Month: August 2012

Leadership programme opportunity for disabled staff

The Equalities and Diversity Unit are launching a leadership development programme for disabled staff at the College and are currently seeking applications.

Successful candidates to the Calibre Programme will undertake a series of five workshops which will aim to leverage the effectiveness of “disabled leaders” in a variety of positions within the College. The programme is based on the Social Model of disability which focuses on personal development and positions disability a distinctive strength.

More information and the application form can be found here.

Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering

Professor Peter Cawley FREng, FRS, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has accepted appointment as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering with effect from 1 October 2012. He will succeed Professor Tony Kinloch FREng, FRS who retires after 28 years of service to Imperial and becomes a Senior Research Investigator.

Professor Cawley joined the College in 1981 as a Lecturer and after a series of promotions was appointed Professor in 1996. He has served as Deputy Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering since October 2007. Professor Cawley’s research focuses on non-destructive evaluation (NDE), with the aim to solve problems in industrial inspection and monitoring, particularly through the application of sonic and ultrasonic techniques. He is a director of two spin-out companies that commercialise work from his research group and holds a Diploma with Distinction in Teaching and Course Development in Higher Education from the Institute of Education. Professor Cawley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2006 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2010.

Pay Award for 2012-13

The College will be applying an increase to all Imperial College local pay scales on 1 August 2012.  The pay rates for all staff will increase by £800 or 1% – whichever is greater.  The pay award has been structured as a flat sum to provide most benefit to those on the starting and middle range salaries. The College local pay offer is twice the value of the national final pay offer of 1% in recognition of the particular pressures of living and working in London.  All staff earning below £80,000 will receive increases greater than the national pay offer. For those staff due to progress through the College’s incremental pay scales on 1 October, increases in pay will range from 4.26% to 6.46%.

The Joint Trades Unions, representing UCU, Unite and Unison, were not able to agree to this pay award. Further information on the pay negotiations is available on the Human Resources website.

The College has also reviewed the pay and benefits for those who work regularly on College sites but through contract services rather than as direct employees. As a result of this review, carried out in conjunction with the Joint Trades Unions, a College worker minimum pay rate will be introduced that contractors must apply to workers permanently assigned to work at the College. The College has been able to arrange for this rate to apply to the current cleaning contract in advance of the retender process next year. The College worker minimum pay rate of £7.25 per hour will take effect from 1 August 2012.

Academic Health Science Centre Director

Professor David Taube, Professor of Transplant Medicine at Imperial College London and medical director at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, has accepted appointment as Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) Director with effect from 1 September 2012.

The creation of the new position of AHSC Director was one of the recommendations of the review of the AHSC led by Professor Lord Darzi, commissioned in 2011 to evaluate the success of the AHSC since its foundation and to advise on its future direction (see College Notice 2010/11 – 18). The College and the Trust have considered the findings and jointly developed an action plan to renew and strengthen collaboration within the AHSC, which will be a major responsibility of the AHSC Director.

Professor Taube, reporting jointly to the Principal of the College’s Faculty of Medicine and the Chief Executive of the Trust, will drive the development of the AHSC and play a pivotal role in fully realising its aspiration to transform healthcare by translating research discoveries into medical advances in as fast a timeframe as is possible. He will strengthen the interface between clinical and academic activities, build on the innovation culture and implement strategies for channeling research excellence to deliver world class healthcare to local, national and global populations.

Professor Taube trained in renal medicine and transplantation at Guy’s Hospital before becoming a consultant nephrologist at King’s College Hospital in 1985. He became Clinical Director of the Renal and Transplant Unit at St Mary’s Hospital in 1990 and subsequently led the development of the Imperial Renal and Transplant Centre on the Hammersmith site which opened in 2005. He was appointed Professor of Transplant Medicine in Imperial’s Department of Medicine in 2006 and has been medical director at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust since its formation in 2007.