Dear colleagues, I hope this message finds you well, and although it seems some time ago now, I hope that you managed to rest and recharge over the Christmas break.
This January we have over 900 students joining us for the first time, including over 680 associate students from 119 partner universities in 17 countries. As always, I know you will make our new students feel welcome and help them if they are lost!It was fantastic to begin 2024 with graduations at Tobacco Dock last week.
Graduations are always one of the best moments in our calendar, as we join our graduating students and their families and friends in celebrating their success. My thanks to all of you who contributed to making it yet another wonderful celebration. During the four days we welcomed over 11,000 guests, including our inspiring honorary graduands: Queen Mary alum Professor Mark Wilson and Dr Halima Begum, as well as Gareth Thomas.
I also want to celebrate the outstanding contributions of our staff. Since my previous message before the holiday, Professor Rupert Pearse has been recognised with an OBE for services to intensive care medicine in the 2024 New Year Honours list, and Professor Thomas Powles was recognised in Nature’s global list of ‘the 10 people who shaped science in 2023’. Do take a moment to read about their hard work and well-deserved success. Remember you can keep up to date with all our research headlines on the Queen Mary website and the case studies on our Research Highways pages.
In relation to education, you will be aware that in the last Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) we were awarded a silver overall, with a silver for student outcomes, and a bronze for student experience. The TEF Panel’s report, which I would urge you to read, indicates that we have clear areas of excellence of student experience in some parts of the University, which we should rightly celebrate. However, this excellence was not consistent across the University with the student experience in some subject programmes needing to improve.
There remains an ongoing programme of work addressing this issue. This work is, and remains, crucial to the University’s long-term future and I would ask everyone to please engage with this work to improve our students’ experience. Please also be aware that the National Student Survey (NSS) will open at the end of January, and it is the results from the NSS that underpin the TEF and contribute to the national league tables.
As we start the new year you will have seen, from commentary about the sector in the media, that we continue to work in very uncertain times, and, as a sector, face significant financial challenges. We must be agile and flexible to respond to these issues and work as efficiently and effectively as possible, with resource focused where it’s needed. At Queen Mary, we are well prepared and in a good position to address these financial challenges, thanks to all your hard work and ongoing careful financial management. I wish you a fantastic start to the new year.
Best wishes,Colin
Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, FREng, BEng, PhD, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, MIFireEPresident and Principal | Queen Mary University of London | Mile End Road | London | E1 4NS