Imperial College Union has published its response to the National Student Survey 2012. The report recommends ways the College and the Union should respond to issues raised by students in the most recent survey, together with updates on progress made to address last year’s recommendations.
The upgrade of ICIS, required to ensure that Imperial maintains high levels of support from the software supplier and to facilitate future developments to the system, is currently scheduled from 17.00 on 29 November until 4 December, subject to successful testing. During this period staff will be unable to raise purchase orders, generate any other transactional data items, or access iRecruitment. Other systems which draw data from ICIS may also be affected.
Confirmation of the outage and its duration will be sent to all ICIS users in the week commencing 26 November. Further details of the project can be found in Staff Briefing #83.
For more information on the upgrade and for a full list of systems affected, please refer to the ICIS R12 Upgrade Web Page.
The local Metropolitan Police Safer Neighbourhood team have issued advice to avoid walking through Hyde Park alone during hours of darkness. There have been reports of a number of attacks on lone females in the area motivated by robbery. Any suspicious activity should be reported by dialling 999.
The Management Board received a report of the work of the Central Secretariat and the College Records and Archives Unit to meet the College’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act.
The report highlighted the rise in the number and complexity of Freedom of Information requests (184 in 2011 and 139 in 2012 to date) and noted that all responses to requests met the 20 day deadline. Most requests are met in full, but exemptions are applied when appropriate.
To read the College’s Policies and Procedures in relation to the Acts, visit:
Data Protection
Freedom of Information
The Management Board considered a paper outlining options for conferring titles on NHS consultants who do not meet the academic requirements for the title of Professor or Reader, but whose significant contribution the College wishes to recognise. The Board agreed that these individuals could be given the honorary title of Adjunct Professor or Adjunct Reader as appropriate. This title is already in use in the College to recognise eminent business leaders who act in a teaching capacity. The same process for awarding the title will be used, with applications from Heads of Department and endorsed by the relevant Faculty Principal considered by an Adjunct Appointments Panel led by the Deputy Rector. Titles will be awarded for five years.
The Management Board approved a proposal that the anticipated costs for the next stage of the Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) delivery programme be equally split between the College and the Imperial College Healthcare Trust. The budget is required to fund a small central AHSC Office, and the delivery of a core programme of administration and events.
The Management Board considered a paper which summarised the recommendations of the newly-formed Scholarships Panel, announced in Staff Briefing #65.
The Panel agreed that the goal of scholarships was to attract and retain the best students and recommended that a number of changes be made to the provision and criteria, including:
The Management Board approved these recommendations. Adverts will appear shortly for fifty PhD scholarships which will be awarded to individuals demonstrating exceptional potential, to begin at the College in October 2013.
The College has confirmed its decision to withdraw from the IDEA League, a network of universities in Europe with a focus on science and technology, with effect from December 2012. The decision follows a review and refocusing of Imperial’s top-level multi-institutional partnerships in line with the College’s current mission and its future development.
The IDEA League was founded in 1999 to establish joint activities in education, research and quality assurance and participate jointly in EU programmes. Current members are TU Delft, ETH Zurich, RWTH Aachen, ParisTech and Imperial. Joint activities for students have included summer school programmes and an annual sports event. Other achievements of the IDEA League include the development of the EIT Climate Change Knowledge Innovation Community (Climate KIC), and a collaborative Doctoral pilot programme focused on research relating to ageing, both of which will continue to involve the College.
The College has advised IDEA League partners that it remains committed to fostering strong collaborations with them and other leading European universities.
The College is pleased to announce that a number of academic staff were successful in the 2012 promotions round.
A full list of academic promotions can be found here.
Promotions took effect from 1 August 2012.
For details of the academic promotions procedure, please refer to the Human Resources guidance.
The design of ‘bespoke’ Imperial branded envelopes available from Office Depot will be changing slightly as stocks are refreshed. This is because Royal Mail is changing the way they frank our mail. On the new envelopes, the Imperial logo will appear in the bottom left-hand corner of the envelope on all sizes, except on DL window envelopes, on which it will appear to the right of the window. Please use up any old stock envelopes as the new franking style does not take effect until January 2013.
Please email the Graphic Identity team, if you have any queries.