Core plans
The six strategic aims will be delivered through a series of integrated core institutional plans that will guide the University’s operations in the following areas:
The development of the plans will be phased. Work on the first – the International Engagement and Impact core plan – is already well underway, with the plan expected to be finalised by June 2022.
An indicative timeframe of the development of all the core plans is as follows:
|
Core Plan |
Development starts |
Expected completion |
|---|---|---|
|
January 2022 |
June 2022 |
|
|
Education and Student Experience |
April 2022 |
October 2022 |
|
Sporting Excellence and Opportunity |
October 2022 |
January 2023 |
|
Partnerships |
October 2022 |
March 2023 |
|
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion |
January 2023 (pending PVC starting Sept 2022) |
March 2023 |
|
Research and Innovation |
January 2023 (pending PVC starting Sept 2022) |
March 2023 |
Each plan will have a content lead, who will be responsible for overseeing the plan’s development, working in partnership with the University’s senior leaders and other key stakeholders within and, where appropriate, outside of the University.
Each core plan will be approved by the Academic Leadership Team (ALT) and the Professional Services Leadership Team (PSLT), who will also review progress against each of the plans. A report on each plan will be presented to Council annually.
Enabling projects
The core plans will be supported by a series of five Enabling Projects.
These will consider and address the organisational changes that need to be made to ensure the University is well placed to progress its strategic aims.
Each project will have a Sponsor, drawn from the University’s senior management teams, and a Project Director, who together will be responsible for leading the development of the project, supported by a Project Manager and the Organisational Development and Change teams.
The development of the projects will be phased. Project Enable was the first to be launched, in February, and early-stage work has begun on Project Compliance. The scope of the other Projects is currently being drawn up.
Project Enable
Sponsor: Prof. Nick Jennings
Director: Richard Taylor
Manager: Dr Jenna Townend
Project Enable explores how to create capacity and thinking space for staff to enable the advancement of our strategic priorities, and other value-add activities, by identifying what we can do differently or stop doing and by addressing both processes and culture.
The aims are:
- To reduce burdens for both academic and Professional Services staff
- To create more time for staff to pursue value-add activities, including the new strategy’s ambitions for research and innovation endeavours, whilst maintaining the student experience
- To reduce net workload across the University, not to move work between structures
- To improve the wellbeing and work-life balance of staff, relating to workload pressures
- To empower colleagues to take appropriate, effective actions to deliver priorities, ensuring appropriate accountability
Project Expectations
Sponsor: Prof. Nick Jennings
Director: Ffyona Baker
Manager: Sandra Hill
Project Expectations seeks to make clear the new expectations required of leaders and colleagues in the context of the new Strategic Plan, aligning supporting systems, processes and culture. It will look to make the intangible, tangible by exploring what Loughborough needs from its colleagues, how their performance will be measured and how they can expect to be developed, recognised and valued for their contribution.
The aims are:
- To articulate the new strategic priorities and the role of leaders and managers in this context
- To clearly state how all colleagues can contribute and what is expected of them
- To ensure that our performance and development approaches support the achievement of our strategic goals
- To align our reward and recognition processes and activities to reinforce our strategic priorities
Project Compliance
Sponsor: Richard Taylor
Director: Sam McGinty
Manager: John Houghton
To protect the integrity of our University’s compliance obligations whilst skilling and empowering colleagues to take appropriate action at the appropriate time.
The aims are:
- to create capacity for colleagues by replacing first line controls with an approach that trusts and empowers
- to reduce bottlenecks within professional services through training and empowerment
- to reduce red tape around compliance whilst maintaining the integrity of our compliance requirements
- to implement clear policies and expectations across a range of compliance areas including: export control, Academic Technology Approval Scheme, information security, data governance, national security and investment act, ethics, managing conflicts of interest, due diligence, contracts, Intellectual Property management and exploitation
Project Digital
Sponsor: Richard Taylor
Director: Vipin Ahlawat
Manager: TBC
This project will ensure that the University has the digital capabilities required to achieve our strategic aims through each of the six Core Plans.
Project Reputation
Sponsor: Richard Taylor
Director: Martyn Edwards
Manager: TBC
This project will consider how we distil and project our distinctive strengths to enhance our reputation as a leading university.
The project aims are:
- To reposition the University’s research and innovation profile in a competitive and crowded external environment by identifying and projecting distinctive strengths
- To demonstrate our ambition and secure greater recognition and visibility of our achievements across disciplines, particularly where there is a critical mass of high-quality activity that falls under one or more of the Strategic Themes
- To embed an agile framework (“Projecting Excellence”) for developing a distinctive and enduring reputation for academic endeavour and impact (Real, Rare, Relevant)
- To ensure a cohesive, collaborative way of working between Marketing and Advancement and the academy to promote and foreground our leading research and innovation activity