Staff talk: How we’re enabling student recruitment growth

Work under way to enable us to increase our student intake and manage the consequences of growth was outlined in the latest all-staff talk.

Vice-Chancellor Robert Van de Noort was joined for February’s session by Dominik Zaum, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Planning and Resource), who is leading this programme of revenue growth work – one part of our overall response to ongoing global financial pressures.

These plans are outlined in more detail in a Staff Portal story published ahead of the talk, as well as an update on our UCAS application numbers.

During the talk, Robert and Dominik shared some context around this work, including data showing the University’s relatively slow growth in student numbers over the last five years compared to the UK university sector, and the impact of inflation on static student fees. UK student fees are worth 29% less today than when they were frozen a decade ago.

They also explained how recruiting more students, both home and international, will generate additional income to put us on a sounder financial footing into the future.

Dominik presented figures for our targeted overall student recruitment growth, showing a target of 37% growth in 2026/27 compared to the current year.

He also shared which Schools are expected to see the most growth due to high demand for places, with increased recruitment targets agreed with those with high growth potential. Click the chart to see it in full screen.

Enabling growth

As explained in the talk, we recognise this growth must be supported with adequate resource so as to make it sustainable and maintain a positive student experience.

This means creating additional teaching and study space – a key element of ongoing strategic campus development – rethinking timetabling and staff resources, and providing additional investment in areas of high growth potential to support this.

It is important to note that we are aiming for growth in all subject areas, and additional income from increased student recruitment in certain schools will benefit all parts of the university.

The last few years have not been easy, and we recognise that recent changes being implemented to help reduce our financial deficit have required hard work from colleagues. Assigning additional resources to schools with the highest recruitment targets is intended to ease further workload pressures related to growth.

Investment in, and support for, all staff is also a priority and we do acknowledge the impact of the current pause on staff reward and promotions processes along with questions around workloads and systems.

Specific plans to increase our international student intake were outline at January’s all-staff talk with Caroline Baylon, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International).

Work will also be required to support growth in research income and intensity, to mitigate the impact increased revenue from student recruitment could have on our status as a research intensive university.

Next steps

The annual Planning Report, which also encompasses the proposed resources to support the ongoing growth programme, will be presented to the University Council in March for approval.

We will continue to keep colleagues updated on these plans, and other strategic plans related to our financial performance, as they progress.