Principal's Report | Strategic Report and Financial Statements 2021

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT for the year ended 31 July 2021

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

for the year ended 31 July 2021

Despite the challenges of COVID, 2020/21 has been a very productive year for 91��Ƭ. It began with us successfully welcoming students back on campus in the autumn, determined to live up to our reputation for providing a friendly and supportive learning community. Thanks to the efforts of our staff, we returned to something much more like normality compared to the latter part of the previous academic year, with a mix of on-campus and online activity. Although we did experience small numbers of COVID cases, numbers were much lower than at some other institutions, due partly to the set up of our halls of residence, but also to a large extent due to the socially responsible attitude and behaviour of our students.

In January, the state of the pandemic made a return to campus for semester 2 extremely challenging, with the impact of new COVID variants on society and consequent tightening of COVID restrictions at short notice. Through the tireless efforts of our staff, we negotiated this tricky period as smoothly as possible. We settled into an adapted model of learning and teaching which was largely online, but with face to face teaching where appropriate, and also ensuring appropriate student support, both online and face to face.

While there can be no doubt that this last year was extremely challenging for students and staff, we ended on a very positive note, offering on-campus graduation celebrations, at a point when many other universities felt unable to do so.

Pleasingly, COVID did not have any adverse impact on student numbers for the last year. Our home, rest of UK and international numbers were all above target, as was our tuition fee income, which included income from our educational partnerships. This reflects carefully concerted work to attract and engage prospective students, including innovative use of online channels, a greater than anticipated willingness of international students to travel, and high numbers of applicants achieving success in their SQA assessments. In addition, significant work was undertaken to ensure the retention and progression of existing students.

Despite the pandemic, we successfully introduced new courses, with a cohort of 80 students starting our BSc Paramedic Science programme. Looking ahead, there are still challenges in maintaining and growing student numbers, as the introduction of fees for EU students has made Scottish universities financially much less attractive to them. We are working to mitigate the impact of this change, and have offered a number of bursaries to students from EU countries. We are also seeking to capitalise on the increased attractiveness of the UK as a study destination for international students, who can now access visas allowing post-study work in the UK.

2020/21 was the first full year of implementation of our refreshed strategic plan. Holding true to the ethos of social justice on which this institution was founded, the plan sets out how our distinctive portfolio and person-centred approach to learning uniquely position us to contribute to recovery from the pandemic.

We saw great progress in a number of objectives associated with the strategy. One significant example is progress in our plans for an innovation park adjacent to the campus. The business case supporting development of a flagship food and drink innovation hub has been given the green light by the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal Joint Committee, unlocking £30m of City Deal funding. The innovation hub will act as the catalyst for the development of the wider innovation park.

We were pleased to secure the support of Architecture & Design Scotland to enable us to create an outdoor learning hub. The hub will be a centre for local and national engagement in outdoor learning practice, leadership, and professional development. Also, we joined forces with the STV Children’s Appeal and a local family charity to launch the East Lothian Tutoring Initiative. This project began by delivering one-to-one support to senior school pupils from all six secondary schools in East Lothian, and has subsequently expanded into Midlothian. We also appointed our first Entrepreneur in Residence. This appointment will help strengthen 91��Ƭ’s culture of entrepreneurship, encouraging and supporting more staff, students and graduates to start their own businesses, and helping fulfil the University’s goal of becoming a leading centre of excellence for female entrepreneurship.

We made our submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 exercise in March 2021. I extend my thanks to colleagues from across the University for the extensive efforts required to complete the submission. We look forward to receiving the results of the REF exercise in May 2022.

Alongside our other research and knowledge exchange work, we have been delivering a number of immediately relevant and useful projects related to COVID and COVID recovery. We have also been proud to play our part in the national response to COVID, in line with our institutional focus on helping to create a better society, and the value we place upon partnership. We were pleased to host an NHS-run mass vaccination centre on campus throughout the first half of 2021.

Towards the end of the year, we received our latest National Student Survey results. These results reflect the way in which we worked to support students through COVID, with our score for ‘Overall Satisfaction’ being 6.4% above our benchmark and 4% above the UK average of 75%. Our students indicated that they were particularly pleased with the support they received from academic staff, with ‘Academic Support’ ranking 4th in Scotland. Students clearly valued feeling part of 91��Ƭ’s community of learners, with 91��Ƭ’s ‘Learning Community’ ranking 3rd in Scotland.

We entered the 2021/22 academic year ranked in the top 50% of universities in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide. So while the 2020/21 academic year was perhaps even more difficult than we might have expected, the University community has overcome many obstacles, demonstrating agility, creativity, camaraderie and a capacity for innovation wherever and whenever it has been needed. Further challenges remain, but we look forward to the future with real positivity.

Sir Paul Grice

Principal and Vice-Chancellor

December 2021