Head of SBS Update
31 Mar 2017
Jane Worthington provides an overview of activities over the past month and highlights current calls to action, including the University’s Staff Survey.
March has been a busy month that has included continuing our work on budget setting and reviewing applications for academic promotions as well as hosting our second School Board meeting, and our first Professorial Inaugural Lectures.
As you should all be aware, the University is currently running its Staff Survey and I’m pleased that 54% of SBS staff have already completed this. I encourage everyone to please make an effort to take part in this important feedback exercise to ensure that the views of our Faculty and School are well represented. The comments are used collectively to produce actions plans not only for the wider University, but will also feed directly into our School’s action plan. The deadline is 18 April so you still have plenty of time to complete the survey – remember it is completely anonymous – find out more from Staffnet.
I would like to thank Caroline Bowsher for doing an excellent job of chairing the School Board on 8 March 2017 and co-ordinating the agenda. The event gave me an opportunity to thank Alison Howorth and her team for all their input to UGT and PGT number setting which received a glowing report from the central team. I can report that the school is doing well financially and should end the year in a strong position.
We all appreciate the importance of grant income to our work and the number and value of applications submitted across the School illustrates our ambition. I would like to acknowledge those awards that are less than £500K which do not make it into the Faculty’s bi-monthly Research bulletin by including them from now on in our own newsletter. February’s data can be viewed HERE.
The meeting also provided a chance for me to give an update on academic promotions. Professors Ann-Marie Glenny, Kay Marshall (morning) and Peter Clayton (afternoon) attended the School Promotions Committee(SPC) meeting on 1 March to consider the 25 applications received. It was a long day involving rigorous discussion of every case. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank everyone involved for their time and effort in putting together the applications which will now go, with the SPC recommendations to the Faculty Promotions Committee on 5 May 2017.
Reviewing the Promotions process so far this year we have recognised the need for some training in specific areas including the preparation of senior colleague statements which will be run in advance of next year’s promotions round along with the workshops on preparing for academic promotions some of which will now be for women only. I hope that both these initiatives will improve the quality of the applications received by the SPC and should be helpful for those wishing to apply in the next round of promotions.
The Faculty’s Web and Digital Content Manager, Stewart Aitken gave a concise overview of the progress being made to facilitate research on the FBMH website and how issues arising from the FLS and MHS legacy sites and PURE integration are being addressed at Faculty and University level. We plan to invite Stuart back to a future board meeting for a further update.
Alison Howorth outlined the action being taken as a result of issues highlighted by our ‘100 day review’. These include the creation of School and Divisional ‘how-to’ guides and School induction information. Already underway is the development of a SBS SharePoint site with calendars and key information, and discussions with the Faculty’s Internal Communications team in relation to the continued development of the Announcements system.
Alison also reminded everyone that monthly Health and Safety updates are published in this newsletter which this month includes details on the School’s Statement of Intent.
In her PGT update, Sarah Herrick confirmed that student numbers are healthy for 2016-17. Work is also being carried out to harmonise the different processes in PGT education carried forward from MHS and FLS to the new Faculty and the findings of the team’s upcoming nine month review that will be published in June.
The meeting closed with a short presentation from Andy Vail from the Biostatistical Collaboration Unit (BCU) who stressed the importance of taking the study design and statistical analysis and interpretation into account throughout research starting with the grant application process. The establishment of the BCU provides the opportunity for all staff across the Faculty to access expert statistical advice with an aim of improving the quality of our research and I would strongly encourage you to make use of this service. Presentations from the meeting will be circulated shortly.
Following the School Board I had the pleasure of chairing the Work Life Balance panel discussion at our International Women’s Day event. The session featured three academics who gave entertaining and frank insights into how they balance their careers with their busy home life. Common denominators such as the importance of flexibility and learning to ‘banish the guilt’ were just a couple of the take away messages from a thoroughly enjoyable discussion.
As mentioned previously, the first of our inaugural lectures took place recently and I am happy to say that the event was a great success. Professors Audrey Bowen and Kimme Hyrich both gave very entertaining and informative presentations to an audience of family, friends, colleagues and collaborators. The series continues on 3 May when Caroline Bowsher and Sam Griffiths-Jones will deliver their inaugural lectures followed by Paul Dark and Will Dixon on 17 May.
I am also very pleased to highlight the recently published QS ‘World University Rankings by Subject 2017’ where the University has gained a position of 29th in the world and is one of the top 10 UK universities to study Life Sciences and Medicine. This is very positive news for the Faculty and importantly, in the subjects of Biological Sciences (6th) and in Pharmacy and Pharmacology (6th) we also sit within the top ten universities in the UK.
Finally, I’d like to congratulate Dr Brian Bigger from the Division of Cell Matrix Biology and Regenerative Medicine who has been appointed as our School Lead for Business Engagement. I look forward to working with Brian in developing new opportunities for collaborations with industry partners.
I wish you all an enjoyable and well-earned break over the Easter weekend.
Jane Worthington
Head of the School of Biological Sciences