News Archive

The University’s senior leadership team of the Executive and the Deans held its second annual strategic retreat from 23-25 June in York.

The theme over the two-and-a-half days was “sustainable futures” with all members re-committing to work together to tackle the significant issues for the future success of the University.

Amid a climate of uncertainty and change-- which has included a legislative stalemate over deregulation, the further threat of funding cuts, and ongoing budgetary challenges-- the Senior Leadership Team first wants to acknowledge the hard work of staff across the University to respond to these challenges. This effort, which for most has included going above and beyond their normal duties, is greatly appreciated and has been essential in helping the University manage the challenges.

The York discussions reaffirmed the University’s commitment to the four pillars of the University’s 2015-2020 strategic plan: teaching; research; community engagement; and operational excellence.

The Senior Leadership Team agreed that the pursuit of excellence and continuous improvement across these four areas will best ensure that the University is able to respond to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Similarly, the Senior Leadership Team agreed that while considerable improvement has been achieved across these four areas, more work needs to be done.

Teaching

Achievement – In 2014 the University had the highest ever SURF student evaluation of teaching. The results showed an all-time high for percentage of “excellent” ratings against the key “overall satisfaction” question, and the lowest percentage of “unsatisfactory” ratings since 2006. We commend teaching staff for these improving SURF results. Yet, there remains room for improvement. As well as the impressive work taking place in faculties and schools, the Centre for Education Futures is implementing a number of key projects to underpin both short-term and long term developments in our teaching and the student experience. These include the extensive technical work to prepare our new digitised environment and unit design workshops for small and large groups.

Challenge – Student expectations about their university experience are changing fuelled by the emergence of new disruptive technologies, greater competition locally, nationally and internationally, as well as the continual challenge of remaining a leader in our field. We must reaffirm our place as a high performing institution with a commitment to teaching excellence, outstanding teaching quality, growing our international education footprint, and providing a greater number of students a better experience.

Research

Achievement – The outstanding work of staff resulted in the University’s best ever international research ranking. In August 2014, the Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked UWA 88th in the world – Australia’s fourth highest. UWA was also 24th in the world for Life and Agricultural Sciences, the highest ranking in Australia.

Challenge – The research funding climate will continue to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future which will force the University to focus its research effort on areas of excellence, international significance and local relevance.  The likely introduction of impact performance measures for our research means we must continue to translate our work into meaningful community benefits. We have already seen early indicators of the future with the Federal Government’s recently released National Science and Research Priorities which found Australia’s world-class science and research efforts must better reflect the needs of industry, the national economy and the community.

Community and Engagement

Achievement – The New Century Campaign launched in October 2013 continues to deliver positive benefits for the University. The campaign aims to secure $400 million in philanthropic and partnership support for the development of our research and educational activities. Nearly 10,000 people have gifted $282.3 million to the University to date, which is 70.59% of our goal.

The funds support a range of university wide initiatives including:

o             $89.3 million for academic posts

o             $4.3 million for teaching & learning

o             $60.7 million towards research

o             $67 million to support student scholarships, prizes, access programs and general support

o             $51.4 million for campus facilities & infrastructure

Challenges – Last month the University unveiled a new brand to reflect its place as a contemporary place of teaching and research, and a global hub of excellence. While the University remains proud of its past century of achievement, we must continually evolve to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. Extensive survey and focus group research showed that the University needed to modernise its image as perceived by 16-24 year olds. Our refreshed brand has been consciously designed to appear contemporary and relevant to our students. Now that the refreshed brand has been launched, the hard work begins to maximise our position in the market. Better using our brand to increase our student numbers for 2016 and beyond, and showcase the University’s research excellence, will play an important part in achieving our teaching and research goals.

Operational Excellence

Achievements – The successful completion of the Functional Review Program and the process of implementing many of its recommendations is already delivering results. Many of these changes to the University’s administrative processes are small but incremental which will allow us to deliver lasting change and pursue our mission of continuous improvement.

Challenges – The task of reform never ends. Therefore, we must remain vigilant as we strive for continuous improvement in everything we do across the University. Furthermore, it is absolutely critical if we are to achieve improvement and change across the other three pillars of the strategic plan (teaching, research and community engagement).

While the Senior Leadership re-affirmed its commitment to the pillars of the current Strategic Plan, the York discussion identified a further 5 priority areas for action.

1)      Staff Potential and Performance

The Senior Leadership Team agreed that additional effort is needed to support all staff across the University realise their full potential through increased staff development opportunities, upskilling and career pathways. A career at UWA should be made as rich and rewarding as possible for all staff including the opportunity to embrace new challenges and enhance their professional skills and abilities.

Responsible: Dawn Freshwater

Timeframe: Underway and ongoing

2)      Structure of the Academic Year

To be more responsive to the needs of students, the Senior Leadership Team has committed to examine the structure of the academic year. There are currently many different teaching structures used across the University, including semesters, trimesters and terms. The University needs to decide what the best academic structure is for the future.

Responsible: Alec Cameron

Timeframe: January 2017

3)      Enhancing the HDR and Post-Graduate Experience

The quality of the student experience of research training has been brought into focus following the Federal Government’s decision to commission a review of Australia’s research training system. The final report will be provided to the Minister for Education in March 2016. The Senior Leadership Team has re-affirmed its strong support of PhD programmes but has recognised the need to improve the student experience and teaching outcomes. This will include benchmarking UWA’s performance against other world leading universities.

Responsible: Robyn Owens

Timeframe: December 2015

4)      UWA’s International Position

The University of Western Australia is a leading global university, but has the added advantage of being geographically located in the time zone shared by around 60 per cent of the world’s population. Being located “In The Zone” provides an abundance of opportunities for the University including the ability to attract more of the best and brightest students and academics to the University, to contribute to solving the big challenges facing the region, and to explore new partnership opportunities. The Leadership Team has agreed further work needs to be done to enhance the University’s reputation and standing in the region, and maximise the benefits for the University and the Western Australian community.

Responsible: Kent Anderson

Timeframe:

5)      A Service Charter to Achieve Operational Excellence

The Senior Leadership Team has re-affirmed the importance of delivering service excellence in everything we do. To achieve this aim a service charter will be developed that will set out desired and acceptable standards for both internal and external transactions. Service charters are common in many service industries, including other Australian universities, and sets out how students, external clients, stakeholders, the general public and university staff will be treated when they take part in any program or service. Service Charters also set out the responsibilities of customers and stakeholders, including what they can do to help provide the best programs and services.

Responsible: Gaye McMath/Dawn Freshwater

Timeframe: December 2015

6)      Giving Staff a Voice

The next period in the University’s growth, development and success will depend on further improvements to all that we do, including embracing a culture of continuous improvement. Some of these challenges and opportunities have been canvassed throughout this document. Encouraging staff to actively contribute to the future direction of the University will be important to our future success. The Senior Leadership Team has agreed that programmes need to be developed to encourage staff to share their ideas about how we can do things better and ways to best prepare for the future.

Responsible: All

Timeframe: Ongoing