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At my second VC Open Forum last month I shared some of my thinking about my ambition for Sussex to be recognised globally as a university that is making a unique, innovative, and transformative contribution to environmental sustainability and human flourishing. 

The reality is that Sussex is already doing great work on a wide range of issues relating to both of these themes, and this has been brought home to me repeatedly in recent weeks.  

For instance, I was delighted to learn that Sussex has scored 100% in three areas in the 2022/23 People & Planet University League Table - for Environmental Policy, Sustainable Food, and Education for Sustainable Development.  

The People & Planet League Table evaluates 153 UK universities based on their environmental and ethical performance. It is the only comprehensive and independent annual league table of universities ranked against sustainability and ethics criteria. This award recognises some of the work we have been doing as part of the Sussex Sustainability Strategy, including auditing the University’s curriculum for sustainability content and moving to embed teaching about sustainability across all subject areas. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this really important work. 

Whilst it is great to receive this recognition, there is much more that we can and should be doing as a large organisation that is committed to mobilising our resources to make the world a better place. After a University-wide consultation process, which revealed how much environmentally sustainable and ethical food production matters to members of our community, our new catering procurement tender is seeking partners whose commitments are congruent with our own institutional values. And, as I announced at the Open Forum, I am pleased that we will also soon be able to offer staff the opportunity to join an ultra low emissions vehicle leasing scheme, alongside our existing cycle-to-work scheme, as part of our roadmap towards net zero. 

Earlier this week, I attended the fourth in a series of themed lunches that have brought colleagues from across the University together for a focused discussion about key areas of our work – education and the student voice, research and knowledge exchange, equality, diversity and inclusion, and, this week, sustainability research (upcoming are further themed lunches on doctoral research, and mental health and well-being).  

The Sustainability Research Lunch – at which everyone enjoyed a delicious plant-based meal – gathered academics from every School who are carrying out research on a wide range of issues of sustainability together with professional services staff who support research and knowledge exchange, and senior leaders, to discuss a number of questions, including how the University can better support sustainability researchers, how we can better communicate our research, how we can identify the most important emerging topics, and how we can embed sustainability in all its forms into our research practices and ethics.  

What I took away from the event was a strong sense of the need for more curated moments of interdisciplinary conversation and exchange, for continued efforts to break down barriers between disciplines and Schools, and for better ways to reach out to, and develop ethical partnerships with, organisations, groups and communities, locally and globally, in order both to strengthen our sustainability research through co-production and deep engagement, and to ensure that it makes a real difference in the world. We also discussed the vital importance of educating the next generation of sustainability researchers – starting with our undergraduates, and attracting dynamic doctoral students to Sussex. In sum, we are doing research with world-changing potential in energy policy, biodiversity, food security, and rapid transitions, amongst many other topics, and I want to ensure that we harness our institutional resources to support this work – and indeed all of our research - as well as we possibly can. 

Consulting about establishing faculties

At the February Open Forum, as well as in my previous VC Reflections, I introduced my proposal to move to a faculty structure at Sussex. Supporting interdisciplinary research and education, making our academic units more resilient, and ensuring that strong academic leadership shapes the future of the University are key drivers for this proposal, which I will set out in more detail in the coming weeks. But, following the most recent meeting of Senate (8 March 2023), I can now set out the route to a decision about the proposal. 

A task and finish group will be established to support the consultation and engagement process. This group will be chaired by Interim Provost, Professor Keith Jones, and will comprise all Heads of School, as well as having elected Senator and professional services representation. I will visit a meeting of each of our 10 Schools (including BSMS) to discuss the faculties proposal, as well as meeting with our three recognised trade unions and Students Union representatives, and professional services colleagues. I am keen to explain why I think that the move to establish faculties is important for Sussex at this point in time, but I also want to hear colleagues’ views, and to answer questions about what the change will mean in practice. In addition to talking directly with me at these meetings in late April/early May, Schools will feed into discussion of the proposal at Senate in June. Ultimately a decision to change the academic structure of the University sits with Council, for whom input from Senate will be vital.  

I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible to discuss this proposal over the next few months.

Recruiting a Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global & Civic Engagement) 

Many of you will have known Professor Richard Follett, who until recently was our Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International). Richard’s departure to be Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) at the University of Exeter was a loss to the University, as Richard had made an exceptional contribution to our international work over many years. However, it has also provided an opportunity to re-assess this area of academic leadership. My conclusion is that the University needs a more senior role, with a broader remit, to respond to the opportunities and challenges we face, and to take forward the ‘Engage for Change’ pillar of our strategic framework. I have decided to create the post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global & Civic Engagement), with the aim of having someone take up the role from the start of the 2023/24 academic year.  

Sussex has always been a university that is rooted in place, with strong connections to local communities, and making a significant contribution to the local economic development and social innovation. But without anyone with overall responsibility for strategic leadership and coordination of our civic engagement, we have not been fully realising our potential for positive impact in the Greater Brighton area and beyond. And much of what we are doing goes below the radar, with too little awareness locally of the contributions of our staff and students, and knowledge about how to make contact with potential collaborators within the University hard to come by. We want our fellow citizens to see Sussex as engaged and connected with outside communities. 

Bringing together leadership of local and global engagement also recognises the entanglement of the local and the global in the contemporary world, as Sussex has done recently in becoming a ‘University of Sanctuary’ and as we have done throughout our history in offering support to students and academics from countries experiencing war and conflict. Sussex has been radically global in orientation throughout our history, and this new appointment will ensure that we take forward, with energy and enthusiasm, our work with our extensive network of international partners, furthering our existing collaborations, developing our transnational education offer, and ensuring that we continue to attract international students to study here. In the current global context of de-colonisation, planet-threatening climate crisis, and intensifying inequalities, I believe that our goal should be to engage in ethical and mutually beneficial partnerships locally, regionally and globally, to contribute to the positive change that the world so urgently needs, and this role will provide leadership for this agenda. 

Now is also the ideal to time to make this new appointment because, from September, we will start work on developing our new institutional strategy, including the next stage of the ‘Engage for Change’ pillar of our strategic framework. Our new Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global & Civic Engagement) will be central to this work, and will ensure that we face outwards, as well as looking inwards, in imagining and planning the University’s future.   

I look forward to updating you about this appointment in due course. 

In the meantime, be well, and take care. 

With my best wishes, 

Sasha 
 
Sasha Roseneil 
Vice-Chancellor

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