Welcome to feedback from the Locality Meetings

Exeter and Truro November 2012

Thank you to everyone who came along to the locality meetings this week in Exeter and Truro. It was great to have the opportunity see so many if you in person. I thought it would be helpful to summarise the sessions for the benefit of those of you who could not attend.

General University Update

There is a lot of positivity about the development of University of Exeter Medical School (UEMS) amongst the NHS in Devon and Cornwall. Our joint students seem positive too.

The University of Exeter has generated a financial surplus circa £8.4million during difficult financial times. The University of Exeter as a whole has seen a significant increase in applications for admissions in 2013 against a general decline in the sector. The medical school has received nearly 15 applications for every place.

A working group has been established to develop Athena SWANN – this recognises our commitment to advancing women's careers in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education.

College Development

There is a need to increase capacity in undergraduate and postgraduate education as well as research. We need to attract high quality researchers before the next REF. Adverts will be placed shortly for 7 Chairs to lead groups linked to our research strategy. Suggestions for high calibre candidates should be sent to Angela Shore. Angela is also writing the Research Strategy which will be shared in due course.

I introduced several members of the senior management team including new appointments (Sam Briggs and Pete Biggs). I also introduced Debbie Brett, Principal Project Manager.

Debbie Brett explained that negotiations are on-going with Plymouth to secure a 3 year lease for Veysey. This will give stability whilst accommodation is refurbished in St Lukes. UEMS will continue to have a presence at Streatham as well as on the RD&E campus.

We should now be using University of Exeter Medical School signatures rather than PCMD as much as possible whilst remaining sensitive to our joint students. Transferring to exeter.ac.uk email addresses is on-going and Julian Vinnels from IT reassured colleagues that ample warning would be given to staff before they were migrated across. Email capacity and archiving with Exeter should be an improvement. Auto forwarding from previous email addresses would be enabled.

Julian also explained the migration from shared drives hosted by Plymouth and confirmed ‘business as usual’ until your team is contacted to facilitate migration in a systematic way.

The staff directory is being updated and will be circulated shortly ( or attached?) and holds the answer to many questions. If it doesn’t then please ask.

As always please feel free to contact me if you have any queries, and thank you all for your continued hard work during this exciting time in our development.

Best wishes,

Steve

Professor Steve Thornton

Dean for Joint Medical Students and Dean of The University of Exeter Medical School