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University of Edinburgh

College of Humanities & Social Science

School of History, Classics & Archaeology

School Plan 2014 – 2015 - 2016

24 February 2015

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A: Contextual Summary

The School’s ambition is to provide a supportive environment in which teaching and research in its three

constituent subject areas can flourish and further develop, by providing and utilising effectively the best

human and material resources it can deploy. Its aim is to maintain and where possible to enhance its

reputation as one of the foremost centres for the study of the past across the fullest possible scope of its

constituent disciplines.

In terms of our academic colleagues, the School’s key aims are to foster the contributions of our

academic staff in post, providing excellent support for teaching, and for the enhancement of individual

and collaborative research (including an appropriate sabbatical leave scheme), underpinned by support

from well-managed and integrated teams of administrative staff. The School endeavours to reward

excellence in teaching as well as in research amongst its staff, giving due cognisance to equality and

diversity issues and to the maintenance of appropriate work-life balances. The School will support

research by mentoring, especially early-career, colleagues, by encouraging application for funded

projects through the provision of a well- informed and resourced Research Office, through timely and

informative peer-review, by appropriate adjustments to other aspects of individual workloads and by

other means, and will endeavour to enhance the international dimensions (e.g. joint application for

support with non-UK partners and joint authorship of outputs) of its research endeavours. The School

will seek to appoint strategically to additional positions as resources allow, with the explicit intention of

enhancing its international profile (e.g. the William Robertson Chair). We shall ensure that our research

efforts lead wherever possible to measurable impacts and are paralleled by knowledge exchange and

outreach strategies; and by giving due regard to boosting open access provision.

Our teaching, both of undergraduates and postgraduates, is central to everything we undertake. We shall

continue to align our strategies in support of teaching and learning with College priorities, rationalising

provision where this is justified, while maintaining our standards at or above QAA Benchmarking norms

and other appropriate criteria, and encouraging the introduction of innovative approaches to both

teaching and assessment at all levels of our curricula. We shall endeavour both in formal settings and

informally to make all our students feel part of the School community, and shall strive further directly to

address adverse concerns raised in student surveys at all levels. We shall take steps to enhance the

experience of all our student cohorts as they commence independent research, from senior undergraduate

through to doctoral students. We shall concurrently seek to develop provision for post-doctoral research

and to improve support for colleagues, including tutors, on teaching-only contracts.

The School will deploy the resources at its disposal to best advantage to develop its underpinning

structures. It will strive to ensure that its administrative staff teams are properly valued and resourced;

that its physical provisions (e.g. in terms of IT and specialist field and laboratory equipment) are

maintained and whenever possible enhanced; and that the physical space at its disposal (now under

pressure) is used to best advantage to foster its primary roles, while helping concurrently to develop a

sense of an engaged and engaging academic community.

Having recruited academic (Fig 1) and administrative staff in substantial numbers over recent years, as

well as maintained and in many cases increased student numbers, the School’s primary aim in the

immediate future is to consolidate its gains in order to enhance its sense of identity and community in its

still-new physical setting, the better to develop its varied teaching, research and impact in the years to

come. This will be achieved by strengthening internal communications and by building on the recently

announced strong REF research power rankings for both History and Classics; and by the solid re-

establishment of Archaeology in the same exercise as a cohesive entity in research terms.

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Fig. 1 Appointment dates of all academic staff in HCA at the start of 2015. The newness of much of the

cohort has consequences for the School across the spectrum of its activities e.g. from availability as PhD

supervisors to developing a ‘sense of community’

B: Interim Progress Report

Ba: Summary of Progress on selected 2014 Plan targets

B1 Providing an outstanding student experience

We continue to refine and target our funding / scholarship support for postgraduate students with a view

to attracting students of the highest calibre. In order to deploy our limited resources to best advantage, we

seek to be flexible in the exact mix of bursary support we offer, for example between Masters and

doctoral level applicants, and between UK, EU, and Overseas students; furthermore, we aim to support

widening participation and gender balance at the postgraduate level.

Our undergraduate scholarship scheme has operated successfully for its second tranche, when 10 £7000

bursaries were awarded. We shall review the effectiveness of this scheme at the end of its planned third

year of operation, but it may be remarked that some of the prime concerns it was meant to address – the

difficulty of achieving admission to Edinburgh and the additional costs of the four year degree cycle –

seem externally less prominent than they were when the scheme was devised.

History has completed its engagement in the LEAF / TESTA process. It is now reviewing its teaching

provision in light of the outcomes in conjunction with initial feedback from the TPR process it has

undergone in the first semester of this session. A principal target is to rationalise the range of pre-

Honours offerings in the subject area.

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4

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8

10

12

14

16

18

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Total new academic staff starts per year

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Archaeology is scheduled to undergo TPR in semester 2 of the current year, and is already reviewing its

teaching provision; and both Classics and Archaeology will be engaging with the LEAF / TESTA

processes next session.

We continued to support ILW, more particularly in terms of developing longer experiences delivered off-

campus and in particular overseas but remain disappointed by the modest central support accessible to

underpin this initiative.

B2 Increasing our global impact

We have supported the Chancellor’s Fellowship scheme with three further appointments of high-calibre

junior colleagues, one in each of our subject areas, such that (despite two resignations) the School will

have a total of 12 CFs on its books in January 2015. While the two-year Senior appointments at

Professorial Fellow level will be completed by December 2014, the School is pleased that the majority of

the incumbents have asked that we put them forward for Honorary positions, so that they may retain and

indeed develop their research linkages with colleagues here. We are also pleased to have made a range of

appointments to lectureships to replace colleagues who have left, including in modern German history (in

which we also hope to make a further appointment through the DAAD scheme), in modern African

history and in Scottish / diaspora history. The principal new posts that are already in the initial stages of

the appointments process are the new, externally-funded Leventis Chair in Byzantine Studies and the

William Robertson Chair in History, for both of which we shall be seeking appointees with an

established global reach. The DL postgraduate programme in History, which recruits off-campus

students worldwide, continues to develop successfully, thereby offering a new conduit to global impact.

We will review this programme after three years of operation and consider at that stage whether to

develop equivalent offerings in Archaeology or Classics.

B3 Making positive contributions to society

We continue to maintain close linkages with the communities of school teachers, particularly in History

and Classics: we hosted the Scottish Association of Teachers of History (SATH) autumn conference in

2014, as we had in previous years. Colleagues in Classics continue to engage in supporting the delivery

of the new Scottish curriculum; the School is also underwriting a workshop / meeting of teachers of

Classics organized by colleagues in the Subject Area and designed to foster linkages between schools

and the University. With the appointment of a Deputy Director Research with special responsibility for

KE and impact, we shall further develop these aspects of our work, complementing our ‘Impact

Champions scheme’, announced in our 2014 Plan and to which the first two appointments of colleagues

have been made. We shall monitor the effectiveness of this scheme, refining it in the light of experience.

During the session just completed, much effort has gone into providing the initial development finance

(e.g. to build a web template), and then taking forward a bid to HLF, for our key outreach endeavour,

Scotland’s War, which has now received £73k Lottery funding and which should continue to be a high-

profile undertaking.

B4 Embedding principles of social responsibility and sustainability

We have continued to use School resources to support student outreach initiatives to the wider

community notably in Edinburgh and its hinterland (e.g. by Archaeology undergraduates in the

Edinburgh Outreach Archaeology Project); the School also again supported two student interns in

relation to Previously, the Scottish History Festival). We shall also support gender issues, notably

internally through participation in the GEM scheme.

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B5 Developing partnerships

Beyond the linkages and partnerships listed in the 2014 Plan, the key initiative has been to provide the

new Directors of the School’s two longest-established Centres – the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies

and the Centre for the Study of Modern Conflict – with additional resources for the current session to

enable them inter alia to develop new external linkages. In terms of forming partnerships with other

institutions, an initiative is being explored between History, the University of Mainz and Trinity College

Dublin. We also have a new initiative with the University of Virginia, with US financial support,

throught he offices of Prof Cogliano, Dean, North America.

Bb: Student / Teaching issues: UG & TPG

Improving School procedures and guidance

As part of the College’s Programme and Course Information Management Project, all course

information hosted on EUCLID is currently under review. Any course that has not been taught

within the last five years, or is unlikely to be taught in the near future, will be removed from

EUCLID and archived. Remaining course entries will be revised as necessary to ensure that:

i) course descriptions give detailed outlines of subject matter, delivery and

assessment;

ii) intended learning outcomes (not more than five) will be itemised and re-written

to ensure that they reflect expectations appropriate to their level;

iii) indicative bibliographies will be updated as necessary.

This process will be completed by 15 April 2015.

Undergraduate matters

A new School Undergraduate Director is in post from August 2014

Strategic considerations

NSS Results: The NSS for 2014 identified three main areas of dissatisfaction among HCA

undergraduates: i) feedback is too slow and insufficiently helpful; ii) inconsistency in marking exists

between courses; iii) members of academic staff are insufficiently available to students. A new School

Undergraduate Learning and Teaching Committee was established in October 2014 specifically to

address such issues. It formulated four proposals for immediate implementation which were approved

and adopted as School policy in November 2014. These are:

All coursework must be marked, moderated and returned to undergraduates within 3 weeks

(fifteen working days) of submission

During the moderation process, special attention will be paid to all honours courses in which the

mean mark falls more than three per cent either above or below the mean mark on all honours

courses across the subject area in the previous year

Staff with full teaching / supervision responsibilities must have advertised office hours, or

otherwise be available to students, for at least four hours per week during the teaching semesters

(pro rata for others)

Staff must respond to student emails within three working days during the teaching semester

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Our collective ability to comply with these requirements will be actively monitored by Heads of Subject

Areas.

Every course across the School currently has its own questionnaire through which students

provide feedback at the end of the semester. Most of these are distributed in hard copy. A process of standardising these forms is currently underway so that that there will be a single

questionnaire for all pre-honours courses and another one for all honours courses across the

School. Data will be collected in electronic form making it much easier to analyse and store.

These two new e-questionnaires will be approved and piloted during semester two of 2014/15

and adopted from 2015/16; results will be made available as part of the Annual Review

documentation to ensure that information on teaching provision can be discussed alongside

information on research, KE and student support contributions;

Formative feedback sessions are now required during all courses. This requirement is now

embedded in course literature and steps have been taken to ensure consistent enactment;

Induction sessions for both new members of academic staff and for new postgraduate tutors,

introduced in 2012-13, continue to develop and are proving very successful.

Progress since 2013/14

A review of the entire curriculum of single honours and joint honours programmes within the

History subject area is currently underway. A thorough overhaul of the courses offered at both

pre-honours and honours level is intended. This review is driven by the need to address the

following aims:

i) To have a compulsory core element in each of the four years. This will both

emphasise what is deemed important and definitive about Edinburgh History

degrees and help to inculcate a sense of common enterprise and collective

identity among our students

ii) To rationalise the large number of pre-honours courses available to first and

second-year undergraduates. These involve a significant consumption of staff

time, some overlap in content, and undermine that sense of common enterprise

among students

iii) To bring some of the training elements in theories, sources and methods,

currently delivered in the third-year ‘History in Theory’ and ‘History in Practice’

courses, forward into the sub-honours curriculum

iv) To reduce the number of honours courses available to third and fourth-year

students. Because of timetable clashes and other restrictions the present pattern

creates an illusory sense of extended choice which increases the potential for

student dissatisfaction by raising expectations that cannot be met. A smaller suite

of options, some of which will be team-taught, is envisaged

v) To create a clear distinction between third-year (junior honours) and fourth-year

(senior honours) courses. The current model of 3/4 courses is indefensible in

terms of progression and makes for an unsatisfactory student experience.

vi) To consider the number of compulsory credits (currently 80) required by History

degrees in each of the two sub-honours years. This will be informed by the aims

(greater flexibility, enhanced potential for transfer) of the College’s Programme

Pathways Project.

The new Teaching Programme Review report encouraged the Subject Area in the priorities of

curriculum reform outlined above. In addition it made recommendations about governance which

are now being implemented. Two new roles will be created: A Director of Sub-Honours

Teaching and A Director of Honours Teaching. Their holders will be responsible for overseeing

the provision of courses, dealing with extensions on coursework, and exercising a Quality

Assurance function;

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It is anticipated that Archaeology will take forward an equivalent review in the wake of its TPR

(January 2015); some proposed revisions are already under discussion.

The School-wide Personal Tutee group meetings for each of the four years have proved to be a

very effective and important avenue of communication for both students and staff. These meetings achieved an estimated 80% attendance, with favourable comments reported across the

student body;

The School Communications Administrator and the Student Experience Officer have continued

to expand our avenues of communication with students and increased our ability to respond to

their needs. Facebook, Twitter and other social media are now routinely used to disseminate

information, encourage students to express their opinions, and engage them in School activities;

New marketing initiatives, discussed below, are underway. A one-day conference for School

Teachers of History, Classics and Archaeology is scheduled (June 2015). This will promote

Edinburgh degrees and raise awareness of our programmes among teachers of 6th-year pupils.

Personal tutoring: In HCA, the job of Senior Tutor is split between the Senior Tutor (Undergraduate)

and the Postgraduate Director, who acts as the Senior Tutor (Postgraduate). The School has been

devoting considerable effort to making sure that Personal Tutors are adequately trained and supported.

The Senior Tutor (Undergraduate) holds an annual half-day School Personal Tutor training session on

the Friday before Freshers’ Week. This is mandatory for all new Personal Tutors and voluntary for other

Personal Tutors and for support staff. The sessions cover in detail all aspects of the Personal Tutor’s

role; as well as from the Senior Tutor (Undergraduate), there is input from the Undergraduate Director,

the Student Experience Officer and the full-time member of the Student Support Office. All Personal

Tutors are sent an annually updated list of links to internet sites containing the information and advice

they need to support them in their work. In addition, the Senior Tutor (Undergraduate) sends regular

emails to Personal Tutors throughout the year, prompting them to do their various tasks and explaining in

detail how to do them. He/she also provides advice and information to Personal Tutors whenever it is

asked for, especially in difficult cases, in cases involving progression, and in cases requiring detailed

knowledge of University regulations.

Graduate School

The Director of the Graduate School is now supported by a Deputy with particular responsibility for

RPG students.

Current assessment against plan

During 2014-15 postgraduate numbers fell compared with the all-time high of 2013-14. There was a

significant (20%) decrease in students enrolled for MScT programmes; and a disappointingly severe

decrease in excess of 20% in PGR numbers recruited this session. An e-mail survey of students who

accepted a place at Edinburgh but did not subsequently enroll indicated that financial reasons had

prevented most students from coming to Edinburgh. This is the first session for which out new, higher,

fee levels apply, which may have dampened recruitment as in some case our fees are now markedly

above those of direct competitors. One bright spot was the increasingly successful recruitment to the

ODL History programme in its second year (with 52 part-time students beginning in either September

2014 or January 2015).

Class questionnaires completed for Semester 1 of the current academic year indicate that satisfaction

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with the MScT courses is consistently high; and we hope to see this reflected in the PTES results in

2015. In 2013-14, the PTES score for overall satisfaction in HCA was 90% (second highest ranking in

the University after Veterinary Studies). This means that in PTES we have exceeded CHSS KPI 7.1 to

'Increase the level of overall satisfaction expressed in response to the NSS, PTES and PRES student

surveys to at least 88%'. We have also moved to increase the quality of overseas PGT students recruited

to the School by raising the level of language requirement for entry.

Unfortunately, the goal of 'at least sustaining PhD numbers' stated as the target in the 2014 School Plan

actually manifested as a decrease in intake to 23 compared to 30 in the previous year. Initial discussions

suggest that this may be attributed to the difficult economic circumstances and more competitive, indeed

enhanced, scholarships available elsewhere in the sector (both here and abroad), perhaps exacerbated by

the political uncertainties in Scotland. Combined with an increase in the number of staff eligible to

supervise doctoral students this means that we fall short of the CHSS KPI 2.1 to 'Increase our average

number of PhD students per member of academic staff to at least 2.5'. The Director of Graduate Studies

and the School Graduate Office will continue to work to consider applications speedily and to direct

applicants to all potential Scholarship opportunities.

The School’s PRES results in the last survey in 2012-13 were poor, with the overall satisfaction rating

down from 84% in 2011 to 78%. We intend that our PRES score will improve markedly in 2014-15;

accordingly in August 2014 a Deputy Director of the Graduate School was appointed with special

responsibility for the PGR cohort and already provides greater support and training for PGR students,

notably in combining their studies with tutoring. He has also enhanced opportunities for scholarly and

social interaction among PGR students. At the same time the Director of the Graduate School has

initiated a standard PG Office hour; and is currently exploring the possibility of developing PGR peer

support and augmenting financial assistance for PGR students during 2014-15. This is in addition to

establishing a Personal Tutor system for PGR students, which is designed to complement existing

supervisorial arrangements.

We continue to offer a range of internal scholarships for students at masters and doctoral level looking to

enter in 2015-16. These will include, at PhD level, Doctoral Teaching Awards, and the Jenny Balston

award. At Master's level there are a number of awards covering fees and stipend. McMillan Scholarships

reward outstanding achievement for non-funded doctoral students in their second and third years. The

strategy is to direct these awards to high quality applicants who might provide particular short- and long-

term benefits to the School, notably in terms of contributions to research culture but also with a view to

improving completion rates, progression to PhD, and contributions to the wider academic community

and beyond. We shall continue this strategy, although the School allocation of funds for Masters

Scholarships has been reduced; but we have been greater autonomy in the deployment of College

scholarship funds.

The recruitment of new and replacement academic staff has led to an increased range of new MScT

taught options, especially for the ODL programme, which will become available on and off campus over

the next three years.

The School’s range of MSc programmes remains under review. The viability of existing programmes,

especially those involving staff from more than one College or School, was raised by the suspension of

the Eighteenth Century Cultures MSc programme in August 2013. A proposal for a new version of this

programme, which has been popular in the past, was presented to the PG Board of Studies in late 2014

and will be made available to applicants in 2015-16 subject to further revisions. Further rationalisation of

courses and programmes will occur during 2015-16; Classics is also currently rationalizing its taught

postgraduate provision. Thus two MSc programmes ('Modern British and Irish History’, ‘Hellenistic

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World’) have already been phased out. There are currently 16 taught programmes across our three

subject areas open to applicants for 2015 entry, representing a drop of 36% in numbers compared with

2011.

Henceforth, it is the School’s intention that the sustainability of all TPG programmes and courses in

HCA will be reviewed annually. The Director of the Graduate School, Subject Area Graduate Officers,

and the Student Recruitment Officer will meet annually in February as an Admissions Board to assess

the viability of courses and programmes for the following year. Using previous years’ conversion data

the focus will be on those programmes which:

i. have recruited fewer than 5 students and are unlikely to recruit more (8 programmes and at

least 12 courses fell below this threshold in 2014-15)

ii. do not have part-time students progressing to their second year.

iii. are not required to run to meet funding council requirements

The recommendations of this Board will be passed to Heads of Subject Area and to the School

Management Committee. They will contact programme directors (PD). At this stage PDs will be able to

make a case for the retention of their programme based on factors such as research strategy, PhD

recruitment, and institutional reputation. In cases where the suspension of programmes is none the less

confirmed by SMC students will be advised to choose a new programme or withdraw/postpone

enrolment.

The group meetings instituted as part of the PT system have now been extended to MScT programmes,

with a view to enhancing student experience. Other initiatives to enhance student experience, an issue

highlighted in PRES 2012-13, include a proposed PhD student trip to the Burn in June 2015. A number

of in-house social events to improve PG community have also been initiated.

School PG Office has been restructured, a third administrator added, and a clearer distribution of roles

formalised. This has already had a positive impact on administrative efficiency.

In response to an approach by the Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Roberts Training Fund

moneys have been used to fund a postgraduate tutor for Medieval Latin in spring 2015.

Finally, the School deployed non-recurrent money that became available in January 2014 in support of a

competitive post-Doctoral scheme available solely to our own successful PGs to take the next steps (e.g.

converting their theses to monographs) in developing their research careers. Three 15-month contracts

were offered, which included some provision for teaching experience. The School considered this

scheme to be valuable and successful and believes that post-Doctoral support is a key absence in our

provision. However financial constraints render it impossible to repeat this session.

Research, Impact and KE

The Director of Research, appointed from summer 2014, is now assisted by two Deputy Directors with,

respectively, special responsibility for KE and impact; and oversight of the School’s response to Open

Access requirements.

Summary of the year

The central challenge in 2013-14 was a severe shortage of support staff in the RKEO, due to

circumstances outwith our control which meant that we were without a dedicated administrator from

November 2013 until August 2014, with inevitable consequences for our ability to deliver administrative

support for both research applications and active projects within the School. However, this was used as

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an opportunity to evaluate needs for the longer term, with decisions in concert with College Registrar to

increase the number of posts and to restructure the RKEO. The Deputy DoPS kept the office running on

a shoestring in the intervening period; and College Office support helped with external funding

applications. The RKEO team now consists of a RKEO Administrator; and two Administrative

Assistants. A final post (Research and KE Data Coordinator) will be added in early 2015. Administrative

support for research within the School will then be at an appropriate level, to allow us further to build on

the successful outcomes of REF 2014.

We will obviously further examine the REF results very carefully in relation to the three units of

assessment and develop our strategy for REF 2020 in response during the incoming months. The new

open access requirements for REF2020 have already been advertised across the School (e.g. at a School

Forum) and have been discussed at Subject Area meetings. In relation to impact and KE, we have also

launched the ‘Impact Champions’ scheme outlined in the 2014 Plan (with the appointment of Dr

Harding and Dr Llewellyn-Jones as our first champions); we have also been working with the College

Press Officer to increase media coverage of research news stories from the School. In relation to research

ethics and integrity, the School Committee has been reconstituted, subject area representatives with

relevant expertise have been appointed and we are reviewing paperwork and procedures to best fit with

new reporting demands from RCUK.

External funding success for 2013-14 was variable. For the 12 months to July 2014, research grant

applications were 27% higher in financial terms but 27% lower in number (down from 75 to 55) than in

the preceding year. This may reflect changes in certain schemes (e.g. Carnegie Trust) and the general

shift towards larger collaborative applications encouraged by the funding councils. In 2013-14 the largest

grants awarded were: (in Classics) Professor Cairns’ £541k AHRC grant for the interdisciplinary project

‘A History of Distributed Cognition’; and (in Archaeology) Professor Crow’s £251k Leverhulme Trust

award for ‘engineering the Byzantine Water supply’. No large grants were gained within History in

2013-14; however, since September 2014 there has been a considerable success with Professor Bates’s

£770k AHRC award for ‘Becoming Coolies: Rethinking the Origins of the Indian Labour Diaspora,

1772-1920’. We are now confident, with our new RKEO team in place and further proactive work by our

Research Directorate, that more positive results can be achieved in the months to come.

Finally, the School also made use of non-recurrent money that became available in January 2014 to

furnish additional support for academic colleagues’ research, by providing grants through the RKEO (up

to £450 per head); colleagues were encouraged to capitalize wherever possible on the expertise of our

PGT/R community in pursuing this work.

School Office The Deputy Director of Professional Services was appointed to a previously-vacant post in September

2013.

Background

In 2013/14 the School Office was substantially restructured, in part as a consequence of personnel

changes, but also to improve its fitness for purpose. The School Office team in autumn 2013 consisted of

a School Administrative Assistant, Resources Administrator, Research Administrator, Research Centres

Administrator, General Administrative Assistant and Receptionist. Ill-health absences and departures

meant that operational gaps had to be covered by agency staff and part time assistance from other

Schools and College.

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Following due consultation, the admixture of roles required in this team was redesigned; the Resources

Administrator post was sub-divided into defined Finance and HR jobs. A Research Support Assistant

was created primarily to help with post-award financial administration and to expand capacity in line

with the School’s rising research funding aspirations. A new Research Administrator is tasked

principally with providing assistance to the Director of Research and her team, and to properly deal with

pre-award enquiries and resulting research applications.

The School Office Team now consists of a School Secretary, Finance Administrator, HR Administrator,

Research Office and Knowledge Exchange Administrator, Research Centres and Knowledge Exchange

Events Administrator, Research Support Assistant, and General Administrative Assistant, and School

Receptionist; only two of the original team remain in post (HR Administrator and Receptionist). The

School has made excellent appointments into the new roles and an effective team has been created.

Challenges

As 2013/14 was devoted substantially to restructuring, many managerial tasks have been delayed, but

progress is now under way. With the help of all team members a full calendar of standard School Office

tasks will be produced; wherever possible, processes will be standardised. A skills matrix is in

development to ensure Senior Management and the team have adequate skills and resources such that all

essential administrative tasks can be covered during annual leave and other absences.

Moving Forward

The School will shortly advertise for a Research data, Impact and KE Coordinator as part of the RKEO;

this role is vital to ensure PURE is up-to-date, and Open Access compliance; and that all staff

publications and KE Impact events are properly recorded – all essential as we manage preparations for

REF 2020. Workload requirements already make it plain that a Finance Assistant (p-t) is needed to

undertake routine tasks and thus free the Finance Administrator to focus on the more demanding aspects

of the role.

HCA is expected to undergo financial audit in the near future. This is welcomed as it will provide an

opportunity to review our processes, instil new procedures and further standardise processes.

IT provision and related considerations

These aspects are overseen by the School IT Manager.

Progress: Website and electronic media

Further progress was made in 2014 in migrating the School’s public-facing website to Polopoly. The

Centre for Medieval and Renaissance studies website has also been moved. The Centre for the Study of

Modern Conflict is participating in the EdWeb pilot and has now been migrated to Drupal. All web

applications on webhost1 have been moved onto new hardware after serious security concerns.

The School has further added to its image collection with more photographs of our students taken by a

professional photographer. New marketing videos have been completed.

The School Communications Administrator continued to improve applicant and student communications

by helping to keep the School website up-to-date, sending eNewsletters (which has been problematic due

to problems with MailChimp usage) to applicants, creating additional promotional materials for students,

and promoting both NSS and ILW.

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Progress: MSc in History (Online)

This programme is in its second year of operation; we now have over 65 students on programme. The

programme, which has been recognised by the DEI Initiative as recruiting well, had its first graduate in

November 2014. The Programme Organiser collected a EUSA prize for ‘Teaching with Technology’ and

was nominated for a second prize (Best Personal Tutor) in 2014.

Five new courses are coming on stream this academic year; these courses have welcomed on-campus

students as well as distance learners. Issues over the monitoring of Tier 4 students who elect to complete

one of these courses are now hopefully resolved. In 2015-16, there will be at least 7 new courses added

to the programme.

The School is retaining the Online Marketing Officer for a further fixed-term period to roll out our

strategy further. The eLearning Officer recruited for this initiative is also being brought progressively

into the School and is increasingly splitting his time between the online programme and other School

eLearning and web related tasks.

Progress: IT facilities, staffing and equipment

We continue to maintain a rolling programme of replacement and enhancement of our computer facilities

consistent with staff and student demand. The School also recruited a further computing officer in 2014,

to keep pace with IT support requirements which have risen markedly over the past three years as

academic staff numbers have increased.

AV facilities in two teaching rooms were upgraded over summer 2014.

Two cloud printers for student use were replaced after significant issues with the previous

models. The new MFDs have been much more stable.

Archaeology acquired a new high-grade microscope particularly to enhance forensic work.

Student access to software has been improved to match demand – more licences for software

have been purchased (so students can use Photoshop, Illustrator and Autocad in multiple

locations around the School)

The teaching computing lab has been opened to UG students for informal use when not booked

for teaching.

The School migrated to the RDM system – datastore – in 2014 and is taking advantage of the extra space

now accessible. While IS did much of the actual migration, the School IT Team helped planned this

exercise.

Teaching rooms have been handed over to the Timetabling Section to manage with effect from

January 2015 to increase the size of the centrally managed teaching room pool. The School will

however continue to encourage informal student use of these rooms at times when they are not

reserved via the booking system.

We now standardly ask students to submit coursework electronically through Turnitin. The School has

investigated methods for online marking and feedback, to address concerns manifested e.g. in NSS

feedback. School colleagues already use the tools in Turnitin to do this for all online courses but it has

proven rather unstable this year, with some marks disappearing at critical times. Also, it is impossible to

keep submissions anonymous while simultaneously identifying and following up timeously on students

who fail to submit, and so we continue to seek other options. While Learn has some online marking

tools these are currently unavailable for legal reasons, a position which we hope will soon be resolved.

13

The School has meantime developed an online coursework cover sheet, which provides barcoded

coversheets for students, to accompany paper submission of assessed work. This initiative was taken up

by College and adapted for use in other Schools.

Staffmail users are being migrated to Office365 in late January 2015, in line with the rest of College.

Progress – Library support - Internships and Talis Aspire update

Four student internships (three via EmployEd; one directly by the School) were funded during

summer 2014. Two supported the Archaeology teaching collections; and two enabled the

updating of the HCA Book Collections and the creation of Talis Aspire Resource Lists for sub-

honours courses for 2014-15. The School is considering ways of developing these internships to

provide further valuable work experience for interested students and plans to offer three places

during 2015, one of which will be to support the creation of a digital resource for palaeography

teaching;

The success of these and other Talis Aspire Resource Lists has now been reported by the Library

which noted that of the top ten Resource Lists in the University, seven were created for HCA

students. The School continues to support this Library initiative and further lists are being

created for new sub-honours and honours courses.

Review of progress on 2014-15 marketing plan

Action plans pertaining to areas identified by the College and College KPIs not already addressed

include:

(i) Programme portfolio

Market research is being undertaken for a new PG programme – MSc International

Global History. Results are due in mid-January 2015.

(ii) Research / KE

Amongst high profile events, the Tom Devine Global Migrations of the Scottish

People conference was supported by the production of a well-received 24-page

conference brochure.

Templates for marketing materials and a process for event support staff have been

created to ensure effective professional promotion of events.

The Research Directorate will consult with Marketing to identify key messages to

promote the School’s research following the successful REF outcomes just

announced.

(iii) Internationalisation

Dedicated advertising campaigns and work in concert with the International Office

and Professor Cogliano will ensure prospective students and agents are aware of the

School’s programme portfolio and key messages.

Other action plans including those pertaining to College KPIs:

Outstanding student experience

14

Web reviews of both undergraduate and postgraduate study pages, to increase the quality and volume

of website traffic.

Undergraduate offer-holder conversion was further developed

Online information sessions for applicants were held for History and Archaeology at UG level.

Student recruitment videos were shot. These are live on the School website and are now included in

conversion materials. Statistics to date show good engagement levels.

School-branded merchandise was produced for use in induction packs to allow new students to begin

to identify with the School.

Undergraduate recruitment

Findings from The entrants’ and decliners’ survey results for 2014 are now used to inform marketing

activity and key messages for the current recruitment cycle.

A mailing to all Classics and Archaeology students who registered an interest in these subjects took

place over summer 2014 to influence 2015 entry. This included a personal letter written from the

School and a leaflet containing subject-specific information.

Postgraduate recruitment

Postgraduate marketing activity has been enhanced: A School-wide advertising campaign

showcases the suite of PGT and PhD programmes on various UK and international channels (for

2015 entry). Online MSc History marketing activity has continued. A first PG Information

session was held last semester for our UGs considering applying for PG degrees. Some 20

students attended.

Marketing budget for 2014/15

Activity Budget Projected total

spend

Undergraduate growth 10,500 10,500

Postgraduate growth 8,000 8,000

Contingency 3000 TBC

C: Action Plan for 2015-16

In terms of academic staffing, the issues in the immediate term will be the replacement of staff leaving

from key positions, as well as appointment to the externally-funded Leventis Chair in Byzantine Studies,

and the William Robertson Chair in History, which will be advertised anew following failure to appoint

in 2012.

Medium-term objectives will be to re-assess the staffing strategy in History, including to assess in the

light of feedback following Teaching Programme Review in autumn 2014 whether the present balance

between full-time and part-time academic appointments is the most appropriate. This review will also

consider what, in light of evolving internal and external demand, the priority areas for new appointments

should be: Public History is one candidate for a lectureship, but concerns have been expressed too e.g.

over our under-representation in digital humanities, need for expertise in palaeography, and relatively

lowly standing in terms of number of appointments compared to key competitors in History beyond

Europe and North America; and in medieval history, in the latter of which staff numbers have declined

15

markedly since c. 2000. In the case of the provision of staff in e.g. digital humanities and/or

palaeography, it may be possible to take a broader lead within postgraduate provision across Scotland.

Archaeology’s staffing requirements are also under examination, and will be considered further in the

wake of the TPR and assimilation of the REF 2014 results.

Undergraduate Specific priorities continuing into, or beginning in, 2015/16

Improving the Student Experience:

The School is committed to improving our students’ experience through a number of initiatives:

The School Student Experience Officer has already helped to improve the management of, and

student involvement in, Student-Staff Liaison Committees. From Jan 2015 the School SSLA will

meet twice per semester (instead of once) in order to give students and staff more opportunity to

discuss matters of interest and concern;

The School Undergraduate Scholarships for Academic Excellence were introduced for a three

year period in 2013-143. Up to ten awards are available annually with a value of £7,000 each. In

2014-15 the scholarships were awarded for the second time. The scheme has received positive

feedback from recipients, who will therefore be ambassadors to the student body. The School

intends to maintain the scheme in the foreseeable future insofar as finances allow, conducting a

review as intended after Year 3;

The School will continue to provide a restricted number of student internships.

The student peer support scheme introduced in 2013-14 for first and second year students works

well. An expanded range of activities, workshops and mentoring sessions is underway for

session 2014-15 with support from the Student Experience Officer and her staff; and further

enhancement thereafter may be envisaged;

A new information booklet is planned for distribution to all undergraduate students in History.

This will provide key information on the subject area, a plan of the curriculum and listings of

courses taught, short profiles of members of staff, and a digest of policy and procedures within

the School. This will be readied for distribution once the new curriculum is in place. History has

been selected as the pilot for this project, because of the particular issues arising from its scale. If

successful, the initiative will be tailored to the other disciplines too.

Recent initiatives with employers to advise students on employment options and develop aspects

of employability will be continued and, if possible, broadened.

Postgraduate Specific priorities continuing into, or beginning in, 2015/16

Proposed Actions for 2015-16, and broad planning objectives to 2018

The School’s intention is wherever possible to improve, and elsewhere at least maintain, PGT

recruitment numbers and quality by continuing to improve programme web pages and to provide other

communications with students or applicants as detailed above, including use of new media. There are

sufficient programmes, courses, and staff to maintain current student numbers, and even to propose a

slight increase, but the School will take care to continue to rationalise programmes and courses by means

of the new Admissions Board (described above). We will ensure that key courses, such as the core course

for all History PGTs, are improved and well-supported by all staff.

The School will continue to increase ODL recruitment. Given the increased number of ODL courses

available during 2015-17 there is scope for a rise in aggregate student numbers each year with an annual

target of around 20-30 (full-time and part-time) realistic.

We intend to improve PGR recruitment by maintaining or improving scholarship provision and by

16

encouraging staff where appropriate to develop institutional partnerships or joint supervisorial

arrangements with other institutions and universities. In addition, there should be further improvements

to marketing as detailed elsewhere.

Core training for PhD students and their supervisors will be enhanced with the inclusion of sessions on

KE and Impact in the PhD training workshop series, and the provision of high quality training for our

large cohort of potential new as well as the experienced supervisors in each subject area.

We will also work to improve our PRES results by ensuring that PGR students are well supported by

supervisors and by implementing a peer support project in 2015-16.

Postgraduate Specific priorities continuing into, or beginning in, 2015/16

The School will continue to work in collaboration with Development & Alumni to identify occasions to

work together in pursuit of common goals, providing meaningful opportunities for staff, students and

alumni to engage for mutual benefit.

The School will help to advance the development of effective alumni relations initiatives, whilst

harnessing the support of alumni for the benefit of the student experience and student

employability. This includes promoting Connect.ed, an online service which provides an informal and

confidential opportunity for alumni to share their occupational knowledge and experience with

students/other alumni who are interested in a similar career, or who share an academic background. A

careers event is also being planned, in which alumni will share their experience and expertise with

current students.

The School will continue to celebrate the achievements of alumni to inspire the next generation of

graduates. Alumni profiles, short interviews that follow a simple three question template, are a key

component of our online communications offering with a dedicated section on the School

website. Relevant news stories will be featured on the School website, and in University -wide

communications, allowing the School to engage with the wider alumni community.

Class reunions play a central role in enhancing relationships between the School and its alumni, and the

School will continue to work closely with Development & Alumni on reunion delivery - providing

networking opportunities and encouraging interaction between the academic and the civic

communities. This collaboration allows alumni to visit their former department, and enables the School

to showcase facilities and communicate the impact of current research.

Forward plan for Research, Impact and KE

Aims and action points for 2015 onward are as follows:

Research outputs:

AIM: To continue to enable the production of excellent research across our three units of assessment.

ACTION POINTS:

- Analysis of REF2014 results and identification of areas of strength and weakness.

- Extension of early career research mentoring to mid-career staff

- Annual and larger periodic review of the School’s research centres will be taken forward this

year, following the appointment of new Directors and the granting of additional but non-

17

recurrent financial support for their activities. The Memorandum of Agreement underpinning

SCDS will also be revisited in light of administrative changes over recent years.

- Use of annual research meetings with all research staff will continue to advise about the

development of personal research, impact and funding plans; and the School will explore

opportunities for the establishment of research groupings to foster collaborative research and in

response to Research Council initiatives.

External research funding:

AIM: To increase the value of successful funding applications (particularly through enhanced support for

large funding bids such as AHRC, ESRC and ERC including Horizon 2020).

ACTION POINTS:

- More robust use of internal peer review system (through the peer review panel of senior

colleagues, established in 2014).

- Continuing to run a number of targeted learning lunches in the School on external funding in

collaboration with ERI colleagues.

- Piloting and review of School’s new Large Seed-Corn and Pump-Priming Fund to enable staff to

put together external funding bids above £500k.

- Maintain specialist and dedicated in-School support for external funding applications through

new RKEO Administrator.

Research ethics

AIM: To ensure robust research ethics and integrity procedures are operational.

ACTION POINTS:

- Complete review of paperwork, procedures and website information by spring 2015.

- Continue to disseminate awareness of procedures and best practice through subject area

representatives.

- Ensure that procedures are in place for the archiving of research ethics forms for seven years to

comply with best practice.

Open access

AIM: to raise awareness of OA requirements; to support and enable staff to make their publications

available on open access, focussing initially on journal articles with a view to obtaining 100%

compliance; to embed this as part of the general procedure through which colleagues prepare outputs for

publication.

ACTION POINTS:

- Work with new Research, Impact and KE Data Co-ordinator (when appointed) to develop an OA

strategy for the School and to put in place the necessary processes to enable all outputs to be

deposited in the university repository using PURE.

Impact and KE

AIM: to support and enable high quality impact and KE, including the identification and enhancement of

future impact case studies.

18

ACTION POINTS:

- Ensure capture of impact data through PURE; to be supported by new Research, Impact and KE

Data Coordinator and by offering in-School training.

- Review pilot Impact Champions scheme and advertise further round.

- Encourage take-up of School KE funding (which is being maintained) and College impact and

KE funds.

- Promote Impact and KE activities on the School website, both on external pages and the staff

Intranet.

- Restructure and monitor the relevant webpages to promote Impact and KE and the impact

activities of staff, including Impact Champions.

- Host regular events to promote Impact and KE, including the Impact Champions scheme.

Marketing: broad planning objectives for the next three years

The following analysis identifies key emergent issues that will be kept under review by School

Management from 2015.

Medium- to long-term risks to reputation and student recruitment

Risks to undergraduate and postgraduate recruitment

o Increased global competition for students. There is a rise in competition from online

learning methods and a rise in the number of English language opportunities/branch

campuses now available in other countries, providing a cheaper alternative to securing a

British/English-speaking education.

o Changes to UKBA legislation.

o Student surveys e.g. NSS – if performance in such surveys continues below sectoral

averages, this could have a negative impact on student recruitment. This could be

exacerbated by any need to make financial savings to address increased employment

costs

Other risks to postgraduate recruitment

o Increased postgraduate fees above sectoral averages.

o Continued funding challenges for home/EU postgraduate students.

o External assessment of our Subect Areas’ performance in the REF may affect the key

messages and ease with which we are able to attract postgraduate (particularly PGR)

students.

Other risks to undergraduate recruitment

o Continued changes and volatility in the RUK market.

Estate

While space provision in the School appeared generous when we initially co-located to the building in

2010, rising staff numbers (both academic and administrative) as well as increasing requirements for

space for research projects means that we are now close to capacity. The primary aim for the foreseeable

future will be to avoid out-stationing any individual colleagues. Space allocation principles were set by

the School Management Committee two years ago but now need to be reviewed. A group has been

established to review accommodation use.

Works currently awaited are minor in scale (e.g. enhanced storage for human skeletal teaching

collection). The most significant area needing attention is outlined below.

19

Plans to improve the entrance hall and ground floor corridor of the William Robertson Wing

(Doorway 4 Teviot Place) are currently under consideration. These are intended to highlight

student activities (including contributions to research and outreach) and to promote the research

of School staff more generally. A secondary aim will be to act as a more welcoming guide to our

building (locations of offices etc).

D: Financial Forecasts

S2B - HCA

Financial Planning template 2015 - 18

Annual Uplift

2.50% 1.00% 1.00% 1.00%

Budget

Actual

2013-14

£'000

Forecast

2014-

2015

£'000

Plan

2015-2016

£'000

Plan

2016-2017

£'000

Plan

2017-2018

£'000

Core Budget 6,101 6,776 7,083 7,388 7,616

Growth 200 40 18 4 72

Specific Allocations (College

Officers, Research Centres, etc.) 56 47 15 12 12

RUK 180 210 220 150 150

Chancellors' Fellows 373 396 346 210 140

Supplementary Budget 70 75 70 70 70

Other budget from outside CHSS(eg

DEI, IAD, IASH) 250 26 15 15 15

Reserve drawdown/ Safety net adj. 500

Total Budget 7,730 7,570 7,767 7,849 8,075

Tuition Fees and Contracts 13 13 14 15 15

Research Overhead and PI CoI

recovery 60 228 180 190 200

Other Income 190 80 80 80 80

Locally earned income 263 321 274 285 295

Total Resource Available to spend 7,993 7,891 8,041 8,134 8,370

Change in available resource year on

year

-1% 2% 1% 3%

OK OK OK OK OK

Actual

Actual

2013-14

£'000

Forecast

2014-

2015

£'000

Plan

2015-2016

£'000

Plan

2016-2017

£'000

Plan

2017-2018

£'000

Academic Staff 5,563 5,695

5,938

6,213

6,472

20

Support Staff 951 1,038

1,107

1,157

1,192

Non Core staff (Guaranteed Hours) 35 225

228

229

231

Other 20 30 30 35 40

Total Staff Costs 6569 6988

7,332

7,665

7,969

% increase in staff costs 7% 5% 5% 4%

Premises costs 12 25 15 20 25

Equipment costs (not capitalised) 73 75 80 80 80

Scholarships, Studentships (incl fees) 296 310 310 310 310

Other non staff costs 861 360 360 360 360

Return of Research overheads to PI/CI 26 98 77 81 86

Total non Staff Costs 1242 868 765 770 775

% increase in non staff costs -30% -12% 1% 1%

Total Expenditure 7,811 7,865 8,097 8,435 8,744

Surplus/(Deficit) 182 26 (56) (301) (374)

Table 2: Financial forecasts for the School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Table 2 indicates the progressive development of an adverse financial position, with the School moving

into a substantial deficit (of the order of circa £250 - £300k) by 2016-2017. The primary cause of this is

the forecast substantial increase in salaries and National Insurance contributions, identified centrally at

3.5% and 2% annually (the former obviously a projection but the latter already in government plans)

which will only be off-set very partially by the projected 1% rise in moneys received by the School from

central sources.

With numbers of fixed-term staff (after the bulge in the run-up to REF 2014) already in decline (e.g. the

ending of the 0.2 Professorial Fellows scheme), our scope to address the shortfall simply by a strategy of

non-renewal of fixed-term positions is limited, but for example we could not renew the School’s

contribution to the Directorship of the Scotland’s War project beyond its current end-date at the saving of

half a 0.5 Grade 6 post, and seek the finance to sustain this position as part of the general fundraising in

support of Scotland’s War that will be required to back onto the current tranche of funding from HLF.

The School’s Post-doctoral Fellowship scheme, widely welcomed on its introduction in 2014, will not

meantime be repeated.

In terms of extra recruitment, we shall endeavour to raise RUK / international undergraduate intakes in

programmes where additional appropriately-qualified student capacity should be available. A reasonable

target might be an annual increase of £30k in revenue by this means. It may be unnecessarily pessimistic

not to forecast faster increases in PG intakes and several factors may suggest that there are grounds for

optimism e.g. as a result of our generally-advantageous REF 2014 rankings and through the development

of new high-profile specialisms e.g. in the wake of the appointment of the Leventis Chair in Byzantine

21

Studies and the William Robertson Chair; as well as increasing number of high-profile researchers

(notably Chancellor’s Fellows) coming on stream in the near future as potential supervisors (cf Fig 1

above). Against this, there are a number of factors that may depress PG recruitment, including: the as yet

unknowable effect of accumulated undergraduate debt from the new RUK funding regimes reducing the

willingness of potential masters and doctoral students to take on yet more financial commitments; the

recent adjustment in our PG fees; our experience of significantly reduced recruitment in 2013/14; and

ongoing review and possible streamlining of our PGT offerings which may reduce ‘specialist’ demand.

This conjuncture suggests that it may be prudent meantime not to propose overall increases in TPG and

RPG numbers, whilst acknowledging that there will be some growth areas (e.g. DL offering in History).

Most other means of trimming budgets would in the shorter or longer term run the risk of deleterious

results in terms of student satisfaction and/or staff motivation. The exact admixture of cuts deployed

would need to be thought through with a weather eye on attempting to minimise outcomes which might

impact more or less directly on e.g. future student recruitment or satisfaction, and hence on the outcome

of student surveys, such that a self-reinforcing cycle is set up. We are currently and have recently been

investing heavily in marketing, and so there is scope at least in the short term to rein back on these

commitments, certainly in the order of £12k expenditure annually. We would need to revisit the scheme

whereby our researchers currently receive 6% of the 14% research overheads that come to School in

support of their research work. In straitened times, this incentivization scheme might be seen as overly

generous; and could reasonably be halved to (say) 3%, which would produce a saving in terms of an

increase in School funds currently of the order of £40k per annum while still providing extra disposable

funds for staff who are bringing in overhead-bearing research funds to the School. This would obviously

increase if major research successes rise, as is our intention. In any case, our judgement is that this

scheme would need to be scrapped before any redundancies could be contemplated, and to that extent

earlier pruning, if recurrent cost-cutting becomes necessary, seems wholly justifiable.

We could trim of the order of £10k per annum by delaying the replacement cycle e.g. for projection,

computing and similar equipment and by cutting back on support for e.g. Archaeology laboratory and

field equipment. We also believe there is scope to reduce our consumable budgets, from stationery to

laboratory supplies, and work on obtaining better value for money is already in the pipeline following

recent increases in staffing in the School Office that gives us greater capacity to manage spend in this

area. School funds for minor works to our estate are meantime only c. £15k annually and as we move

progressively away from the major refurbishment of our building trimming this budget would result in

deteriorating accommodation and again potential negative impacts in terms of student perceptions.

Reducing School support for bursaries for students would plainly impact adversely on the student

experience and our abilities to recruit, and the Graduate Director in particular has put forward cogent

arguments as to why, in reputational and other terms, we should strive to increase School funding to

these ends. While prejudging the success of our undergraduate bursary scheme, which we undertook to

trial for three years, there may be a case for reducing the total number of bursaries awarded annually. A

reduction from 10 to 5 would provide a saving of £35k/annually, and by judicious pruning of our Masters

/ PG support we could perhaps increase that total to £50k annually.

The single substantial budget line in the School which merits investigation for radical pruning is the

current level of tutorial / demonstrating / marking etc assistance, which is now not far short of £0.25m.

The present reassessment of the History (in particular) teaching programmes and other economies and

efficiencies here should allow this budget to be trimmed substantially, whilst e.g. still providing RPGs

with requisite teaching / tutoring experience. The suggested way of approaching this issue would be

simply to cap this fund at £150k, which would allow some flexibility but manage more tightly the

22

development of additional externally-staffed courses and lectures. This is an area already under active

consideration in the School but one where the change must be carefully managed to ensure that valued

offerings are not withdrawn unnecessarily. The medium-term saving would be of the order of £75k

annually.

In terms of staffing, on the administrative side we have just gone through extensive reviews and a

reorganisation to enable us to be able to support the increased range and level of academic activities and

to comply with new administrative arrangements (e.g. engagement monitoring); it would be

unreasonable to embark immediately to trim the levels of provision which have so recently been

justified. In terms of academic staffing, the pattern over recent years suggests that small numbers of

colleagues are likely to move on to new appointments annually such that, in so far as this is consistent

with our needs in terms of delivering teaching programmes, cycles of replacement might be delayed

which would effect relatively small-scale savings. We also intend much more rigorously to monitor

annual leave-taking by academic colleagues for a raft or reasons, but not the least of which is to ensure

that colleagues at contract end cannot claim in an unmanaged way that they still have unused leave

entitlements. Again, small and unpredictable savings might be achieved.

Other opportunities to trim School expenditure in relation to academic activity might include decreasing

the School’s financial and other support for Prof Cogliano’s activities as International Dean for North

America (depending on the outcome of the review of the resourcing of this position) and, for example,

reducing projected HCA contributions to cross-School Centres with ‘regional’ foci e.g. South Asian

Studies.

E: Student Number Projections The School’s RUK target for 15/16 is 175 and our maximum is 202. Attaining current maximum

numbers would produce c. £27K in extra income in 2015/16; and if we could maintain these intake

numbers that additional sum would be built into our base case for 2016/17 and 2017/18. In the light of

uncertainty on the impact of the University raising its minimum grade offer on recruitment in some of

our less pressured areas, we have not built these additional numbers into our financial projections

(above).

figures from 13/14 plan

figures for 14/15 plan

2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17

2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18

SEU 154 141 141 141

SEU 157 133 150 150 150

RUK 182 138 161 161 161

RUK * 140 187 175 175 175

OSEAS 34 43 40 41 40

OSEAS 43 34 40 41 42

PT

HOME 0 1 0 0 0

PT

HOME 1 0 0 0 0

VUG 61 58 59 58 59

VUG 52 53 55 56 57

409 394 401 401 401

393 407 420 422 424

2012/12 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17

2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18

FT PGT

HOME 61 71 63 61 59

FT PGT

HOME 70 47 52 57 63

23

FT PGR

HOME 34 34 35 36 37

FT PGR

HOME 35 15 17 18 20

FT PGT OS

52 56 54 53 52

FT PGT OS

56 47 52 54 54

FT PGR

OS 13 13 14 14 15

FT PGR

OS 16 10 11 12 13

PT PGT HOME

8 10 8 8 7

PT PGT HOME

11 4 5 6 7

PT PGR HOME

6 2 3 4 3

PT PGR HOME

4 5 5 5 5

PT PGT

OSEAS 1 2 0 0 0

PT PGT

OSEAS 0 0 0 0 0

MSC

ODL n/a 32 32 36 38

MSC

ODL 34 28 31 34 34

175 220 209 212 211

226 156 172 186 195

F: Confidential Annex

There are two continuing issues of concern, already identified as emergent in the 2014 Plan. Of these, the

Scotland’s War outreach project has been partially resolved by funding from the HLF and at the cost of

disproportionate inputs from HCA senior academic and administrative management. This issue will re-

emerge (including the matter of the Director’s salary) later in 2015 and in 2016, when funding to

continue the initiative will need to be sought from other external sources. The issue of managing late

career colleagues at or above ‘normal’ retirement age continues to be a concern, but some progress has

been made.

Two new issues merit being highlighted here.

Innovative Learning Week: In the second half of first semester ILW recurrently diverts a

considerable amount of time of three key members of support staff: the School’s Head of Student

Administration, the Student Experience Officer, and the Information Technology Manager.

Despite considerable ongoing efforts in the School to promote ILW among both staff and

students, involvement continues to be low (18-20% in 2013/14). Scepticism remains among staff

as to its academic and social value and since most of the funding bids that they have submitted to

College have been rejected due to the lack of central financial support for the scheme, initiatives

from staff can be expected to decline. Almost all the activities that the School is able to offer are

funded from its own resources. Meanwhile among the majority of students there is recognition

that at this critical time in the academic year (the middle of semester two) they have higher

priorities than ILW activities. The disruption to the semester and the extension of the teaching

period into Easter are serious, and currently not adequately compensated by any benefits that

ILW might deliver. In light of upcoming pressure on the School budget, it will be difficult to

argue for the diversion of School funds to ILW when core provisions are being trimmed.

Marking scale

The current common marking scheme remains a source of unease amongst academic staff. The

suspicion is that some of our wider problems with regard to perceived inconsistency in marking,

and the suggestion by some external examiners that we award insufficient Firsts, derive in part

from the nature of the marking scale. The increasing numbers of our staff who come from

outside of the British university system find it difficult to understand and apply; even those who

are familiar with it cannot explain the logic of a scale that has thirty-one marks of First Class and

forty degrees of fail. The School would strongly support any changes made to the common

24

marking scheme and would welcome any proposals from Professor Pirie’s group to simplify the

scale. These would assuredly assist greater consistency of application, particularly amongst an

increasingly international academic staff for whom 70% as the threshold of excellence is entirely

unfamiliar.