Bristol Students’ Union is celebrating its centenary and has entered a new phase in its joint working with the University. Professor Tansy Jessop, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education and Students, reflects on the evolution of our partnership and the issues that Bristol SU and the University’s Executive Board (UEB) are addressing together, thanks to the annual SU-UEB agreements. 

As Bristol SU turns 100, it’s an exciting time to be working with them; our relationship has matured, on both sides, and we’re working much more in tandem. It’s proving to be positive and productive. 

The COVID-19 pandemic reset our relationship as a genuine partnership. We needed to check in regularly with the SU’s Full-Time Elected Officers, since they’re one of our key routes into the student community. Those lines of communication, and the recognition that we have shared concerns, have persisted. 

Bristol SU’s move into Senate House has positioned them at the heart of the Clifton campus, in much closer proximity to students and to the UEB (and within easy reach of a good coffee!). The SU itself has a fantastic induction for its Elected Officers and has gained real traction with the student community, as witnessed by the record-breaking voter turnout for the SU Elections and an increase in attendance at Welcome Week.  

What co-creation looks like

Co-creation is blossoming at Bristol. Here are a few examples. 

Last year, we launched a wonderful partnership between staff and student representatives, co-led by Catherine Hindson, Director of Quality and Mia Stevens, Undergraduate Education Officer, and supported by the SU and Academic Quality and Policy Office (AQPO). It’s called the Student Academic Representation Network (SARN). This isn’t just a talking shop – it’s vibrant. The most recent meeting had over a hundred people in the room, from student reps to School Education Directors to Professional Services colleagues in our schools. The network is sparking new relationships and discussions and leading to fresh approaches to Student Staff Liaison Committees, for example. 

The Elected SU Officers are co-creating solutions on the ground, too. Last year the  Undergraduate Education Officer, Nicole Antoine, advocated for a digital study space finder as part of the UEB-SU agreement (see below). There was an app in development, but Nicole thought this would take longer than her tenure, so she met with Library Services and IT Services, and they worked out a method of manually inputting details of vacant spaces across campus. They designed an online study space navigator, and the day it went live, it had 14,000 hits from students. This resource continues to be very successful. 

The Bristol SU-UEB agreement

We introduced annual agreements at the instigation of our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Evelyn Welch, a couple of years ago. We try to set targets that are achievable and measurable, and we have regular contact between the SU Officers and their UEB counterparts. They take us through the progress they’re making, what the blockers are and what help they need from us. Some of these conversations have to be long-term.  

The SU Officers’ priorities as framed in this year’s agreement – and directly informed by students via the Big Bristol SU Survey and other channels – come under three themes: Student Poverty, Academic Satisfaction and Collective Wellbeing. There are ambitious proposals as well as more easily achievable ones. 

In the latter category, there’s ‘Borrow a Blazer’ – a wonderful idea to help students who’ve been called to an interview. We’re asking staff and others to donate blazers to the Careers Service so that students don’t have to buy one for the occasion.  

Some priorities are knotty to solve. One is student housing – the cost of it, and the hoops you must jump through. To get a guarantor for a tenancy agreement is challenging if you don’t have support from family or carers. This year, the Officers’ pitch to UEB has focused on supporting international students and those who have more challenges in the housing market. This is a long-term priority which is difficult for the university to solve, but we’re working through it in partnership. 

Another priority concerns buses, particularly exam buses from Stoke Bishop to the Clifton campus during the examinations period. There are other great ideas, like introducing more sensory rooms similar to the one in Senate House (which is peace on Earth, by the way! Bean bags, bubbling water, forest visuals… no wonder it gets a lot of demand). Could we dot them around campus for more students who are in particular need? We’re working on that one at the moment. We operate in a financially constrained environment, so what can we afford? Our sustained commitment to subsidising food at our Source cafés has been helpful to students struggling to make ends meet. Our partnership involves a lot of back-and-forth, but we’re determined to make real progress. 

Getting traction

The SU Officers are doing so much great work at the moment: running student focus groups and workshops on how we can improve our NSS scores on feedback and marking criteria; working with our Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) oversight board, and with our Study Skills team on accessibility and learning outcomes; seeking more commitments to postgraduate scholarships. Excitingly, it all involves a lot of co-production and collaboration. We’re beginning to see the fruits of this work with improvements in our Student Voice results in the NSS, and I hope that’s just the start. 

I’d also love to see a greater understanding among academics and students about what Bristol SU really does. Besides everything I’ve talked about, the SU does a beautiful job of creating a sense of belonging.  

We invest a great deal in the student experience because we want it to be genuinely transformative for our students, both personally and academically, so that they leave us as graduates ready to make a difference to society and to the planet. I’m so pleased and proud of our relationship with Bristol SU as we celebrate its 100-year mark!   

To learn more about Bristol SU and its work, watch ‘We Are Bristol SU’ on YouTube. 

To mark International Women’s Day 2024, our Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Professor Judith Squires, reflects on progress made towards gender equality at Bristol, our efforts to make a positive impact on the lives and careers of women both locally and nationally, and the importance of year-round commitment to these issues.  

International Women’s Day (IWD) is an occasion to recognise the incredible work of women around the world – and for leaders of organisations everywhere to consider the investments we are making in gender equality and career progression for our female colleagues.   

I want to take this opportunity to reflect on our progress here at Bristol in relation to this year’s United Nations theme, “Invest in women: Accelerate progress”, and the IWD campaign, “Inspire Inclusion”. 

As a global civic university, we believe that our aspirations can – to quote our 2030 Strategy – “be best shaped and delivered collectively by a diverse and empowered university community”.  A key component of that approach is improving our processes and structures to provide a level field for every member of our community.

Over the years, the University has made good progress with the gender pay gap, and initiatives have been put in place to encourage female leaders and remove gender inequality in the higher education sector. We have been working collectively with the City of Bristol and civic partners to encourage enterprising women, tackle sexual violence and harassment and to create a more equitable, diverse and inclusive city.  

There is still work to be done, but I wanted to share some of the ways in which the University has been investing in women to forge a gender equal and inclusive future.  

Advance HE Athena Swan Charter 

The University of Bristol was one of the founding signatories of the Advance HE Athena Swan Charter, which serves to remove gender inequality and underrepresentation in the higher education sector. We are delighted that the University’s commitment to equality has been recognised in the 20 school-level awards and, in February 2023, we were also awarded a highly commended institutional Silver Swan Award.

Moving towards gender parity  

It’s encouraging to see the steady progress in our reduction of the gender pay gap at Bristol; our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Evelyn Welch, gives further detail on this in her IWD blog post today, but both the mean and median pay gaps have reduced each year since we began reporting in 2017. 

Although we are pleased to see this progress, we know we have more work to do. Achieving gender parity remains a top priority. We now have 34% female professors, exceeding our initial target of 33% and the sector average of 28.5%. We are now aiming for 50% of professors to be female by 2030, as part of our commitment to eliminate the gender pay gap within the same time frame. Some of the key actions we have identified include engaging each of our faculties in action at local levels to improve female professorial representation across their disciplines.   

We also aim to better understand and address the implications of part-time working for gender pay, promoting the potential for job sharing for colleagues in leadership roles and developing a targeted programme to better support parental leave returners (prioritising part-time returners) to work on challenges and enablers for their future career progression; and undertaking intersectionality pay gap reporting annually, since group identities such as race and gender cannot be fully understood in isolation from each other.   

Career development 

Another important area of investment to support women in the workplace is a breadth of development opportunities. It’s great to see the Female Leadership Initiative going from strength to strength: we had a record number of applications this year and we currently have 60 participants across two cohorts.  

I am really pleased that the Bristol Women’s Mentoring Network goes from strength to strength. We are in the process of matching the current applicants and have received 129 mentee applications and 96 mentor applications. This is a huge increase from last year’s cohort which saw 44 pairs being matched. The new mentees are keen to use their mentoring relationship to develop their career progression. 

We continue to support applicants to the Elevate programme, aimed at women from Academic staff (up to grade L) and Professional Services staff (grades E-K) from Black, Asian or Minority ethnic backgrounds who identify as female. The programme creates a unique opportunity to meet, share, support and learn together.  

Alongside this we have 10 academic staff and PGRs from across disciplines on the WHEN (Women’s Higher Education Network) 100 BWPN this year. This particular programme seeks to enable systemic change in institutions to effectively address the lack of Black women professors, targeting all areas of the academic research pipeline. 

Empowering Parents in HE, led by Dr Jenny Crane and Dr Erika Hanna, is looking at enhancing research culture by embedding learnings through a co-produced artwork which explores and celebrates parenting alongside working at the University. The project leads aim to work with schools and senior management across the University to action recommendations for supporting parents. 

And if you’re interested in hearing from a range of inspirational women across the University, Nadia Soliman is hosting a Leadership Ethos event on 30 April. This event draws on Nadia’s experiences, both within and outside academia, with a focus on how we can empower everyone to lead and exhibit leadership behaviours. The event will launch the Leadership Ethos Framework, which will be accessible to the sector via a web hub that includes tools and resources.  

All of this progress and investment is the result of sterling work by a range of teams and networks, including the Women’s Staff Network, to provide spaces, platforms, visibility, mentoring and advocacy. Bristol-based programmes such as the Female Leadership Initiative and the Bristol Women’s Mentoring Scheme have also energised our activities supporting female progression.   

Continuing the conversation 

We’re marking IWD 2024 throughout this month: next week, I’ll be introducing ‘Progress and Equity in Maternity Care’, a discussion between Emeritus Professor Jean Golding and Dr Charlea Williams from Bristol Medical School; and I’ll be continuing the IWD conversation on this blog with another post, going into more detail about our local partnership to tackle sexual violence and harassment on campus, our support of global women’s empowerment through our global civic work, and other initiatives and collaborations.  

As Evelyn remarks in her IWD post: “Every day, not just one day of the year, belongs to women around the world”. I wholeheartedly concur, and I look forward to further progress on gender equality at Bristol, with the help, commitment and invaluable input of so many of our colleagues. 

Professor Phil Taylor, the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, is stepping down at the end of July after four years at Bristol to take up a new position as Vice-Chancellor and President at the University of Bath. (more…)

As signatories of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, we are committed to addressing the challenges around insecurity of employment and career progression of all researchers. A clear issue is the use of fixed-term contracts. Over the last ten-years, as shown in the graph below, Bristol has made significant progress in moving our researchers onto open-ended contracts, going from a peak of 62% of researchers on fixed-term contracts in 2014/15 to 17% in 2021/22.

This is excellent progress, but we recognise that this is only one measure and isn’t the whole solution. Open-ended contracts support our researchers by enabling them to secure mortgages or other financial support, but we are aware that the funding is still fixed so they alone do not improve job security.

The Academic Career Development Programme has focused in more detail on these issues with several projects to support our researchers. One is career development and promotion for Research Associates and Senior Research Associates on Academic Role Profile Levels a and b respectively. Recognising that opportunities for researchers at the early stages of an academic career have been inconsistent across the University, from August 2023 we will change how researchers are costed, recruited and developed (formal communications forthcoming). We agreed a set of principles, which includes designing research roles to support career development. It means extending the Academic Promotions Framework to all academic staff so all researchers will be in scope for promotion (subject to there being funding and a role at the higher level). Having one Academic Promotions Framework for all career stages also means that we are providing a clear framework of what is expected at each stage.

We are also aware that the transition to independence beyond levels a/b is difficult. It is where many researchers can get stuck, particularly those who encounter additional barriers due to their individual circumstances or sector-wide systemic barriers that have a negative impact on research careers. It is also worth noting that there are jobs outside academia that we can help people prepare for, e.g. by booking a one-to-one appointment through Bristol Clear.

To begin to address the transition to independence, we have piloted a Career Development Fund for 25 early career researchers this year. It has been put in place as a trial to see if a small amount of internal funding can have a positive impact; for example, in supporting researchers to have time to work up research ideas and apply for fellowships or grants, publish key work, and fill any development gaps to support their next career step. A showcase event to highlight the impact, both personal and career, will take place in September 2023 to celebrate achievements and review and decide next steps.

For our more established researchers who still face issues of job insecurity, we have been testing options with key stakeholders such as Finance and HR. We wanted to investigate interventions that will have real impact by conducting interviews with research fellows to test assumptions and fully understand the issues. We are currently piloting and reviewing a number of talent retention and talent development opportunities to enable us to better support researchers at this career stage. These include reviewing a transfer to core funding process in Health Sciences and an externally funded fellows process in Life Sciences.

To start to address the challenges around insecurity of employment, we also need to support researchers to recognise and develop skills that are valuable and transferable as they progress in their careers. These will make them competitive for core funded roles and enable them to be responsive to a changing funding landscape by increasing their options for continued employment. By providing researchers with the skills and development opportunities, we want to enable them to make sustainable employment choices. This is further complemented by activities that form part of our research culture programme, including work to ensure professional development time – another key part of the Concordat – is protected and properly resourced.

The work has also highlighted a lack of understanding around how university finances and research funding work in practice. For example, externally funded research doesn’t cover the full cost of the work (only around 80%) and so relies on other income from teaching, etc. Being part of a successful university is, therefore, a shared endeavour that requires a range of contributions. The Academic Promotions Framework captures this along with our aspirations as a university to help ensure that there is alignment between institutional and personal goals. As people progress their academic careers, their contribution changes and requires the development of other skills. This is why we have a core-funded research and teaching pathway alongside more focused research and teaching career paths. All are essential to our success and so getting the balance right is key, which will be the focus for follow-on work as we implement our 2030 strategy.

I hope that describing the work we are doing and planning to do helps to articulate the challenges we face and how we are working together to tackle them. Research is fundamental to our success and so it is essential that we create the right environment within which researchers can thrive.

It is a testament to the exceptional teamwork of colleagues across the University that we recently achieved a ‘highly commended’ institutional Athena Swan Silver award.

We can all be proud that Bristol was one of the founding signatories of the Athena Swan Charter. When it launched in 2005, the Charter looked to encourage and recognise the career progression and employment of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine (STEMM) – sectors which typically show a strong imbalance towards men.

In the intervening years, we’ve seen great progress in our community, particularly in the School for Biochemistry which successfully achieved the fantastic and very rare accolade of gold award last year.

At the institutional level, in 2018 we committed to not only tackle gender inequality, but also to taking a gender and ethnicity intersectional approach to our work. We also committed to eliminating the Gender Pay Gap (GPG) in the Professoriate +/-3%, and to increase the number of female Professors to 30% by 2023.

We have since made excellent progress across the board, particularly in relation to issues of representation, culture, and career progression. It was the thorough and detailed intersectional analysis of our quantitative and qualitative student and staff data that was particularly commended in our application for not only highlighting our current key gender equality issues but also discussing the positive impact of initiatives put in place since our last Athena Swan application.

We have seen the successful implementation of a new academic promotions framework that more effectively rewards and recognises the full range of academic achievements, the Elevate programme, Bristol Women’s Mentoring Scheme and the Female Leadership Initiative.

These initiatives, coupled with other specific policy changes, such as our reimbursement of childcare and caring costs for conference and training attendance, have resulted in improved career opportunities for all areas of the pipeline.

Significantly, in 2020 our plans to eliminate the gender pay gap were set out in a landmark Collective Agreement between the University and Bristol UCU – the first agreement of its kind at a UK university. It included:

• Increased opportunities and support for flexible working;
• A new Promotions Framework that would not under-value work that tends to be disproportionality undertaken by women;
• Improved academic career support and development.

These actions have contributed to the continued rise in female staff successfully applying for to Associate Professor and Professor during the period of successive Swan applications ( of successful cases were female in 13/14, 45% in 16/17, 52% in 21/22), resulting in 31% female professors in 21/22, exceeding the target of 28% that we had set ourselves for this point.

Elsewhere, I am really pleased we have made significant progress amongst the student community with regards to diversity of ethnicity, by increasing targeted scholarship opportunities for groups underrepresented within HE, narrowing of the awarding gap from 12.7% (2017) to 7.6% (2021).

While we have seen great progress in recent years, our most recent Self-Assessment process made clear that while we have met our aspirations to date, there is still much work to be done. We have now identified new EDI priorities and targets to 2030, including 50% female professors and eradicating the gender pay gap altogether. We are also collaborating with the Student Union, the 1752 Group, and the Office for Students to tackle gender-based violence. We will also continue to remain responsive to issues arising from our students and staff; for example, via our Voice and Influence group, which is foregrounded with an intersectional focus by providing a forum for Chairs of Staff Networks to discuss common issues of equality inclusion across multiple identities.

Our ambitions are high, and our institutional journey towards equality continues. We will get there, and our new University Strategy, coupled with our new gender action plan and Swan Implementation Group, will accelerate the rate of change over the coming years.

We are absolutely committed to reaching these targets to harness the passion of colleagues across the University to foster a supportive, inclusive and caring environment for our whole community.

Further information: Athena Swan Charter | Advance HE (advance-he.ac.uk)

We have published our Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 July 2022. You can find the full report on our webpages.

Besides being able to welcome our students and staff back onto our campuses after the government’s lifting of COVID-19 restrictions and our outstanding performance in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), there was much to celebrate in 2021/22. The Annual Report highlights some of the many brilliant achievements by colleagues, students and alumni over the last year, from research accomplishments and teaching awards to exceptional work in our local communities and in the international arena. Do take a look – it makes for a rewarding read and serves as a reminder of the fantastic work being done by our academics, Professional Services staff, students and graduates, day in and day out.

It’s only right that we also acknowledge the many challenges that we continue to face, both individually and institutionally. With that in mind, I wanted to present an update on the picture that our Annual Report and Financial Statements provide.

Our financial position

Our audited financial statements for the year ended 31 July 2022 report a deficit before other gains and losses (revaluation of our property and changes to the funding level of the UBPAS pension scheme) of £135.8 million compared to a prior-year surplus of £66.1 million. The deficit in 2022 was impacted by a significant one-off pension cost of £191.1 million following the agreement of the 2020 USS valuation. This significant charge reflects our best estimate of the cost of paying the USS past service deficit contributions that the University is contracted to make over the next 16 years at today’s prices.

USS has reported a significant improvement in the funding position of the scheme during 2022. There may be a reversal of this charge following the next valuation of USS on 31 March 2023 if the improvement in market conditions for defined benefit pension schemes persists over the coming month. We remain contracted to pay very significant past service deficit contributions to USS until a new valuation is completed. Adjusting for this one-off event would turn the reported deficit into a surplus before other gains and losses of £55.3 million, which would be more comparable with the prior year surplus of £66.1 million.

Our surpluses are used to maintain and replace our existing physical and digital infrastructure, including our student residences. We typically spend around £25 million each year maintaining what we have. Remaining cash is allocated to significant investments to replace or expand our education and research facilities. We are currently investing £35 million of our surpluses in a new clinical training facility for our dental students at Temple Quay. This will open in 2023 and will provide a much better learning environment for our students, provide free primary dental care to the local community and help to increase the number of dentists. We are also making investments in our North Somerset Campus at Langford to support a growth in veterinary students. There is a national shortage of both following Brexit, and we want to play our part in supporting the future of our communities.

Our investments have not only been in people (460 new jobs) and our campus facilities. We are also investing in our digital infrastructure. Last year we invested over £10 million in the delivery of our Digital Strategy. The early phases are focussing on ensuring that we have a resilient infrastructure that will enable colleagues and students to access our digital services in a secure manner from anywhere in the world. We are also providing new functionality to support our education and research. For example, we have recently launched the Self-Service Cloud, which enables members of our community to seamlessly access various cloud environments and reduce the need for local physical servers and networks on campus. We’ll shortly be embarking on a replacement of our entire campus IT network, both cabled and wireless, to substantially improve the digital experience.

Income and expenditure during 2022/23

Income grew by 10% in the year to £858.1 million (2021: £776.7 million) following growth across all key income streams. Student tuition fees grew 11% to £388.4 million (2021: £349.8 million) with income from international students showing the largest increase of 21%, reflecting continued high demand from overseas and our strategy to further internationalise our student body. Fee income from home students demonstrated a more modest increase of 4%.

Research grant and contract income grew by 9% to £192.8 million (2021: £176.4 million) with income from Research Councils growing by 12% and more than offsetting a 10% reduction in research income from UK-based charities who are taking longer to recover from the after-effects of the pandemic. It was very pleasing that we continued to grow research income, which is a good proxy for the amount of research we are undertaking, in line with our growth in student tuition fees.

Other income of £148.9 million showed growth of 18% (2021: £126.3 million) driven by a 58% increase in revenue from residences, catering and conferences. This reflected pre-pandemic levels of income with the 2021 comparative year having been significantly impacted by national lockdowns and by the decision to provide rent rebates to students adversely affected. Donations of £4.9 million recognised in the accounts (2021: £17.9 million) were significantly down but the prior year figures included a one-off, £7-million gift of scientific equipment and the £7-million recognition of donated heritage assets. It should be noted that total income from philanthropic sources last year was £29m – a record for the University. This support was recognised across multiple income streams including our research grants and contracts income and our endowment donations.

Staff costs, excluding one-off USS pensions costs, grew by 8%, which is broadly in line with our growth in tuition fees and research income. This increase is largely accounted for by the 460 new academic and Professional Services jobs created. These new jobs have helped us to address some workload challenges and provided opportunities for local people, as well as attracting further talent from overseas.

Other operating expenses were back to their pre-pandemic levels at £287.5 million, an increase of 24% on the prior year (2021: £231.9 million) where, owing to the impact of the pandemic, expenditure had been prioritised primarily on staff and students and essential operation of the estate.

Now and looking to the future

Financial margins for the new academic and financial year that we are now in, and for the next few years to come, are a lot tighter than they’ve been in recent history. We aim to keep our core education and research activities in a ‘break even’ position, excluding grant monies we receive for capital assets, any investment gains and losses on the Bristol Endowment Funds, and any valuation changes for both the properties we use and staff pension schemes. This is a tough challenge given the lack of any prospect of our largest income stream – home undergraduate tuition fees – being raised in the foreseeable future, alongside significant cost inflation. We are acutely aware of the impact of inflation on our students and staff. Our key objectives are to support the whole University community through these challenging times, to preserve jobs, and to make sure that we take opportunities and make investment decisions that will help ensure the medium-to-long-term success of our institution.

It is likely that we will continue to grow our academic endeavour over the coming years as we build on the success of the excellent REF 2021 results and many people from both home and overseas want to come and study and our institution. Further growth is not without its challenges, and it needs to be the right growth that helps us to achieve our academic potential. However, growth represents a considerably lower set of risks and issues than standing still or shrinking. It will not be possible to retain our existing broad academic endeavour and protect jobs in the current economic and fiscal environment without the right growth, managed well.

The Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus is at the heart of the next phase of our growth and development strategy. It will facilitate an expansion in our research, enterprise and education activities in exciting areas that are important to the future prosperity of our city region. The new campus will also facilitate around 3,000 new purpose-built student beds over the next four years.

We have a choice as to whether we want to be a good regional university, or one of the best in the world. It is essential that our community fosters a strong sense of ambition and entrepreneurial spirit for our University, and for our city, in order that our institution prospers for the next century and achieves even greater things. Given the passion, ingenuity and collegiality I see on a daily basis, I am sure that it will.