WATCH: Recording of welcome event with Duncan Ivison

Dear all, 

Thank you again to those who attended the open meeting last week and for the many excellent questions and comments – which have continued to come in long after the event! 

I’m grateful for the warm welcome from everyone who attended both the in-person and online event and I hope to meet many more colleagues over the coming months. 

Also, thank you for the thought provoking questions that so many of you shared. I am continuing to reflect on what we discussed and have summarised some of my take-aways below.  

Communication 

There is a deep desire to improve how we communicate as an organisation at all levels and to encourage regular conversations about the big strategic challenges we face as a university. 

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 

Colleagues shareda lot of helpful suggestions and comments about how we deepen our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and a desire for us to do much better in this area.  

Student experience 

A concern with our current approach to the NSS and how might that need to change for us to deliver a better student experience. 

Change management 

Suggestions around how we can improve how we manage change (large and small) and what we might learn from other universities and organisations who do it well (in particular, focusing more on supporting people through change). 

Value of teaching, learning and research 

A desire to see greater emphasis on the value of teaching and learning as compared to research (without for a moment taking away from the importance of research for our staff and students). 

Ambition 

A concern that we aren’t ambitious enough in terms of our national and global positioning in relation to research and teaching. 

Technological advances 

Rightly so there were also a lot of comments on improving our systems and processes - especially the potential for us to take a step change in relation to our use of technology (including AI) across all our services, teaching and research. 

Our organisational culture 

Some challenging comments and suggestions about our culture as an organisation and whether we are too risk-averse and conservative in our approach to tackling those things that are holding us back. One interesting theme is that we are good at making things complicated when they don’t need to be! 

This was a great start and I hope to meet many more of you throughout the next few months as I continue to get to know the University. 

Please don’t hesitate to stop and say hello if you see me around campus, or get in touch through email, X (@DuncanIvison), LinkedIn, or at the many events we have planned over the coming months.    

Best wishes, 

D 

Watch the open meeting recording 

If you weren't able to attend, we will be announcing further opportunities to meet Duncan soon via StaffNet. 

You can also view the Q&A session with Duncan that took place on Instagram.