Strategy
The Faculty of Science and Technology is fully committed to the University strategy in teaching and learning, research, and engagement, and welcomes the goals of being in the top 10 nationally and becoming a globally significant university.
Undergraduate programmes
We aim to grow the number of undergraduate students, both from home and overseas. This will be achieved via a mixture of new programmes, improvements to existing programmes, and better engagement, marketing and recruitment. Overseas student growth will be based on work with partners, improvements in the representation of the Faculty overseas, and the continued review of programmes to attract overseas students. The quality of undergraduate education and league table positions must be maintained and improved. We aim for the national top 10 in teaching, and where possible, the top 5.
Postgraduate programmes
The Faculty aims to increase overseas recruitment into Master's programmes and to develop appropriate Master's programmes for this purpose. New Postgraduate Taught (PGT) programmes should be sought to attract external funding and enhance our reputation in the delivery of postgraduate education. Postgraduate Research (PGR) growth is a targeted objective for all departments. The Faculty has received funding from the University to increase Postgraduate Research numbers. This depends on increased recruitment from other sources. We will target internal funding to enhance our reputation in the delivery of PhD training. Externally-funded doctoral training programmes should be actively sought. The aim is that each department should be involved in at least one bid for each call from a relevant research council, lead at least one bid, and be successful in at least one bid.
Research
The Faculty aims to use our high-quality research capability to grow research income of at least 10% per year, which we will partly accomplish by increasing the average FTE grant income for academic staff in each department. We will achieve further increases by recruiting high-performing researchers, and this should be a significant focus in all departments. We aim to support and develop areas of high-impact research in all departments leading to internationally-leading outputs and a rolling set of impact cases, which we will review annually. Departments should build relationships with leading universities which are more comprehensive than the individual researcher and which include centres or research groupings.
Other areas
Business Partnership and Enterprise
The Faculty aims to increase the level and value of engagement with business, industry and other users, such that the return on internal investment made to support our partnerships benchmarks alongside that reported by larger research intensive universities. We will use our established reputation for working with SMEs regionally, to secure larger scale national-level investments targeting technology-based economic growth and international competitiveness. The Faculty will work towards guaranteeing the graduate level experience to over 50% of our undergraduate students.
Effective and efficient operations
To ensure that excellence is maintained in all areas we will develop and maintain appropriate and sustainably resourced models for technical and administrative staff within departments, and workload models for academic staff which enable academic activity. We will develop and maintain Faculty office support which is lean but enhances departmental activity and maintains the reputation of FST.
Development of sustainable facilities
The Faculty is aiming for a world-class research and teaching environment in both buildings and equipment. We will work closely with partner universities to achieve a reputation as holders and users of cutting-edge technical facilities and equipment. We will develop and implement mechanisms to sustain research facilities especially with support from external sources. The Faculty will, in addition, work closely with the University to consider new areas of investment which may be outside current departments or which may involve current departments in the development of new centres and interdisciplinary initiatives.