Professor Colin Bailey discusses investing in our staff, social mobility and sustainability, the knowledge excellence framework, open day and more.
Dear colleague,
I hope this email finds you well. With the first semester now well underway, our campuses are buzzing with activity. It is wonderful to see staff and students meeting each other, making new friends and taking advantage of all our facilities.
I’m delighted to see 146 staff promoted in this year’s academic promotions, which is an impressive 84 per cent of all colleagues who applied. Congratulations to all of you! I look forward to congratulating you in person at an event shortly. If you were not successful this year, or did not apply but are eligible to, please do consider applying in the coming promotions round, which will open in early December. More information will be circulated shortly.
I am pleased to confirm that we have now implemented the local increase in London Weighting that I wrote to you about on 17 August, backdated to 1 August. This is an increase applied specifically at Queen Mary for all staff on grades 1-7 from a pre-August average level of £3,330 to £4,000 per year.
Last month, the Living Wage Foundation announced the new London Real Living Wage rate for 2022, which rose to £11.95 for London employers. We are a committed Living Wage employer: our research helped underpin the development of this campaign in 2001 and, in 2006, we were the first university to be an accredited Living Wage employer. At Queen Mary, we pay our staff above the minimum London living wage: our lowest paypoint is equivalent to £12.65 per hour. You can find this year’s salary scales on our HR pages.
In relation to new staff, I’m delighted to note the recent investment of 30 new permanent academic posts in our Faculty of Science and Engineering. These new academic appointments will focus on key research and education areas that align with the Faculty's Strategic Themes, as well as the University Research Institutes and Research Highways. Further investments will be announced soon.
We are very fortunate to attract leaders in their academic fields across our disciplines, as well as leaders in our support areas. Do keep an eye on our news releases to see the latest advances: recently, there have been a raft of papers from Queen Mary published in Nature and Science, which in medicine, science and engineering, is the highest possible achievement in terms of published work.
In this year’s UK Social Mobility Awards I’m very proud to note we won ‘University of the Year’. Promoting social mobility is integral to our mission and vision at Queen Mary, and it is wonderful to see our success in this area recognised. You may recall last year we were named top in the country for social mobility in a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, working with the Sutton Trust and Department for Education. Our collective work in this area is now attracting the recognition it deserves.
I am also pleased to note recent recognition of our fantastic work on sustainability, which includes an Eco-Campus Platinum award.
A few weeks ago, the second Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF2) was published and confirmed Queen Mary as a leader in this field.
The Knowledge Excellence Framework is an assessment of English universities’ knowledge exchange activities. This includes a broad spectrum of activity covering the different ways universities collaborate with external partners, from businesses to community groups, for the benefit of the economy and society.
KEF2 confirmed we are among the top 20 per cent of English universities in the categories of public and community engagement, research partnerships, and IP and commercialisation. In addition, we have made strong progress in the categories of working with business, and working with the public and third sector. This is a great result, and reflects our commitment to sharing knowledge to benefit the economy and society. Read the news story on our website.
Finally, we had a fantastic open day on Saturday 8 October. Despite the rail strikes, over 5,000 future students and their friends and families visited us in person, with around another 1,000 joining us online. We were lucky with the weather, the campus looked amazing and everyone was smiling. I know it takes a huge amount of effort and organisation across the University to make our open days such a success, and I’m very grateful to everyone involved and to all of you who participated.
Best wishes,
Colin
Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, FREng, BEng, PhD, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, MIFireE
President and Principal | Queen Mary University of London | Mile End Road | London | E1 4NS
Dear student,
I hope this email finds you well. With the first semester now well underway, our campuses are buzzing with activity. It is wonderful to see students and staff meeting each other, making new friends and taking advantage of all our facilities. If you are new to our campuses, and need any help or support with finding your way around and accessing the different resources available, do reach out and ask for help. Your Advisor is your first port of call, and any member of staff will be pleased to try and help you or point you in the right direction.
There is a range of support available to help build your skills to support your academic work. For example, there are online resources to assist with basic academic skills offered by Library Services and an out of hours service to help with writing skills. Please do access these services, and if you have further questions, please reach out to your Advisor.
Alongside your academic studies, there is a full and varied social programme run jointly between the University and our Students’ Union on offer. From yoga to chess, art to club nights there is truly something for everyone. There are lots of different clubs and societies you can join which is a great way to meet new people, and volunteering and paid work opportunities. There is also a range of employability events, to help you prepare for your next step. Do have a look and make sure you get as much out of your time with us as possible.
I know many people are worried about and struggling with the rising cost of living. We have a set of resources to support you, including help with budgeting, what to do if you feel you can’t manage and funds you can apply for if you are suffering financial hardship. If you are living off campus and are worried about your utility bills, there are places on our campuses listed on our cost of living hub where you can go and keep warm, have a shower, access electricity, warm up food and spend some time between your lectures and time in the library. We are also providing free period products and free secure cycle parking.
There are other facilities, campaigns and activities through the year to help you with the increased cost of living. These will include those that we initiate on our campuses and those that are available nationally (for example the Too Good To Go app which identifies shops/cafés who have food going/just gone out of date who are willing to sell it at a fraction of the retail price), and Money Saving Expert tips.
The pressure on personal finances is extreme at the moment: please don’t worry on your own, we are here to support you so do please reach out for help if you need it.
In this year’s UK Social Mobility Awards I’m very proud to note Queen Mary won ‘University of the Year’! Promoting social mobility and supporting all our students to succeed to the very best of their ability is integral to our mission and vision at Queen Mary, and it is wonderful to see our success in this area recognised. We have also had some recent recognition of our fantastic work on sustainability, which includes an Eco-Campus Platinum award, which is great to see.
I hope you are enjoying your time with us. There is so much on offer to you from Queen Mary: please do take all the opportunities available to you and if you have any questions or concerns please ask your Advisor, contact the Student Enquiry Centre or email me at the address below.