The UniversityStrategy

the world.Changing

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Vice-Chancellor’s foreword

The University of Southampton is a place of transformation. Through education and research, innovation and enterprise, the University unlocks creative potential and provides opportunities that transform the lives of our students, our community, society and the economy.

Education in all parts of the University is underpinned

by our research excellence. Our students are engaged in the intellectual challenges of research, enabling them to be part of world-leading research as it takes place. Our researchers are ranked among the top five in UK universities for engineering and computer science, nursing and general practice, statistics, sociology and social policy, European studies and music, and earth systems and environmental sciences.

The University makes the most of its location in one of Britain’s most important port cities and has long been distinguished by its leadership in the maritime sciences. The University is home to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton1, a leader in marine engineering, ship science and maritime law.

Over many years the University has also distinguished itself as a hub of invention and creativity. Our enterprise has its foundations in the broad base of academic disciplines that make us a genuinely comprehensive university. It is embedded in the fabric of the University and is reflected in our remarkable successes in technology transfer and in our business partnerships – seeing us rated alongside the best in the world in creating successful spin-out companies, creating new industry and new jobs. This success in enterprise also permeates our education and is reflected in the successful involvement of many students in our enterprise activities.

Pioneering research into optoelectronics at Southampton led directly to the technologies that power the internet. Our research into sound and vibration has been applied in the development of quieter jet engines and has helped people regain their hearing. Engineering research at Southampton has led to Olympic success for the GB Cycling Team (Beijing, 2008) and the British Skeleton Team for the skeleton bob (Vancouver, 2010). For the past five decades, the University has carried out research and development in the high-technology world of performance sailing and motor sport, particularly for America’s Cup

and Formula One racing. Medical research has led to novel treatments for asthma and to a deeper understanding of the developmental origins of adult disease. An online learning resource developed at the University has helped tens of thousands of students in 200 countries develop their English language skills.

Building on our success, this University Strategy describes our future ambition and priorities in research, education and enterprise. The Strategy presents the University of Southampton as a confident, outwardly focused institution that has both deep roots in its local area and global ambitions. It describes an institution that will maintain its focus on the quality of the educational experience it provides for its students, and is committed to its place as a leading research university of international standing.

Southampton will continue to be a university that places a high value on maximising opportunities for staff and students with talent, regardless of their background. It is also a place that values independent thought, and the freedom to challenge existing knowledge and beliefs through critical research and scholarship. It is a place that recognises its important role in providing social leadership by promoting environmental and economic sustainability in all that it does.

This Strategy has been prepared at a time when public funding for teaching and research is being cut, and universities are being strongly encouraged to grow income from a wide range of alternative sources. The Strategy identifies ways in which we can grow our income and better manage our resources. It will guide future decisions on where we invest, and where to disinvest. We have much to be proud of in past achievements, but we will be challenged to improve our position in an intensely competitive national and global higher education environment. This Strategy will guide the decisions we take to meet this challenge.

Professor Don Nutbeam Vice-Chancellor

1. The National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) is the integrated collaboration between the Southampton-based part of the Natural Environment Research Council’s National Oceanography Centre and the University of Southampton.

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1. Delivering research excellenceOur aspirations for world-leading research. Page 7

2. Transforming education Our innovative approach to teaching and learning. Page 9

3. Leadership in enterprise and innovation Building on our spin-out success, collaborative research and consultancy. Page 11

4. Making an impact on society and the economy Strengthening our positive impact on individuals and society. Page 13

In this StrategyOur ambition 5

Enabling actions 15

Recognising our success 19

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“We have appointed an outstanding new leadership team to take forward our ambitious new Strategy.” Professor Don Nutbeam, Vice-Chancellor

In her new role as one of our eight Deans under our new academic structure, Professor Jessica Corner will lead the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Jessica trained as a cancer nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London; she was the first nurse to be awarded the Nuffield Trust’s prestigious Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Fellowship. Through her leadership and advisory roles Jessica is at the forefront of healthcare strategy and improving patient care.

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As a University community we will change the world for the better through our research, education, innovation and enterprise.

We are committed to further improve our position as a leading research university of international standing, distinguished by our enterprise. We aspire to be a place of opportunity and inspiration that attracts talented staff and students regardless of their background.

By 2015 we expect to be clearly recognised as a successful and influential international university that has both strong roots in its local area and a substantial global presence.

Strategic aims and initiatives

To realise our ambition, we are committed to achieve:

- a step change in the scale and performance of our research in ways that fully exploit our capabilities and infrastructure

- transformation in the structure, quality and flexibility of our educational programmes to offer our students a distinctive Southampton educational experience

- tangible economic impact through our international leadership in enterprise, knowledge transfer and business engagement

- significant social impact locally and globally through public debate, community outreach and cultural engagement

We have set ourselves 17 strategic initiatives to complete by 2015. These will transform the University. The initiatives are set out in this University Strategy, together with the key indicators we will use to gauge our progress.

This University Strategy is underpinned by more detailed research and education strategic plans, and strategy support plans for finance, infrastructure and human resources.

Our ambition

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Liquid crystals are essential for modern computing and leisure: without them there would be no flat-screen TVs, laptops or iPhones. At the University of Southampton we have some of the world’s leading liquid crystal researchers and our expertise in this field stretches back over 40 years. Southampton scientists were selected to showcase their research on liquid crystals at the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary summer exhibition.

“Excellence in research is at the core of our ambition; it underpins our commitment to changing the world for the better through our education, innovation and enterprise.”Professor Philip Nelson, Pro Vice-Chancellor

Science Photo Library

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Delivering research excellence

We aspire to be a world-leading research university, clearly ranked top 10 in the UK by:

1. Developing our existing world-class research

We will continue to compete with the best universities in the UK, and improve our research competitiveness within the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. We will do this by further improving or maintaining performance in our existing successful disciplines and by disinvesting in those disciplines where there is little prospect of meeting the highest standards in research. All disciplines will contribute to the University’s ambitions to achieve a top-10 performance in the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

2. Supporting innovative research across disciplines to address global challenges

Some 15 per cent of the Research Councils UK budget is devoted to ‘global challenge’ research topics and we will continue to be responsive to national funding initiatives of this type. We will fully exploit our infrastructure and facilities for research, especially major new investments in photonics and nanotechnology at the Mountbatten clean rooms, the Life Sciences building and in the development of Southampton General Hospital. We will use these new facilities, together with those in high-performance computing, to deliver an agile, dynamic and flexible approach to multidisciplinary research. We will develop strategic research groups in response to external funding opportunities and create new research institutes in disciplines where the University clearly has the potential to be world leading and internationally distinctive.

3. Increasing income from research grants

We will enable and support a strong culture of grant winning within the University, exceeding that of our Russell Group comparators. We will continue to grow our international research, targeting accessible sources of funds for international research, and developing strategic research partnerships with selected internationally excellent universities overseas. We will continue to explore opportunities for funded collaborative research through the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN).

4. Attracting, developing and retaining high-achieving staff

We will retain and develop our existing high-performing staff, enabling them to realise their full potential in undertaking world-class teaching and research. Over the next five years we aim to complement our existing excellence by appointing 100 new world-leading academics.

5. Supporting and increasing our early career researchers and postgraduate research students

We will continue to nurture and grow the early careers of staff who will contribute to world-class performance in research in the medium to long term. We will increase the number of our postgraduate research students by at least 50 per cent through an institution-wide scholarship scheme and by recruiting new, world-leading academics. We will assist early career staff to launch new research initiatives through an innovative postdoctoral ‘career track’ fellowship scheme.

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Dr Mike Wald was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in recognition of his teaching excellence. Throughout his career Mike has improved learning for students through his excellence in teaching and his innovative creation, development and use of technology. Mike’s most recent innovation, Synote, is a web application that helps students synchronise transcripts and notes with recorded lectures or teaching materials. Synote is being used by universities worldwide to transform learning for all students.

“We are committed to transforming our curriculum to provide our students with greater choice and opportunities to learn alongside our world-leading academics.”Professor Debra Humphris, Pro Vice-Chancellor Education

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Transforming education

We will attract the most talented students, irrespective of background, and prepare them to be confident citizens and potential leaders in an increasingly globalised work environment by:

6. Ensuring that our education is shaped by our culture of research and enterprise

Our educational programmes will be underpinned by internationally leading research and distinguished by appropriate student engagement in enterprise. Our multidisciplinary approach will enable students to explore global challenges by drawing on the full breadth of research and expertise from across the University.

7. Providing a more flexible, personalised educational experience

We are creating greater flexibility in our curriculum structure that will enable students to personalise their learning – adding breadth to the depth we provide in their studies. We aspire to improve our students’ preparation for employment, achieving improved employment outcomes relative to our comparators in the Russell Group. We will increase opportunities for students to gain work experience, including volunteering and enterprise activities. We will provide prospective and current students with a new level of clear, uniform and accessible information and comparative metrics that demonstrate the quality and value of our student experience.

8. Improving the learning spaces and support facilities we provide to our students

We will develop our facilities to meet the needs of our growing student population and changing student profile and expectations. We will continue to provide excellent learning resources, improve the range

and quality of residential accommodation, and actively support variety in social and recreational opportunities, as well as the needs of all faiths and cultures.

9. Transforming and growing our postgraduate and advanced education for professional development

We will establish a University-wide Researcher Development and Graduate Centre to better equip our postdoctoral researchers for international research careers. We will increase the proportion of our student population engaged in postgraduate learning by opening up opportunities for lifelong learning, including master’s degrees, research training and flexible, modular-based advanced education or continuing professional development.

10. Achieving a sustainable increase in the size and diversity of the student population

We will carefully plan and balance the growth in our student community over the next five years to ensure alignment with our academic mission, responsiveness to student demand, and relevance to employer need. We will attract the most talented UK students, irrespective of background, and will work in partnership with schools and colleges to increase the participation of talented local students in higher education. We will continue to grow at a sustainable pace the number of high-quality international students, recruiting 30 per cent of students from outside the UK. This will be achieved through improved recruitment and innovative partnerships with overseas universities and government agencies.

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For the past five decades, Southampton engineers have carried out research and development in the high-technology world of performance racing in the air, on water and on the ground. With our state-of-the-art wind tunnel complex, our researchers carry out aerodynamics testing for high-profile industrial partners including aeroplane manufacturers, America’s Cup, Formula One teams as well as ‘A’ class model yacht racing contenders (pictured).

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Leadership in enterprise and innovation

We will deliver distinctive economic impact and achieve international leadership in enterprise and innovation by:

11. Further developing our enterprise and innovation

Since 2000 we have spun out 12 successful companies, four of which have been floated on London’s Alternative Investment Market, with a combined market capitalisation value of £180m. We will achieve further success in launching and growing new spin-out companies, and will seek to maximise the associated financial returns to the University through this activity. We will further strengthen the economic and societal impact of our research by building on our strong culture of enterprise and engagement with business. We aim to achieve a top-five ranking in the UK for the generation of spin-out companies and the commercial exploitation of intellectual wealth.

12. Strengthening and developing strategic relationships with leading national and international organisations

We will continue to build successful working relationships with our key partner organisations and to work with them to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. These include building on existing successful collaborations with the NHS and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), as well as with Lloyd’s Register to establish a Maritime Centre of Excellence. With all our strategic partners, we will respond jointly to funding opportunities as they emerge from both government and private sources.

13. Developing collaborative research with industry and business

We will continue to improve the volume and quality of collaborative research with commercial organisations to increase our research income. We will focus on specific industry sectors to build stronger corporate relationships. We will work with our partners to fully exploit existing and new funding sources, diversifying the University’s funding base. We will work closely with the University of Southampton Science Park in attracting businesses to the region and encouraging them to work closely with the University.

14. Growing our applied research and consultancy

We will build on our excellent record of engagement with businesses, from small and medium-sized enterprises to multinational enterprises. This will be achieved through the activities of University enterprise units, relationships with our own spin-out companies and through other consulting activities, and we will seek to grow collaborative work of this nature. We will ensure that these activities are closely aligned to, and successfully exploit, our research strengths to enhance our submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

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Children across the city have been able to enjoy the sound of a full orchestra in their schools and even have a go at conducting, as part of the Baby Southampton University Symphony Orchestra (Baby SUSO) project.

“The pupils at Portswood Primary School thoroughly enjoyed the Baby SUSO visit and it has really inspired some of our young musicians to want to play in an orchestra.”Llyn Codling, Head Teacher of Portswood Primary School

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Making an impact on society and the economy

Recognising our social responsibility, and the capacity of our education and research to improve the lives of individuals and society, we will strengthen the positive impact we have on our local community, region and country by:

15. Influencing key decision makers in every part of public life

We will work creatively with central and local government, selected national and international organisations, and other universities to extend the social and economic impact of our research and education, both in the UK and across the world. This will enable us to place our innovative thinking at the centre of national and global debates. We will continue to recognise and actively promote our achievements and contribution to society, developing a distinctive identity and reputation for the University.

16. Strengthening our partnerships with regional leaders and national bodies

As a leading employer in the region and creator of a highly skilled workforce, the University is a major engine of economic growth and a focal point for social and community engagement. We will use our unique position to bring together key opinion leaders and to influence the agenda for delivering growth and prosperity. We will enrich the lives of individuals by developing our arts offering on campus and by continuing to support our staff and students to participate in a wide range of community projects, outreach activities and business partnerships.

17. Developing mutually beneficial lifelong relationships with our alumni and supporters

We will further develop our extensive network of alumni and other supporters around the world to mentor, advise and provide work experience to our students and graduates. We will provide our supporters with opportunities to engage with the University through, for example, professional and advanced education programmes or consultancy on preferential terms for both individuals and their businesses. These networks will provide a pool of potential donors for the University.

These initiatives will be underpinned by a range of enabling actions that are detailed in the support plans for human resources, infrastructure and finance, the key elements of which are described below.

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Dr Francesco Poletti, a research fellow at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, was awarded two prestigious Postdoctoral Research Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.

Both five-year fellowships were offered to Francesco to fund his work on a novel platform of extreme fibre laser sources for biomedical, industrial and telecoms applications. Competition for these awards is fierce, and to be awarded two fellowships is a great achievement. Unable to accept two fellowships at the same time, Francesco has accepted the Royal Society University Research Fellowship.

“This award gives me the freedom and independence to follow my own research ideas and continue working in such an inspiring and multidisciplinary research institution.”Dr Francesco Poletti

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Enabling actions

Developing our people

Distinguishing ourselves in an increasingly competitive environment will require greater flexibilities in our workforce and the development of a performance-enhancing culture. We place a high priority on attracting and developing staff with talent, irrespective of background, and developing effective national and international leaders in the University community. We will develop initiatives for nurturing and developing talent, including secondments, partnership working and support for early career researchers.

The potential, creativity, capability and commitment of our staff are central to our success and we will develop a culture that empowers individuals and encourages innovation. We will support our staff to deliver a consistently high level of performance in all activities and in return will support and reward their achievement, recognising both individual and team success, through a flexible benefits package. Processes for managing performance will be improved with rewards directly linked to the achievement of well-articulated objectives and standards.

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“Our research has already shown that bioenergy crops could potentially reduce carbon emissions by several million tonnes in the UK over the next decade.”Professor Gail Taylor

A unique £1.1m research project, led by the University of Southampton, is investigating how coppiced trees and grass crops can be used both to generate renewable energy and to trap carbon in the soil over the long term.

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Effectively managing our infrastructure

Improving the strategic alignment, quality, use and environmental impact of our estate and physical infrastructure are essential to realising the University’s ambitions. We will pursue major capital projects that are essential to achieving our ambitions, including the development of the Maritime Centre of Excellence in cooperation with Lloyd’s Register. We will also procure additional student accommodation, continue to improve our existing student accommodation, learning and social spaces, and develop the Winchester campus to support the planned growth in the student population. We will strive to make all new infrastructure sustainable and to reduce energy consumption and our carbon impact.

Achieving financial sustainability

We will grow our economy through the selective expansion of world-class research and education, and by developing new markets and activities where they are profitable. We intend to maximise the proportion of our income that is devoted to research and education and, anticipating an increasingly difficult environment for public funding, to reduce risks by diversifying our sources of income. We will actively control staff costs and generate a combined annual financial surplus and investment fund of at least five per cent of turnover.

The University will be well managed and led within a clear framework for governance and decision making, and we will ensure the proper use of and accountability for public funds. The information and communications infrastructure will be developed to provide students and staff with a user-friendly experience including a single point of entry to all online facilities. Emerging technologies will be used to enable mobile access to systems supporting our research and education activities.

Enabling actions continued

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The University has been named as a Centre of Excellence by the national blood cancer charity Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, recognising our world-class research into the main blood cancers: leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. The charity has over £7m currently invested in research projects at the Centre.

Our groundbreaking cancer research includes creating ‘DNA vaccines’ that manipulate the immune system to fight leukaemia and myeloma. These could be the basis of new treatments for blood cancer in the future.

“The University of Southampton has proven itself to be truly world class in its research into leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Our scientists here are consistently helping to improve treatment and diagnosis for patients in Southampton and across the UK – it really is a Centre of Excellence.”Cathy Gilman, Chief Executive of Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research

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The University’s achievements will be measured by the following key indicators:

- improved international rankings and clearly on-track to the world’s top-50 universities

- improved student satisfaction and employability as reflected in national student surveys: to be in the upper quartile of our Russell Group comparators

- increased proportion of world-leading staff submitted to the next UK research excellence assessment (Research Excellence Framework, REF) and achievement of a top-10 UK quality profile

- each discipline, as a minimum, undertaking research that is 20 per cent world leading, 40 per cent internationally excellent and the remaining 40 per cent internationally recognised

- top-10 ranking in the UK for income from research grants and contracts

- top-five ranking in the UK on key measures for commercialisation and exploitation of our intellectual wealth

- increase in the number of our postgraduate research students by at least 50 per cent

- increase in the number of students from outside the UK to 30 per cent of our total student population

- combined annual financial surplus and investment fund of at least five per cent of turnover

More detailed measures of our progress will be developed, reflecting the activities described in the strategic plans for research and education, and the support plans for finance, human resources and infrastructure. These will include measures reflecting enterprise and internationalisation.

Recognising our success

www.southampton.ac.uk/strategy strategy@southampton.ac.uk