I would like to use this blog to reflect on where we are in the country and in the University in responding to the impact of the global pandemic, to highlight the enormous amount of work that is going on throughout the University to take us out of lockdown and to recognise the significant personal, social and economic challenges we face over the coming weeks and months. This is largely focused on our UK community, but I am sure that many of the observations are also pertinent to China and Malaysia.
Photographs of people congregating on beaches, protesting, having parties to celebrate sporting achievements, along with the rhetoric of 4 July as ‘Independence Day’, gives the impression that social distancing has ended and the crisis is over. I am sure we all wish it were over but, as the very recent experience of Leicester demonstrates, of course it is not.
The Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said weeks ago that dealing with this pandemic would be a ‘marathon not a sprint’. For many, and I will include myself, it feels as if we have been running this race for an interminable amount of time and have only just reached the halfway point. Where we had adrenaline, purposiveness and community spirit during the early phases of lockdown, it is understandable that frustration and fatigue are emerging now.
None of us should underestimate the emotional, physical and intellectual challenges of planning through perpetual uncertainty, the need to continue to be nimble in the light of constantly changing circumstances, the dilemmas of delivering education, research and the student experience with social distancing measures in place, and the necessity of making difficult decisions due to pressures on our budgets. However, I hope as we navigate through the coming months, that we can retain that powerful sense of community, innovation and collegiality that has emerged from sharing a crisis.
Emerging from lockdown
Emerging from lockdown is proving even more complex than going into lockdown in the first place. We continue our painstaking work to reopen buildings and prepare our campuses to welcome staff and students in phased returns from this month onwards.
Thanks to the efforts of many people, not least our Estates and Health and Safety Departments, the Biodiscovery Institute, Plant Sciences and Vet School buildings open this week for the resumption of research activities. These openings have enabled us to pilot necessary health and safety measures, and many more buildings will follow suit over the coming weeks.
We have also announced this week that in-person teaching will recommence for our April intake of students at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science from Monday 27 July. They will be the first full cohort of students to return to campus under social distancing and blended learning measures. I am confident that the care taken by everyone involved and the consistent high quality of education delivered by the Vet School will provide us with an exemplar as we introduce more teaching and learning back to campus.
I appreciate that many of you are eager to return to your labs or to gain access to libraries and other facilities and that delays are frustrating. However, I hope you will understand why we feel it is important to ensure that you are confident that you will be returning to the safest possible working environment under the current circumstances. Our policy remains that you should continue to work from home for the time being until you are asked to return to campus. We are reviewing this policy regularly as government guidelines change.
In September, hundreds of thousands of students will be moving around the country to attend university. We are working closely with Nottingham Trent and the Local Resilience Forum in Nottingham/Nottinghamshire to consider how the volume of students moving into our region can be managed from a public health perspective. However, we are also considering how we can provide the best experience for both students and staff in a situation that none of us is responsible for, or would have wished for. I am sure that we can continue to adopt the same problem-solving mindset over the coming months.
Coronavirus and our people
I regularly hear positive reports of colleagues forging ahead with research where they can, delivering teaching and supporting students remotely to a very high standard. Also in a number of recent forums, staff have talked about the advantages to virtual meetings and a feeling of stronger, more regular and more personal connectivity with their colleagues. There are many positive lessons that we should retain once COVID-19 is behind us.
Equally, I know many colleagues have the combined concerns of working remotely, while caring for dependents or home-schooling children, where speculation about whether or how schools will return in September can only increase the worry. Many colleagues have taken on new or additional burdens during the lockdown; others who have been on furlough have expressed a sense of disconnection from their teams. Many of us have been safe in our homes for weeks, so a return to campus may prove an anxious moment for many staff.
We are undertaking a number of initiatives to support our staff, aid recovery and their return to campus. These can all be accessed via a new coronavirus information sharepoint and include the COVID-19 workload principles published earlier this week alongside a Return to Operations guide to help managers to support their colleagues back onto campus, once instructed they can do so.
Sarah Sharples, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and People, and Jaspal Kaur, Director of Human Resources, will also commence an extensive series of meetings - Coronavirus and our People - with staff across the University to listen to colleagues, address concerns and highlight the support that is available now, while gathering thoughts on what more we can do.
Alongside work on recovery and return, we must continue to develop our essential plans to submit, and deliver on, the Race Equality Charter, and we are having productive conversations with BME staff and student groups to inform how we will focus our actions in the coming months. The appalling killing of George Floyd and the global protests around Black Lives Matter have strongly affected our community, and I am determined that this will be a watershed moment when we should take even more decisive actions to tackle structural racism.
Teams-free Fridays
Although many have found virtual meetings a positive revelation, I have also heard much about ‘Teams fatigue’. I would ask senior leaders and managers to commit to moving to ‘Teams-free Fridays’, enabling staff to focus on other types of work, such as clearing backlogs of emails and paperwork or picking up the phone to colleagues for less formal discussions. I would also ask that managers particularly consider how to reduce the volume of virtual meetings on Monday-Thursday, rather than just cramming everything into four days.
In the meantime, I invite all in our community to maintain the strongest focus on our personal wellbeing - both physical and mental - and of those around us, using the wealth of published materials.
Coronavirus and our finances
It is no secret that the impact of COVID-19 on the UK economy is predicted to be catastrophic with businesses failing, mass unemployment, cultural organisations closing their doors for the last time and - to reflect on a local example - the collapse of Intu Properties putting the future of the city’s Broadmarsh development in jeopardy.
Our own financial challenges need to be seen in this context. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Andy Long and Chief Financial Officer Margaret Monckton have been absolutely transparent about the pressures that face us, and they are halfway through a series of visits to more than 50 Schools and professional services departments to discuss and answer questions about them. We are also committed to reviewing our position on a regular basis to ensure that our measures are appropriate under changing circumstances.
A government announcement on Saturday that may be helpful for us is additional financial support for research affected by the loss of international student fee income. The university research support package was the result of weeks of discussions and negotiations between Universities UK and government departments including the DfE, Treasury, BEIS and Number 10.
On the face of it, this recognition of our sector’s vital research contribution to society and economy is welcome. Of course, beyond the headline-grabbing figures, the devil will be in the detail. It also must be stressed that these are additional sustainability measures to support research-intensive universities through the next few months, and not longer term solutions to our financial challenges.
The most concrete element of the proposal is costed extensions to UKRI grants, which will allow some element of our externally funded research to make up for the time lost over the last three months. The rest of the package focuses primarily on loans. We await the details, but there is no doubt that any loans from government will come with expectations about how they will be spent. We will certainly be observing this very carefully and will take advantage of any measures that will improve our position.
Having enjoyed a constructive partnership to date with our trades unions in discussing our response to coronavirus with regard to health & safety and workloads, I am keen to continue that with the approach to our finances. I am under no illusion about just how difficult many recent savings decisions will have been, and I remain enormously grateful for the contribution made by colleagues across the institution. The Emergency Finance Group will soon be meeting with our unions to brief them on the detail of the University’s financial position.
The choices we make now will determine both our immediate and longer-term futures. It is crucial that we do not just consider the short term.
Throughout this crisis, the University has pulled together magnificently, but I appreciate that many people are exhausted, stretched and burdened by continued uncertainty about how the new term will work out, when and how schools will reopen, the potential for further spikes in the virus and the complexities of working on campus again.
I ask that all colleagues plan and book annual leave this summer and take that time fully away from any University work. I know how conscientious everyone is about their commitments, but this is absolutely essential to ensure people can recharge their batteries before we face the autumn term.
I am proud of the commitment that the University community has shown to securing a strong future for Nottingham. I urge that we continue to pull together and support each other over the coming weeks and months in the same spirit that we have until now.
Professor Shearer West
Vice-Chancellor
1 July 2020