Dear Colleagues, 

Over two years ago I began the process of consultation to develop our next University Strategy. Following more than 50 meetings and engagements with more than 1,000 colleagues across our community, I’m delighted to present to you our new University Strategy, World Changers Together: World Changing Glasgow 2025. 

The unprecedented events of 2020 have shown that we are a university that benefits from an exceptional wealth of people, expertise, and ingenuity. We are proud of you for the part you have played over the past year: from the scientists and policy advisers who have supported the national response to Covid-19 to the operational staff, administrators and academics who have managed to secure a high-quality university experience for our students under extremely challenging conditions. We have proven we can achieve things that may have seemed unimaginable only a short while ago when we work together as one Glasgow team. 

This power of collaboration is the heart of World Changers Together. Building on our previous strategy, Inspiring People Changing the World, it articulates a vision to bring inspiring people together through a shared common purpose, unlocking our vast potential as a world-changing community. The strategy is based around three themes: 

  • Community: our vision for supporting our people, our communities, and our global network of partners to work together for the benefit of global society 
  • Connectivity: our vision for redesigning our spaces, digital platforms, and ways of working to catalyse collaboration, innovation, and creativity 
  • Challenges: our vision for embracing a challenge-led future which will inform how we approach research, teaching and engagement to realise our world-changing ambitions 

In keeping with our strategic goal to become a more sustainable community, we have chosen to avoid a large-scale print run of the new strategy; instead, you can view World Changers Together in full on our website www.glasgow.ac.uk/strategy. 

I have also recorded a short video, explaining a bit more about how and why we developed the strategy, and what it will help us achieve. 

 

While I appreciate that you will be feeling particularly pressured for time right now, I would encourage you to make time to read the new strategy. 

The launch of our new strategy will be the beginning of an ongoing conversation across the University. In the coming weeks we will announce the details of a virtual Q&A session to learn more about the new strategy and what it means for you, and in the months ahead, we will also announce a series of workshops where you can share your own ideas as to how we can translate our strategy into action.  

Please do look out for further details of these events in upcoming editions of MyGlasgow News. In the meantime, you can submit any questions you may have for the Q&A in advance by emailing strategy@glasgow.ac.uk.  

As we enter this new strategic period, I would like to thank you on behalf of the entire senior leadership team for your continuing efforts to make our world-changing vision for the University a reality: we look forward to reaching new heights of success over the next five years together. 

 

Prof Neal Juster   

Senior Vice-Principal and Deputy Vice Chancellor 

 

First published: 6 April 2021

<< 5 April 2021