Strategy 2020

FROM THE VICE CHANCELLOR

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WE WILL ADVANCE OUR POSITION AS A LEADING UNIVERSITY IN CREATIVITY, CULTURE AND ENTERPRISE, DRAWING ON THE TRADITIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF OUR 160 YEARS AS AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION.

We will ensure our graduates acquire a diverse range of experiences and skills, the Bath Spa ‘Graduate Attributes’. Bath Spa graduates will be creative, digitally literate, globally connected, able to work in teams and entrepreneurial. They will be well equipped to thrive intellectually and in the world of work, and will be active members of our connected, creative community.

Students will acquire these attributes through a curriculum that encourages flexible and crossdisciplinary learning with both an international dimension and relevance to the world of work.

Creative research and practice based research are central to our endeavour. With over 50% of our research rated as world-leading / internationally excellent, we will build our research income and reputation and develop new funding streams with industry for knowledge exchange and consultancy.

We will focus our research on cross-University themes such as environmental humanities and transnational creativity and education, and promote collaborative research activity in our core fields both in the UK and beyond.

Internationalisation is an important strategic theme. Based as we are in a world heritage city, there is great synergy in growing international student numbers here, in encouraging Bath Spa students to study overseas and seeing all our graduates becoming global citizens. Equally, we will develop a unique international community of scholars in support of our research ambitions through our international networks such as the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA).

We must face and embrace extraordinary change in higher education and the world at large and we must be resilient in a climate of uncertainty. Our strategy is ambitious. It focuses on growth and innovation, and calls on us to be agile and be prepared to take measured risks. We will pursue the best new forms of teaching, research and creative practice, aiming for the highest standards of international rigour and relevance. We have the people, the students, the location and the tradition to meet this challenge.

Professor Christina Slade Vice-Chancellor

Our vision:

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To be a leading university in creativity, culture and enterprise.

Through inspirational teaching and research, we transform students’ lives. Based in a World Heritage city and connected to a network of international partners, Bath Spa University will ensure that its graduates are socially engaged global citizens.

Three principles underpin our vision: we are ethical, we are academically led and we are focused on all our students acquiring the distinctive set of Bath Spa Attributes.

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Bath Spa’s Graduate Attributes Students who acquire these attributes will be socially engaged global citizens with international perspectives and networks, who can work creatively and enterprisingly in their chosen fields. The attributes are recognisably ours, and brought together they bind together and drive the elements of our strategic planning to 2020.

Employable: equipped with the skills necessary to flourish in the global workplace, able to work in, and lead, teams; Able to understand and manage complexity, diversity and change; Creative: able to innovate and to solve problems by working across disciplines as professional or artistic practitioners; Digitally literate: able to work at the interface of creativity and technology; Internationally networked: studying abroad for part of their programme, or studying alongside students from overseas; Creative thinkers, doers and makers; Critical thinkers: able to express their ideas in written and oral form, and possessing information literacy; Ethically aware: prepared for citizenship in a local, national and global context.

What we teach and how we teach it

PERFORMANCE MEASURES: Student completion rates Student satisfaction levels Graduate employment and further study

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We will develop a learning framework that enables inter- and multi-disciplinary scholarship and provides a distinctive internationalised educational experience

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The Graduate Attributes are stretching and require us to rethink what we teach and how we teach it. We will create a new academic structure to provide a flexible framework that enables our graduates to understand a range of disciplines and develop an international perspective, and we will need to be at the cutting edge of new technologies.

Our new curriculum will encourage connectivity through flexible inter- and multidisciplinary study across all our fields of expertise. New programme structures will incorporate areas of thematic study (such as ‘global citizenship’ and ‘sustainability’), allowing students to broaden their educational experience.

We will blend digital technologies, international perspectives and work-oriented connections to cultivate responsible citizenry and social responsibility alongside academic excellence. Students will connect with creative networks both within the unique campus environment of the University and beyond. Our graduates will be prepared for global citizenship and for work in the global context.

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Provide each student with a distinctive educational experience that draws on the full range of our disciplines, academic connections and environments; Rethink and deliver a new curricular approach; the hallmarks being choice of flexibility, depth of study and mobility, all supporting academic excellence; Ensure all students have opportunities for international experiences embedded in their annual curricula, through overseas exchanges, visits, or online learning shared with partner HEIs from our Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA) network and beyond; Develop the postgraduate framework ensuring it is wholly in tune with the research excellence of our staff and aligned to the specific attributes we seek of our postgraduate community; Place the university’s exceptional digital as well as physical facilities at the heart of the learning experience, developing synergies to maximise the efficient use of these facilities; Ensure our students graduate with the Bath Spa attributes that support their future success.

RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE WE WILL: l

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WE WILL GROW OUR WORLD-LEADING RESEARCH QUALITY, EXPAND OUR ENTREPRENEURIAL PARTNERSHIPS WITH THE CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND MAXIMISE THE RESEARCH POTENTIAL OF OUR STAFF Our research strategy is ambitious and distinctive. It builds on our research performance trajectory, exemplified by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 results, where our world leading and internationally excellent research rose to 51% in 2014 from 19% in 2008.

It also draws on our connections with the UK‘s creative and cultural economies as well as with our global research networks.

We will value and promote creative research and practice based research output from our staff and students, and be more creative and collaborative in our research focus. We will create cross-disciplinary research groupings, establishing a critical mass of people working in cognate areas and developing a more focused and resilient research environment.

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Significantly enhance the amount of world leading work submitted to REF 2020; Increase our research and enterprise income, in particular as part of research networks with other UK and international HEIs; Create research themes that shape and inform the work of our researchers – including Environmental humanities (art, science, culture and environment), Transnational creativity and education, and Creative and cultural industries; Be a collaborative, entrepreneurial partner in the UK’s creative and cultural economy – our research creates impact by shaping practice, triggering innovation and informing policy; Be the UK gateway to a global network of partner research institutions working in our fields of professional, creative and critical practice; Be the university of choice for early career research staff (ECR) and postgraduate research students in our research specialisms.

In many cases we will need to build our research income and reputation and continue our outreach to industry to develop new funding streams for knowledge exchange and consultancy. Our research needs to be sustainable so we must attract research funds and diversify research income.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES: Research Excellence Framework 2020 performance – outputs, impact, environment Research and Enterprise income (at University and UoA/School levels) PG students as a proportion of all students

PERFORMANCE MEASURES: International students as a proportion of all students Student mobility, the % of students spending part of their studies internationally

INTERNATIONALISATION WE WILL: l

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Based in a world heritage city, Bath Spa will create diverse, internationally mobile student and staff communities connected to a network of international partners Our strategy aims to integrate the University into an internationalised world and produce students who are internationally connected global citizens.

Our ambition is to enable greater numbers of international students from as broad a range of countries as possible to come to Bath to study across our range of programmes. The intellectual and social stimuli afforded by our internationalisation agenda are vital to all our students, and so all Bath Spa students can study abroad or collaborate with fellow students in other countries. We recognise also opportunities for diversification in course delivery and we are developing new study opportunities in strategic positions around the world.

We will behave internationally in all we do, from curriculum design and review to the delivery of academic and professional services.

We are committed also to developing a unique international community of scholars through our international networks in support of our research ambitions, including the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA) network.

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Increase international student recruitment, responding to market information to assist course design, location and modes of delivery; Refine and develop our portfolio of taught postgraduate courses, ensuring they are attractive to international markets; Develop the transnational education and blending learning offers in strategic global locations such as the US, UAE, Hong Kong and Singapore; Ensure all our graduates are socially engaged global citizens, having either studied abroad or collaborated with students from other countries as a result of our curricula reforms; Develop our staff, facilities and support networks to provide a high quality student experience for our international student community at BSU and overseas; Develop further our networks of international partner institutions, in support of educational and research objectives.

RESEARCH

DR ELAINE WAINWRIGHT FHEA, PHD, MSC, PGCE, BSC, BA (OXON) SENIOR LECTURER IN APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

‘To be the university of choice for early career research staff and postgraduate students’ “I joined Bath Spa in September 2013, having received my doctorate the previous April. My research interests include return to work for chronic pain sufferers; resilience in the face of pain; work stress and social constructionist critiques of these issues. I feel very lucky to have had incredible support as an Early Career Researcher, enabling me to balance my research career with achieving high teaching and learning standards with my students. The University has funded my attendance at high quality research leadership courses, networking events and conference costs, and I’ve been mentored to lead a research group.”

Creativity, culture and enterprise

WHAT WE TEACH AND HOW WE TEACH IT

SIMON HUNT, MA CREATIVE SOUND AND MEDIA STUDENT

‘A curriculum and an approach that enables inter- and multi-disciplinary scholarship’ The Porthleven Prize is an arts residency that is fully funded by a charitable trust and takes place in Porthleven, Cornwall, following a competitive selection process. Students work together to create work inspired by the local environment, which is then curated and exhibited commercially in the O3 gallery, Oxford. Simon Hunt is one of five winners of the 2015 Prize.

“The promise of interdisciplinary collaboration particularly appealed to me. As a music student, the chance to work alongside Fine Art and Contemporary Art students in a ‘real world’ setting was a fantastic way of exploring visual aspects to composition. Being a student and contextual learning isn’t, or shouldn’t, just be about sitting in a tutorial in the relative educational safety of the university campus. It’s about taking risks with a process, observing and learning from others whose ideas and practises may vary enormously from one’s own and then applying them to your own work.”

Creativity, culture and enterprise

INTERNATIONALISATION

OLIVER HARROP, YEAR 2 CREATIVE WRITING WITH GEOGRAPHY STUDENT

‘To create diverse, internationally mobile student and staff communities connected to a network of international partners’ “The Global Citizenship Certificate is designed to recognise the global perspective of undergraduate studies and to open opportunities for students in the global employment market. Oliver attended an intensive summer school programme in Beijing called 'Writing China' which was set up through the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA) network. The course was written by the University of Adelaide, hosted by Beijing Foreign Studies University and attended by students from BSU, BFSU and Adelaide.

“The experience of attending the Beijing summer school tied together everything Global Citizenship embodies: exploring new cultures, internationalism, creativity, teamwork and education. It’s helped my creativity and writing skills enormously, and I hope this will develop further into a career.”

Creativity, culture and enterprise

Strategic Foundations Our strategy is underpinned by our staffing community, our financial stability and our estates and infrastructure A leading university in creativity, culture and enterprise sees expression in the calibre of its students, research and international profile. It is also expressed through and supported by its people, its sense of place and space and how it manages its finances. Clarity of purpose in these three areas is critical to implementing our strategic plan.

The aspiration of our HR strategy is that our staff are engaged and feel empowered, accountable and valued for what they do, and proud to be at the heart of the vibrant, creative community that is Bath Spa. Recruitment, development, retention and reward of talented staff are vital, as is the development of our leadership community. We will place collaborative, creative and enterprising behaviours at the heart of how we recognise staff endeavours and we will develop mechanisms to help staff exploit the potential of technology in learning and teaching practices.

The financial sustainability of the University is critical to its long-term success. Income growth will flow from increased student numbers, and a broader income base will deliver an increasing financial operating surplus, enabling us to invest further for the University’s future. Income diversification will be achieved through a number of routes, including development and fundraising and conferencing/letting.

We will develop an improved framework of delegation and accountability and better structures for improved service delivery.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES: Staff engagement Operating surplus Overall student numbers Facilities condition and utilisation Carbon emissions reduction

Distinctive buildings and landscapes are all cherished parts of the Bath Spa experience; we will be good custodians, operating sustainably and making best functional use of our spaces, facilities and technologies. Our infrastructure needs to expand to accommodate higher student numbers, and we will adopt a culture of flexibility in using physical spaces.

As part of our wider stewardship responsibilities we will continue to enhance our environmental performance and reduce carbon emissions. Effective and efficient technologies and services to support our students and staff endeavours will be vital.

MEASURING SUCCESS In order to know how well we are doing we will monitor and measure our performance in a number of key areas that reflect our diverse operations as a university and tell us whether or not our strategy is successful KPIs

WHAT IT MEANS

Student satisfaction

Overall satisfaction levels of final year undergraduates (the National Student Survey)

92%

Completion

Undergraduate students completing with a Bath Spa award

90%

The percentage of graduates who are in professional-level employment, 6 months after graduation

70%

International students

The proportion of the student body that is from outside the UK

25%

Postgraduate students

The proportion of the student population that is postgraduate taught or research students

15%

Research and Enterprise Income

The annual income earned from research grants and enterprise activities

Operating Surplus

The annual net operating surplus (as a percentage of income)

Graduate Employment

OUR 2020 TARGET

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs) To give us clear focus we have selected seven KPIs from the strategy’s range of performance measures, setting ourselves stretching targets in all cases.

The KPIs reflect the activity and outputs of our staff, students and graduates, and measure the long-term financial sustainability of the University.

£1.5M +

5% +

OTHER PERFORMANCE INDICATORS In addition to these KPIs there is a range of supporting performance indicators that will be monitored as part of the implementation of this strategy. Some of these relate to our academic performance, others relate to our ‘enabling strategies’: the staffing community, financial stability and estates and infrastructure.

A target for the world leading and internationally excellent research as measured by the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) will be quantified once the political and funding landscape for research assessment has been set by the government.

In support of our internationalisation strategy we aim for greater student mobility - 10% of students spending part of their studies internationally.

We have ambitious overall student number plans that underpin many aspects of the 2020 Strategy: OVERALL STUDENT NUMBERS -

SOME OF OUR ADDITIONAL 2020 TARGETS:

HOME, EU AND INTERNATIONAL (TNE and Bath Spa Global student

Carbon emissions reduction - reduced to 2,750 tonnes

numbers are in addition)

Staff engagement (measured through Staff Survey) - 90%

2015 - 6,600

2020 - 9,100

Facilities condition (as measured through non-residential buildings Gross Internal Area (GIA) assessment) - 87% as condition A or B

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