Broadcast: News items

Dame Denise Holt, Chair of Council

As many you take some well-deserved time off over the summer, I wanted to thank you for your amazing work through this most difficult academic year and give you a brief update on the Vice-Chancellor recruitment process.

We have established a Vice-Chancellor Recruitment Oversight Group with representation from Council, Senate, UEG, staff and students. The Group will ensure a fair, transparent and robust process, including of course effective engagement with the University community. The Oversight Group’s role will be to support and advise me at key stages throughout the process. The group will meet in August to review terms of reference and agree ways of working.

As this is such an important leadership role for the University, we will be engaging a specialist executive search agency to ensure we have the very best and broadest range of candidates. As such, a competitive procurement process has begun to support the University and to advise us on current best practice across the sector. The University has invited the leading agencies in the sector to tender for this process, and again I will be supported by members of the Oversight group as well as an in-house procurement expert. We are aiming to identify the chosen firm by the end of August, paving the way for the Oversight group and agency to draw up detailed plans for the envisaged engagement process.

This thorough recruitment process is made possible by the appointment of Professor David Maguire as interim Vice Chancellor (starting later this year). In the interests of a seamless transition David will begin to engage with colleagues across the University over the coming months, but of course you will not need reminding by me that Adam Tickell remains Vice Chancellor, in full exercise of his powers, for some months to come.