Professor Sir Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor

Welcome letter

Welcome to the University of Exeter

I wish you every success in your new role.

Exeter is one of the most exciting places to work in the higher education sector. Over the past five years we have made major changes to our teaching, research, facilities and other services. During that time Exeter has risen in the Times league table from 34th position to 12th: we were also the 2007/08 Times Higher Education University of the Year.

The key to our success has been the way in which staff have actively supported the change agenda. 93% of staff say Exeter is a good place to work and 87% report high levels of motivation: both scores are much higher than the average for pre-1992 universities. We have sought to create a ‘high performance high reward’ culture which has been successful in driving the University forward.

You will have an important role to play in helping the University to achieve even greater things in the future.

As a University, we measure our performance against the top universities in the UK through a series of performance metrics. These are:

  1. The number of postgraduate research students per academic staff member
  2. Research income per staff member
  3. The outcome of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise
  4. Undergraduate entry qualifications
  5. How many of our students complete and how many earn a first or a 2:1
  6. Our National Student Survey score
  7. Graduate level employment
  8. Postgraduate student population
  9. International student population
  10. How much of our income does not come directly from the state

You will hear much more about our progress in these indicators over the next few years.

Supporting our work will be £450m investment programme in our campuses. The University has invested more than £140m in its campuses over the past 5 years and will complete a further £275m investment programme by 2012, including an additional new building for the University of Exeter Business School, a state of the art learning, support and social resource building (the Forum), a refurbished library building, an EU Environment and Sustainability Institute, new facilities for international students (with INTO University Partnerships), new and refurbished laboratories in Biosciences, Engineering and Physics, and new student residences across Exeter and Cornwall campuses.  

There are, then, exciting times ahead and I look forward to sharing them with you.

Professor Sir Steve Smith
Vice Chancellor