On Monday 20 June, Interim Vice-Chancellor David Maguire wrote to all staff. You can view the message below:
Dear colleague,
I am pleased to confirm that staff will be receiving the lump sum payments described within the UCU joint agreement in the July payroll.
You can read more about these payments and FAQs on our HR pages. There is no doubt that over the past few years our community has been through a challenging period and I am keen that we address issues raised in the latest staff survey.
The headline results from our staff survey have revealed some promising improvements at Sussex in spite of the fact that the survey was conducted at a time of industrial action. But there is still quite a lot to do as part of our People Strategy to make Sussex a better place to work.
The headline findings show that our overall staff-engagement score has dropped slightly since autumn 2021, to 60%. Pride and commitment to stay at the University have fallen and are below the sector norm. And while advocacy of the University as a place to work has improved, it also remains below other comparable institutions.
Much of the feedback relates broadly to issues (pay, equality, workload and casualisation) on which we have recently reached a joint agreement with UCU. We are now working through how we continue to make positive progress and we will be taking on board the staff survey feedback, through the 16 weeks of negotiations with campus trade unions, which we signed-up to as part of the recent agreement.
We will also be spending some of our upcoming UEG Open Forum responding to these issues and taking questions from staff.
This week (21-23 June) Sussex is hosting its annual Global Partnerships Conference. Our internationalism is something that we have proudly built on in our 60-year history, and this year’s conference is both a celebration of that past and a look into the future.
Colleagues across the University’s international network of 330 partners are taking part in a series of online discussions, debates and workshops. We will be exploring the digital transformation in higher education – particularly in relation to the global pandemic. We will also be looking at what more we can do to assist vulnerable groups, such as those affected by natural disasters or war, to access higher education. The discussion will also focus on how we can leverage the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals to improve student outcomes and experiences.
It has long been evident that international collaboration in higher education, in whatever shape that may take, can be hugely beneficial to all parties. Last week the University signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tertiary Education Trust (TET) Fund of Nigeria to support collaboration in research, capacity building, postgraduate training, and knowledge exchange.
The TET Fund is one of Nigeria's primary higher education agencies and oversees major funded interventions in the university system. Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of the TET Fund, and a delegation of senior university leaders were welcomed to our campus and introduced to a range of Sussex academics whose areas of research offer potential collaboration opportunities with the TET Fund's Centres of Excellence located at universities in Nigeria, including the University of Lagos – a longstanding Sussex partner.
Building on all these relationships – the old and established, the new and exciting, the distant and the near – is essential for the continuing global relevance and visibility of Sussex. We know that working together is good for all of us.
Warm regards
David Maguire
Interim Vice-Chancellor