Our chosen direction

As we start a new academic year, the first phase of our Global Conversation is drawing to a close. A brief update is timely. So far, we’ve held workshops in the UK, Dubai and Malaysia with representatives of all of our schools and services and we’ve had active participation from staff, students, alumni and other stakeholders.

In parallel, we’ve used the Strategy 2025 microsite to ask for and hear feedback on where we should be headed.

To date, the microsite has been visited over 7,000 times and the surveys we’ve run on issues like our ambitions, the culture of our research communities, our heritage and staff/student wellbeing have each registered several hundred votes. This is a great indication that our university community have been engaged in a truly global conversation.

Key strands that have resonated in our global conversation phase have included a focus on:

• the need to build on our existing Values and heritage;
• a desire to bring to the foreground our impact on Communities both within and beyond Heriot-Watt;
• developing flourishing students, researchers and staff fit for the future world;
• celebrating and growing our pioneering educational spirit in significant new ways;
• giving a clearer focus on key research themes with greater impact;
• creating new programmes that meet student, employer and societal needs;
• further advancing our international integration and operational effectiveness;
• changing our position and language in terms of life-long learning and interactions with alumni;
• building better strategic partnerships with business, globally; and
• assuring a modern digital education across multiple delivery modes.

Now our focus is shifting, building on our conversation and what we have learned to begin to map out Our Chosen Direction.

Universities tend to naturally focus on research, knowledge exchange, learning and teaching but those aren’t the only themes under which we could present our priorities. We’ve looked at lots of other strategic plans and heard the clear message that for Heriot-Watt we need a smaller number of high-level themes that connect all of our activities. Themes might include issues such as values, sustainability, wellbeing and community as these are the things that bind us all together.

A Workshop Briefing setting out our initial emerging issues from our conversations to date is now available along with feedback from external stakeholders and insight from a horizon scanning exercise*.

It is important to note that this is not our strategy. Rather, the briefing document is designed to highlight issues and prompt further debate to then help shape our eventual strategy.

In the briefing document, you’ll find six sections that cover core areas of our business and that will likely feature in some way, shape or form in our eventual strategy. Each section draws together some insights from the horizon scanning work that was performed during academic session 2017-18 and answers four questions.

1. What are the challenges we face in this area of our activity?
2. What are the opportunities in this area of our activity?
3. What potential actions might we take?
4. What candidate metrics might we adopt to assess progress in this area of our activity?

Over the coming weeks we’ll be looking to gather your feedback in a variety of ways. There will be a series of Strategy 2025 workshops as well as sessions with the University Executive, Senate and Court. Please take the time to read the Workshop Briefing and come armed with your questions and comments to one of the Strategy 2025 workshops.

To help support a deep and wide consultation process, Strategy 2025 has an Advisory Group drawn from across the whole university. You can find the membership of the Advisory Group here and they will be gathering views and feeding into the process. Our Advisory Group, our Senators and our Court members comprise representatives from every part of our global university so there will definitely be someone from your part of the university that you can and should be speaking to with ideas and feedback

By using the Strategy 2025 microsite and the Strategy 2025 workshops, we want you to have your say on the crucial choices we face in shaping our future. Of course, agreeing our new strategy in December 2018 marks the beginning not the end of the process. Everyone across our global community will have a role in bringing Strategy 2025 alive and making it a happen.

Thank you for your contributions so far. I’d encourage you to join the discussion about our priorities and take an active role in shaping our chosen direction.

Professor Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor

 

*Heriot-Watt staff can access the consultation documents via the staff intranet. Students and alumni can request a copy by emailing strategy2025@hw.ac.uk