Strategy. ADCs intend to facilitate a safe and trusted space for open dialogue about performance, achievements, development, and aspirations.
The ADCs are currently supported by a balanced framework approach. This was designed to underpin discussions between the appraisee and appraiser about how the appraisee’s personal objectives contribute to the wider areas of focus of the Faculty or Professional Service Department.
The balanced framework model is now outdated and has been superseded by the university’s Strategic Framework. The University Strategy drives all university activity and sets out what it wants to achieve. The university’s Strategic Delivery Plans (SDPs) and Enabling Plans outline how the values, goals, enablers, and cross-cutting issues in the Strategy are realised.
Each (SDP) and Enabling Plan (previously functional delivery and influencing plans) sets out the priorities for the thematic areas, and is supported by detailed business planning identified in the operational delivery plans, and measured by a set of KPIs.
We have therefore updated the ADC process and guidelines, so they are aligned with the university’s Strategic Framework. We have removed the balanced framework approach and instead are encouraging the use of Faculty/Professional Service Department operational delivery plans in directing and setting individual objectives.
We have also adjusted the ADC cycle to better align with the cycle of business planning across the university. Whilst ADCs are based on a conversational framework which encourages regular conversations during the year, the annual ADC will now take place between May and September.
Later in April we will share updated ADC Guidelines and FAQs, as well as updated ADC webpages and learning resources to support both appraisers and appraisees with good quality ADC conversations.
Tags: ADC, ADCs, Appraisal and Development Conversations, University strategy
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on Appraisal and Development Conversation (ADC) update: March 2023
HEPI report: humanities in the UK today
March 30th, 2023
The Higher Education Policy Institute, in collaboration with the Russell Group’s Pro Vice Chancellors and Deans of Arts and Humanities Network, has published a report on the Humanities in the UK, making the case that the UK is a world leader in the Humanities.
The University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Professor Jeremy Gregory is a contributing author to the report which explores what continues to make the Humanities meaningful in the UK , the state of the field in modern Britain, and the support needed from policymakers to ensure they can thrive in the 21st century.
The report notes shifts in recruitment patterns over the last decade, and argues that a key focus needs to be on connecting the Humanities with STEM disciplines and preserving disciplinary breadth to bring maximum impact for society.
It concludes that the country’s strength in the Humanities is “distinctive, and distinctively potent, one that can and should be at the heart of UK inventions and interventions. If fostered and deployed correctly, this will create an unparalleled opportunity for the UK to contribute to human prosperity.”
Tags: HEPI, Higher Education Policy Institute, humanities, STEM
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on HEPI report: humanities in the UK today
PGTA Contracts to be implemented from September
March 28th, 2023
Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (PGTA) contracts will be implemented across all Schools in the university from this September, following successful pilots of the new model in the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Under the new model Postgraduate Teaching Assistants are employed on a part-time annualised hours contract of employment, rather than through casual engagements.
PGTAs deliver invaluable teaching activity including delivering and supporting seminars as well as marking, assessment and giving feedback on students’ work.
PGTA contracts were originally piloted in the School of Politics and International Relations during the 2021/22 academic year and were then successfully rolled out to PGTAs in the Business School and the Schools of Law, Education, Geography and Sociology and Social Policy during the current academic year.
To date almost 50 PGTAs have been employed in the faculty under the new model.
A PGTA implementation group has been formed to support the swift and effective roll out of the new model so that all Schools can offer PGTA contracts from this September.
The group is currently gathering feedback from PGTAs, managers and other key stakeholders to make any final improvements.
Further details about PGTA contracts including FAQ’s and an operations guide can be found at PGTA Guidelines and Process.
Tags: PGTA, Postgraduate Teaching Assistant
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on PGTA Contracts to be implemented from September
Code of Research Conduct and Research Ethics updated for 2023
March 28th, 2023
The university’s code to ensure all research across our campuses in the UK, China and Malaysia is carried out to the highest standards of integrity, rigour and excellence has been reviewed and updated for 2023.
As part of the university’s commitment to The Concordat to Support Research Integrity and Research Ethics Principles, the University Research Integrity and Research Ethics Committee (URIEC) has published the updated Code, v9 March 2023.
This comes as part of the annual review of the Code of Research Conduct and Research Ethics (the Code).
The latest version of the Code is available on the Research Ethics and Integrity SharePoint pages.
In addition to updating the template, contact details and broken links, and minor typos there were several helpful changes throughout. We have published a summary of these changes which can also be found on the Research Ethics and Integrity SharePoint pages.
We would also like to highlight that in line with the university’s Policy Management Framework, the Code now utilises the university’s template for Codes of Practice.
For any queries please contact the Research Integrity, Risk and Compliance team.
Tags: code of research conduct and research ethics, research conduct, research ethics
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on Code of Research Conduct and Research Ethics updated for 2023
Castle Meadow Campus development reaches next phase
March 28th, 2023
Following approval by University Council on 21 March 2023, the university will proceed to the next phase of preparing the Castle Meadow Campus to deliver teaching, research and partnership activity at an exciting new city centre location.
The next three years will see a series of design phases to convert the site’s buildings and landscape and fully realise the vision for Castle Meadow Campus (CMC) as an enterprise campus and gateway into the city.
The Castle Meadow project team led by programme director Jason Phoenix has now completed phase one to define the uses for the campus together with a costed business case for the future occupation of the seven buildings on the site. The three core uses for CMC have been identified as:
- from late 2023, a home for Digital Nottingham providing a civic, research and innovation hub that will bring together researchers, businesses and communities to connect digital and data knowledge, skills and technologies to people and place-based challenges.
- phasing in from 2025, a new city centre location for Nottingham University Business School to conduct teaching, research and partnership activity, enabling it to grow its postgraduate offer and increase collaboration with strategic partners.
- From 2025, a dynamic practice-orientated campus for postgraduate students creating an ecosystem of employers and students to work and learn together, ultimately preparing our students for life after university.
Castle Meadow Campus enables the university to accelerate existing plans to improve teaching and research space for staff, deliver our civic mission and make dedicated provision for professional practice-based courses – more quickly, more sustainably and at a lower cost than was originally planned.
It enhances opportunities for collaboration with local business, industry and small businesses, making it easier for partners to engage with us and develop long-term, mutually beneficial relationships, and make a positive difference for the city, whilst offering the very best of facilities for staff and students.
Phase 2 developments
The university is now moving into phase two of the programme which will take place from April 2023 to September 2024 and will see the appointment of designers and contractors for the required building work.
In late 2023, leading global accountancy firm KPMG will take up the first of what will be a number of long-term leases to co-locate with the university and collaborate with us as industry partners.
From Spring 2024, working with University of Nottingham Innovation Park (UNIP), the site will offer incubation spaces to give students, academic entrepreneurs and local businesses an opportunity to mix and grow and learning alongside each other. The main campus welcome point will open in the Summer of 2024, consisting of catering facilities and multi-use meeting and event spaces.
Phase three of the programme is expected to begin in October 2024 as it works towards occupancy of the remaining buildings – submissions for this phase will then go to Council for further approval later this year.
A strategic vision
Expanding on the university’s strategic vision to be a university without borders, Castle Meadow Campus will be configured to create porous boundaries and opportunities for collaboration within and without the institution.
It will deliver the potential for us to do things differently: creating a real appetite for enterprise and creativity and supporting an educational eco-system that is both ambitious and distinctive from our existing campuses.
By placing staff and students at the heart of its design and exploring the curriculum through the knowledge and skills that it will provide, our teaching will determine campus space requirements rather than space determining teaching approaches.
Focusing on practical and postgraduate skills provision, and combining theory with practice through collaboration with prestigious companies aligned to our values, the campus will provide a springboard for graduates into business, management and financial industries whilst pioneering entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability.
Castle Meadow Campus will also be a catalyst for an Innovation District in the centre of Nottingham, helping to drive forward our civic agenda. In co-locating university research and skills provision together with business and industry, we will collaborate to tackle societal challenges, grow exciting new fields in for example artificial intelligence, data science and financial technologies that will deliver lasting benefit for the city-region’s economy and sustainable growth prospects.
Find out more about Castle Meadow
The Castle Meadow project team is preparing a range of engagement activities to commence in the summer term where staff will have the opportunity to visit the campus and see how the next phase of the development is progressing.
In the meantime, CMC Programme Director, Jason Phoenix, reflects over the past six months of the programme in a blog and explains just what it took to get the university to this important milestone.
Tags: Castle Meadow, Castle Meadow campus, Innovation District
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on Castle Meadow Campus development reaches next phase
Reflections on Castle Meadow – bringing a new campus to life
March 24th, 2023
Blog piece by Castle Meadow Campus Programme Director, Jason Phoenix
Stewarding a programme as significant and complex as establishing a new university campus brings a multiplicity of challenges but equally as many rewards.
Achieving approval from University Council for our plans for the Castle Meadow Campus is a major milestone and as Programme Director I have been reflecting on my experiences and the excellent progress we have made to date over four key stages to start bringing the campus to life.
STAGE ONE: Discovery – determining the scope for Castle Meadow, the resource we require and building the delivery team.
The biggest challenge for me coming into this programme was the sheer size of the task at hand and the complexity of its moving parts. With such a highly anticipated new campus comes the weight of expectation for what it could be – and I found that CMC meant many things to many people.
This was the first thing I needed to resolve; I had to make sure the CMC vision and offer was compelling, realistically deliverable and in line with the university’s strategic priorities. As a result, we now have a clear vision for the campus that is easy to understand and relate to.
Castle Meadow Campus Delivery Team
During this stage, I was privileged to set up a new delivery team selected for their skills, experience and capability. The programme will run over several years and we have developed a great team to deliver against these long team priorities.
STAGE TWO: Engage – making sure I engaged with as many colleagues as possible and collating insights and feedback.
In this stage of the process, it was important for us all to consider what we want and what we need – as a result, we took the useful feedback and ideas collected across a number of consultative events and conversations with a broad range of university staff last year. I then met with key stakeholders to define and agree on the programme outputs, making them realistic, tangible and deliverable. We needed to be strict with what was in and out of scope and in doing so to meet as many expectations as possible.
A key highlight during this stage was engaging the Department of Architecture & Built Environment to assist with creating designs for CMC. Not only have they played a key part in the upcoming designs of our campus, they have now also added CMC into the heart of their curriculum, running a design project to create 3D models of CMC, and producing some fantastic replicas.
3D model of Castle Meadow Campus
We are currently working with Departmental staff and students to create a dedicated space to work alongside our partners and contractors during the design and construction phase to translate their theory into practice.
STAGE THREE: Plan – mapping out the programme milestones, establishing the Castle Meadow experience for all users and forecasting the costs.
The sheer size of the programme and all of the component parts in setting up a new campus and their dependencies need to be handled delicately. It is not only Castle Meadow we must consider, but also the impacts on other campuses.
We understand that CMC is an investment and as such, the team are making sure that every penny we plan on spending is thoroughly challenged and reviewed, ensuring we get the best value for money from our suppliers and partners as well as making the most out of the space in each building.
I am delighted to say that one of the biggest milestones of the programme was achieved this month at University Council, when they gave their full authority and mandate for the CMC vision. This makes me feel hugely proud of the work the team have done to drive this piece of work over the last five months and, doing so, it gives us a great foundation to build on over the next few years.
STAGE FOUR: Execute – deliver on our plans and deliver lasting benefit for the university and Nottingham’s economy; creating jobs, growth and prosperity.
Now we can begin to really deliver our plans for CMC in what promises to be an extremely fulfilling, and occasionally daunting, process. This stage includes everything from hiring contractors to begin the design and construction work, establishing partnerships with key industry leaders and local businesses, identifying where CMC can provide opportunities for postgraduate educational experiences, to helping facilitate and engage in civic priorities within the city.
There is lots to be done and, through each key milestone, we will need to work in an agile way, continually reviewing our processes, re-adjusting our goals if we need to and ensuring that everyone is kept up to date with how we are progressing.
As the work continues, I want to ensure that every member of our university community has opportunity to see the new campus site and keep up to date with its exciting developments.
Please look out for a new programme of staff tours of CMC and a new website which will keep you up to date with the latest news and developments over the coming months.
In the meantime if you have any questions or would like to hear about something specific in our future updates, please get in touch here, I would very much welcome your feedback.
Jason Phoenix
March 2023
Jason Phoenix
Tags: Castle Meadow, Castle Meadow campus
Posted in Announcements, News | 1 Comment »
New framework for creation and governance of policy
March 24th, 2023
A new framework guiding the creation and governance of policy at the university has been endorsed by UEB for implementation.
The framework was developed in response to concerns about the current policy landscape, specifically:
- Inconsistent format and content, including supporting standards and procedures
- Lack of regular review and update
- Related accountabilities and responsibilities not consistently identified or articulated
- Inconsistent locations, making policies difficult to find and navigate
The current status of university policies is a risk, as it does not promote understanding and compliance. In particular, the failure to consistently identify and articulate roles and responsibilities may result in staff and students not understanding their obligations and the potential consequences of not meeting them.
The framework was developed through consultation with key stakeholders across the campuses. It will be managed by the Assurance Team within the Governance and Assurance Division. The key components are:
- A tiered approach to policies. Tier 1 policies apply to all staff and/or students, irrespective of their role or the nature of their studies. All staff and/or students should be made aware of these policies and their associated responsibilities
- A template to ensure all policies are presented in a standardised format and address consistent core considerations
- A central repository for publishing policies
- Definitions of policy and other forms of governance and process documentation
- Establishment of defined processes for drafting, approving, reviewing, revoking and publishing policies
- Supporting guidance and resources
The framework represents a significant cultural shift for the university as many current “policies” do not fit the definition of policy that has been agreed.
Over the coming months, the Assurance Team will work with policy owners to introduce the new framework and provide practical tips for the transition of existing policies into the new standard.
This will include identifying those current policies which will be re-categorised into standard operating procedures, codes of practice/conduct or other formats.
A central repository for policies is being developed and to allow stakeholders to find and access relevant documentation and information with ease.
Briefing sessions for key stakeholders will be held in the coming weeks.
The Framework and supporting resources, including templates and guidance, can be found on the Risk and Assurance SharePoint site.
If you have any queries, please email Assurance@nottingham.ac.uk.
Tags: assurance, Governance, policies, policy, Risk and Assurance
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off on New framework for creation and governance of policy
We’ve come a long way: Professor Neil Crout’s farewell update
March 24th, 2023
Professor Neil Crout, Interim Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, is retiring after 30-plus years at the university.
In addition to his regular update, Professor Crout, has reflected on his time at Nottingham:
“My early days as an academic varied from exciting to terrifying via confusing, with a complete lack of what we now call ‘training’.
Our systems for staff development and support have changed utterly and for the better. Another big change is the emphasis on collaboration and recognition of team working as an essential skill.”
A Professor of Environmental Modelling, Neil Crout joined the university as a post-doctoral researcher in 1989 studying radionuclides in the food chain in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.
His research area focuses on models of environmental and agricultural systems, examining trace elements in the environment to shed light on environmental change and crop yield forecasting.
He is a former Head of the School of Biosciences and co-ordinated the university’s submission to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework,.
Professor Crout says: “I worked somewhere with a purpose of education and discovering stuff, which is full of clever, conscientious and wonderful people. Quite a privilege.”
He adds: “I acknowledge that there’s much to do, but once again I am delighted to share news of (more recent!) progress in helping us deliver excellent research.”
This includes expanded resources for research staff development, as outlined by Niall O’Loughlin, new Director of RKE Excellence and Strategy and news of funding to support research collaborations between the universities of Nottingham and Adelaide, as part of our new global strategic alliance.
Read Professor Crout’s research update
Tags: Neil Crout, Professor Neil Crout, PVC Research and Knowledge Exchange
Posted in Announcements, News, Side news story | Comments Off on We’ve come a long way: Professor Neil Crout’s farewell update