Minute of the statutory half-yearly meeting of the General Council held on Saturday 15 June 2024

Held on Saturday 15 June 2024 at 10.30am in Parliament Hall, South Street, St Andrews

The Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Sally Mapstone DBE FRSE, was in the chair. Welcoming 50 members to the meeting after a wonderful graduation week, she conveyed apologies from the Chancellor, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, who was unable to attend.

The Principal and Vice-Chancellor then asked to proceed to consider the minutes of the last statutory half yearly meeting of the General Council held on the 25th of November, 2023.

1.      Minute of the last ordinary half-yearly meeting of the General Council held on 25 November 2023

The minute of the meeting was agreed upon as a correct record.  (See General Council Minutes). There were no matters arising.

2.      Report of the Business Committee, presented on behalf of the Convenor by Registrar and Clerk, Alistair Merrill

Alistair Merrill explained that he was speaking on behalf of Wendy Russell who unfortunately was unable to join the meeting. Alistair confirmed that the last meeting of the business committee was held in November 2023, where they tidied up some remaining constitutional matters. The Business Committee has not been able to organise a meeting since November and Alistair is planning to meet with members in the course of the coming weeks to discuss the way ahead.

Alistair also reported to the General Council Wendy has tendered her resignation for family reasons as Convenor of the Business Committee, and he paid tribute to her for her sterling leadership over the past years both as a member, then as Vice-Convenor, and for the last few years as Convenor of the Business Committee. Alistair also said he was sure the General Council would want to join him in appreciating her dedication to the University.

Alistair indicated that he would be happy to take any questions and that on Business Committee matters, he would answer them as best as he could, bearing in mind that he was in attendance rather than a full member of that body.

The Principal and Vice-Chancellor thanked the Registrar and Clerk and members of the Business Committee, invited members of the General Council to note the report and invited comments and/or questions from the floor.

A member raised that he was very concerned that after all this time, we are still in a position where we have the Clerk updating and that the Business Committee itself is very important because the General Council itself has statutory duty and cannot itself actually perform constitutional amends. The member continued by saying that the Clerk briefly said that the minutes mention that certain ordinances were changed, but it didn’t say how or where. This was unfortunate partly because the Clerk seems to have ended up being the minute secretary of the Business Committee as well as everything else and it is difficult to do all those things at the same time.

The member continued that what he really wanted to ask, and he said that the Clerk hinted that he almost couldn’t say on this point, when will I be allowed to vote for my successor?

The Registrar and Clerk responded with a couple of corrections.

First of all the Registrar and Clerk is not the minute secretary of the Business Committee and he does not write the minutes of the Business Committee, those are produced by Wendy Russell, the Convenor.

Secondly, the Registrar and Clerk is here on behalf of Wendy Russell because no other member of the Business Committee indicated that they were available or willing to present on behalf of the Business Committee to this meeting.

Thirdly, there has not been any change in ordinance. The Business Committee minutes of last November refer to some Business Committee procedural matters for how they would discharge their responsibilities. That is not a matter of ordinance, it is a matter of Business Committee process.

In terms of Business Committee elections, as the minutes of the last meeting indicate, the University is awaiting a business case stating the Business Committee's purpose and value added. That is necessary in order to be able to secure the funding necessary to run an election of the 35,000 members of the Business Committee.

The Registrar and Clerk is of the understanding that the member asking the question and other members of the Committee have been working on this business case for a good number of years. Once that business case has been produced, and the Registrar and Clerk is able to consider it, the Registrar and Clerk be able to put in a bid for funding to support elections.

As reported to the General Council, in the absence of a Convenor and a Vice-Convenor, the Registrar and Clerk has called a meeting in their capacity as Registrar to the General Council. The meeting is to be held with members of the Business Committee to discuss the next steps and the way ahead. It is hoped that members will be able to bring some clarity to that business case, it will allow us to move forward.

The Principal and Vice-Chancellor thanked the Registrar and Clerk and asked if there were any further questions.

There being no further questions, the Registrar and Clerk called upon the Principal and Vice-Chancellor to give the University address.

3.      University Address – Professor Dame Sally Mapstone DBE FRSE, Principal and Vice-Chancellor

Introduction

Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for coming. In classic St Andrews fashion, this has been a wonderful Graduation week. Over ten graduation ceremonies, we have conferred degrees on more than 2500 students from 97 different countries from all over the world. We have also had the pleasure of welcoming back two returning students from the Class of 2021 who missed in-person ceremonies due to the Covid-19 pandemic – I am delighted that we have eventually been able to give them the send-off that they deserve.

The core of my address today will consist of an update on our current activities under the pillars of our University Strategy for 2022 to 2027, and will include material on our new Business School and the New College which will house it, along with comment on our research and outreach initiatives in the areas of digital technology, entrepreneurship, and sustainability. Professor Brad MacKay, Deputy Principal and Vice-Principal (International Strategy and External Relations) and Interim Dean of the Business School, will then speak about the Business School.

Scotland, UK, and the world

At a global level, we live in a time of changes that are having a profound impact on our society, including the higher education sector. The acceleration of AI and other digital technologies bring inevitable and tangible transformation to the university experience. Concurrently, urgent global issues such as the climate crisis and widening inequality, alongside unforeseeable challenges like pandemics and geopolitical instability – most recently, the Gaza-Israel conflict and its undeniable impact on our campuses - demonstrate that universities need to be able to engage in long-term planning and international collaboration effectively to tackle evolving challenges. These challenges are particularly felt by universities throughout the UK due to a confluence of circumstances, not least the looming general election.

As some of you will know, I am currently President of Universities UK, an advocacy organisation for universities in the United Kingdom that gives voice to 142 universities, and during the first of my two years in this role I have been leading discussions with key political stakeholders and universities across the UK on how universities are best equipped to respond to the present challenges to the Higher Education sector with an eye to a change in administration after the general election.

Universities throughout the UK are grappling with profound financial pressures due to a combination of factors, in primis the decreased unit of funding per domestic student and a slowdown in research grant funding and cost recovery. Likewise, students have been grappling with real-term cuts to maintenance support, exacerbated by the rapid increase in inflation. This financial pressure has left universities with little choice but to rely increasingly on alternative income streams, particularly from international student fees, to offset operational costs. These financial hurdles highlight that the current system in which we operate is not tenable, and serious measures of reform are required. This is something that is at the forefront of my activity as UUK President.

In the meantime, we have already witnessed firsthand the impact of the sector rallying together to advocate for our cause, as demonstrated by the recent findings from the review of the Graduate Route visa – conducted by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) at the behest of the Home Office – by the outgoing Government. We are very relieved that the Graduate Route will remain intact in its current form following our collective advocacy. This is a very important outcome for the sector as recruitment relationships are dependent on the UK’s capacity to portray itself as a committed partner. Restoring confidence will rely on the new Government acting swiftly to illustrate the UK’s commitment to global education and I am already engaged across the political parties to this end.

Further, our University continues to stay aware of developments across campuses around the world where demonstrations over the Israel-Gaza conflict have continued, including c. 35 encampments on UK campuses. In May, I headed a roundtable of fellow Vice-Chancellors at 10 Downing Street at a meeting introduced by the Prime Minister and chaired by the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan MP, and purposed to address antisemitism on campuses.

At St Andrews, we are deeply conscious of the deep distress that the continuing conflict in Gaza and Israel is having on members of our own community. Our priority is to ensure that, despite the differences of view that exist around the conflict and responses to it, the University remains a safe and supportive environment for all our students and staff.

In response to the conflict’s outbreak in October 2023, our Student Services team reached out to students hailing from Israel or Gaza to highlight the support available. In the following months, we have continued to support our students by repeatedly engaging with the Jewish community and with Palestianian/BAME students both on and off campus. The dialogue with these communities is ongoing and we are doing our best to listen, offer support, mediate, and repair relationships. 

2024 has brought and will continue to bring significant change not only to the world and the UK but to Scotland in particular. On the one hand, we witnessed a change in leadership when John Swinney was elected First Minister last May following Humza Yousaf’s resignation. On the other hand, the allocations of the Scottish Funding Council, the public body charged with funding Scotland’s further and higher education institutions, are clearly disappointing from the perspective of education. The average ‘funding per student’ has now dropped to the point at St Andrews where it is close to 50% of what it costs the institution to teach Scottish students. 

League tables, education and research

As you know, St Andrews started this academic year with an historic double first place in both the Guardian University Guide 2024 and the Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024, making it the first UK university, other than those of Oxbridge, to lead both major UK higher education league tables in the same year. We repeat this a lot, but it is worth repeating.

These results added to our University’s outstanding performance in the authoritative National Student Survey 2023, which found that St Andrews’ students are the most positive about their educational experience when compared to students at any other mainstream university in the UK. Whilst the format of this survey has changed slightly in recent years, we have been at the top of the table 15 times over the last 17 years, so the message is certainly clear – we continuously offer one of the very best student environments in the country.

The 2025 ‘season’ of league table publications has just commenced. First to publish on 14 May was the domestic Complete University Guide in which St Andrews ranked 4^th in the UK and 1^st in Scotland, meaning we retain last year’s outstanding position. St Andrews has been ranked top in Scotland since the Guide was first published in 2007. The international rankings commenced with the QS World University Rankings published at the start of June. The University St Andrews placed 104 out of 1503 institutions, continuing to be in the top 7% of institutions ranked by QS. These are very strong ratings that place us with some of the finest institutions in the world. They are all the more impressive given the nature and extent of the competition and the small size of our university.

While league tables should always be considered with a healthy dose of scepticism, results such as these do provide a welcome reflection of the work that the University is undertaking to improve and excel continuously for the benefit of our students, staff, and the wider community that we serve.

World-leading St Andrews and local social responsibility

Since our last meeting, we have continued to make excellent progress with our transformative New College development at the West Port end of South Street which is part of our commitment to strengthening our international excellence and impact under the World-Leading St Andrews theme and to providing facilities that befit the standard of our excellent staff and students. New College will of course indeed house the new Business School alongside our internationally renowned School of International Relations. Brad will have more to say about these and related matters in a few minutes.

Even though we are still in the quiet phase of our £300 million fundraising campaign, we have gained great momentum thanks to the generosity of our supporters, raising over £117 million in its quiet phase. Included in this total is £35.5 million for the New College redevelopment. Our success in the quiet phase of the campaign forms a launchpad, from which we can maintain and enhance the important progress that has been made before the launch of its public phase at the end of September, which will also mark the official launch of our New Business School.

In March, the General Medical Council confirmed that the University could begin promoting our new undergraduate medical programme, ScotCOM. The School of Medicine has led the development of this innovative five-year community-orientated MBChB Medicine programme, which will take entrants from 2025/26. It follows a key decision by the Scottish Parliament in 2021 to remove a historic prohibition that had prevented St Andrews from awarding its own medical qualifications. In support of this and further activities, in February I met with Carol Potter, Chief Executive at NHS Fife, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding between our organisations at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. The agreement makes provision for partnering on education, research and joint appointments and marks a major new partnership between the University and NHS Fife that will benefit patient care and medical research in the region, while boosting training provision for new doctors.

Although our University aims to be global and world-leading, it also remains loyal to its Scottish roots and committed to making a difference at the local level.

In January I was delighted to host a celebratory reception to recognise three years of the University Community Fund and in May I had the great pleasure to meet with many of our community members at our traditional Community reception. The University Community Fund is a source of financial support introduced in 2020 and allocated on a case-by-case basis to local organisations, particularly those which foster community cohesion and strengthen the relationship between town and gown groups. Since its launch in 2020 the fund has supported over 150 projects and organisations from across the region by making funding of £263,000 available.

Our University also continues to enrich the cultural life of St Andrews. In March, we had the pleasure to welcome Sands, the international film festival of St Andrews, back to our town for a third year. It was a wonderful weekend of films and discussions. Films from over 11 countries were screened, and a dazzling array of international talent was in attendance including producers and directors Anthony and Joe Russo, producer Steven Soderbergh, casting director Debra Zane, and Hollywood superstar Tom Holland. In just three years, the festival has become a major new event in the Scottish cultural calendar and a key player in the world film festival circuit, nurturing emergent filmmakers by showcasing their work and connecting them with the wider filmmaking community. Sands is, of course, produced by the Byre Theatre with the University’s Department of Film Studies as a key partner. This year again, the festival was organised and run with the support of many students and members of staff, who gave a vital contribution to its success. If you haven’t yet attended and enjoyed Sands I do encourage you to do so when it comes back next year. There really is something for everyone.

Digital St Andrews

Since our last meeting, we have also continued to develop our online offering and to bring the world-leading St Andrews education experience to a much wider global community, developing the Digital pillar of our University Strategy. Digital approaches, platforms, and technologies are transforming our world profoundly, presenting us with new challenges but also offering new opportunities. In particular, Digital education will fundamentally broaden the access global learning audiences have to St Andrews and will provide opportunities to develop our diversity and make the University more resilient.

The first St Andrews Online non-credit-bearing courses launched in October and covered topics in Data Science; the portfolio is now being developed and encompasses topics in Art History and FinTech, and further courses in International Relations, History and an Introduction to Studying in the UK are being created. A business case for a new digital PGT programme in Quantitative Finance is under development. If approved, delivery is expected to commence in January 2025 and it is anticipated that internships and scholarships, funded by industry, for under-represented groups will be included in the offer. This offer is complemented by four credit bearing programmes: Data Science; Data Literacy for Social and Environmental Justice; Digital Art History; and Global Digital Humanities. It gives a good example of how we are trying to incorporate digital technologies into the curriculum.

With time, our digital focus will also open new opportunities for collaborations, both academic and entrepreneurial, of which we can already see some early examples. In February, the first meeting of the Responsible Automation, Forecasting and AI (RAFAI) group took place, chaired by the Vice-Principal (Digital Education, Research and Environment) Professor Monique MacKenzie. The Responsible Automation, Forecasting and AI group will explore how automation and AI can offer opportunities for the University to be more effective, creative and competitive. One of the group’s early outputs is a tool which uses historical data to allow the University to plan for the expected number of entrants and the impact that will have on accommodation, timetabling, and advising.

Just a few days ago, we announced a new partnership with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science to enhance climate change research and weather science with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing. This collaboration will bring mathematical modelling experts, machine learning researchers, and atmospheric scientists together to tackle urgent climate change and weather science challenges.

Sustainable St Andrews

We continue to work hard to attain our institutional goal of net zero by 2035.

In March, a major milestone was marked in the partnership between the University and bus operator Stagecoach which is purposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from commuting and address the cost of living. 13 months after the University launched its 75 per cent off bus fare subsidy, the discount scheme recorded savings of over £1 million for staff and students. The scheme is one of the first of its kind in the country and has been shortlisted for several awards, including the ‘Partnership for Excellence’ category at the UK Bus Awards 2023 and the ‘Transport Team – Partnership of the Year’ category at the upcoming Scottish Transport Awards 2024. Due to its success, the University’s bus travel discount scheme was extended to local bus operator Moffat & Williamson. The scheme has resulted in 33,000 bus tickets sold since its launch in November 2022. It was estimated that in 2023 the scheme lead to a lowering of the town’s carbon footprint by an outstanding 614 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. It is giving both companies confidence in the local market and a new late evening service has been launched in St Andrews.

In April, the University launched its new Sustainability report. The report is shaped around the UN Sustainable Development Goals and showcases the impressive work being undertaken across the University, embedding sustainability in every aspect of our activity, from teaching and research to our operational practices. As a university, we are actively advocating for the transition to a net-zero emissions society, through impactful research and advocacy efforts, such as those exemplified by the Centre for Energy Ethics.

At the heart of our ambitious strategy to be a sustainable university is of course the Eden Campus. In November we launched our new Rapid Prototyping Centre, a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, whose aim is to foster academic and industrial collaborations in and around Fife and beyond and to provide a solid place to build a highly skilled workforce enabling individuals to develop latest technical skills in sustainable design and manufacturing. Equipped with the latest 3D modelling and computer aided design (CAD) software, electromechanical engineering tools, additive printing technology and laser cutting facilities and machines, the Centre is enabling innovators to design, build and test prototypes of their inventions.

Further, our green hydrogen projects received significant support from Angel Trains and the Wolfson Foundation, with the Wolfson Foundation approving a donation of £2m for the Green Hydrogen Accelerator project in December – a project Wolfson described as one of the best peer reviewed projects they had ever received. These facilities firmly establish the Eden Campus as a leading hub for innovation and renewable technologies.

Entrepreneurial St Andrews

Our work at the Eden Campus plays a crucial role in our entrepreneurial objectives too by bringing together academic, commercial, and entrepreneurial activities.

In 2021, we launched St Andrews Innovation. Based at the Eden Campus, St Andrews Innovation connects industry with our student and staff community to harness entrepreneurship. It offers state-of-the-art resources and facilities, world class research, and guidance to foster world-leading innovation. To mention just one example, we have been collaborating with ThermaChem, a world-leading business active in the power generation industry and focused on biomass product innovation, to develop products and services that will meet the future challenges of the biofuels market. The partnership aims to develop a novel product and solution to treat ash that builds up in biomass boilers to lower fuel consumption, reduce carbon, particulate emissions, and reduce NOx and SOx emissions.

As some of you may be aware, the Eden Campus is also home to the University's Entrepreneurship Centre, whose core mission is nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit within the University and beyond.

The Entrepreneurship Centre has also been collaborating with Jake Bill, student and co-founder of live event company Klank, to create an Entrepreneurship Founders Community, designed to build the entrepreneurial eco-system as well as promote opportunities at the Entrepreneurship Centre

In May the Entrepreneurship Centre and Research Business Development (RBD) hosted a life sciences summit on brain health. This event was a collaboration between Scottish Brain Sciences (SBS) and the University of St Andrews. And as part of our growing partnership, the Entrepreneurship Centre worked with NHS Fife to host a workshop entitled ‘Imagining the future of healthcare’ at which joint health innovation projects were identified.

Diverse St Andrews and people strategy

As the examples that I have given throughout this update demonstrate, our people and our community are our most important and powerful asset, and so we must carefully consider how best to support them and to create a culture in which every individual can realise their full potential – a central aim of the Diverse St Andrews theme.

In my last update, I introduced you to our new People Strategy, launched in October and led by our Vice-Principal for People and Diversity, Dr Rebekah Widdowfield. The People Strategy holds at its core the certainty that people are St Andrews, and sets out the steps we are taking to support, develop, and reward our staff, and create an environment in which they can excel.

In November, St Andrews became the first university in the UK to receive the EmilyTest Gender-Based Violence Charter Award, which was presented in Glasgow by the Scottish Minister for Higher and Further Education, Graeme Dey MSP, and EmilyTest founder and CEO, Fiona Drouet MBE. St Andrews was commended especially for our trauma-informed approach to accommodation allocation and our Wardennial support structures.

I am also thrilled to announce that our institutional application for a silver Athena Swan award led by the Vice-Principal for People and Diversity has been successful. The Athena Swan Charter is a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education and research. Delivering on objectives set in the University Strategy, this is a highly significant achievement for St Andrews. It reflects progress made to advance gender equality through structural and cultural changes and is a testament to the continuously excellent work of many colleagues from across St Andrews who support our Athena Swan work. The award, received in March 2024, is made for five years.

In addition to our successful application for an institutional Athena Swan Silver award, I am glad to confirm that in May the School of Chemistry achieved an Athena Swan Silver award and the Bronze award held by the School of History was renewed. This means that 19 Schools now hold Athena Swan Awards with six at Silver and Biology holding a Gold award. As someone who has worked in the Athena Swan space for a good quarter of a century I can tell you that this is an exceptional record for a UK university.

Work continues also on our Race Equality Charter application, which is due for submission by the end of July 2024.

Staff changes

Before I conclude my remarks, I would like to update you on several key changes to our University Court. Last week was the final meeting of Court to be attended by the current Students’ Association President, Barry Will, as well as Adrian Greer, Deputy Chair of Court and Chancellor’s Assessor, Professor Sharon Ashbrook, Senate Assessor, Professor Catherine O’Leary, Senate Assessor, and Tim Allan, Non-Executive Member. We are very thankful to each of them for their service and for the astute contributions they have made to Court and its committees, in Tim, Adrian, and Sharon’s cases, for a lengthy period of years. From 1 August, alumni Lord Mark Sedwill and Mr Ronnie Bowie will join Court as non-executive members for an initial four year period.

The St Andrews Students’ Association Elections took place on 28 March. Cam Brown, former Director of Education and 1st year MLitt Legal and Constitutional Studies was elected President. The new Director of Education is Hitanshi Badani (4th year, MA Hons International Relations and Psychology).

Conclusion

As I close my remarks, I’d like to stress that we have much to look forward to in the coming months as we head toward our campaign launch. Thank you for your attention today. I am, as ever, happy to respond to any questions or comments.

Following the address, the Principal opened the floor to comments and questions.

The Principal was asked by a permanent resident of the town who had recently read the annual magazine, Chronicle, why an article with Saint Sport referred the St Andrews as ‘our medieval town’ which seemed to imply the students owned it. The Principal replied saying that she proofreads Chronicle very carefully and that is just the statement of feeling part of the community. The Principal does not think there's any sense and never has been, of appropriation on the part of the University and hoped she is able to reassure everyone on that.

The next question asked was what is happening with the Albany Park Site? The Principal responded that in relation to Albany Park, the University is currently undertaking a systematic review of accommodation needs. Two years ago, we did not have enough accommodation and this year we had a surplus of accommodation. So we are pausing the Albany Park development also because in this highly competitive and very inflationary environment we have not been able to secure an agreement with our developers, which we think is in the interest of the University. That may change, but at the same time you will also all be aware that there are other developments taking place in St Andrews. Notably, of course, the private development on the Richmond side of Madras College. We are very much of the view that we need to take notice that the impact that that has on the accommodation market and that it would be unwise of us to take any action until we see how that lands. Having said that, you will be aware that the University is continuing to complete its highly successful rollout of accommodation on the Grange site, where we are bringing out approximately 130 units. So at the moment we are, I think, very sensibly paused while we wait to see what happens with Kilrymont and also while, frankly, we let the market settle a little.

The next question asked was by a graduate who explained that they had worked for 20 years as a fundraiser. The graduate said, we're only 40 miles from Edinburgh, where protest groups managed to see off Baillie Gifford. As many of you may have read in the newspapers. A lot of what you're saying is very dependent on fundraising, including corporate and funds and so on. I'm in touch a lot with your development department, but I think it is an institutional issue, not just for development departments. I wondered whether you had statements prepared and things like that, to avoid a repetition that affects the University of that type of action.

The Principal responded by saying, of course we do. Yes. This is not something that I would expect to comment on extensively. My job as Principal is to scan the horizon and as I hope I indicated in my remarks, to be aware of what's taking place right across the country. So you're quite right that this is not just a development issue. I mean, it's a community issue as well. Let me just reassure all of you, we take this very seriously. We're very alert to the many sensitivities involved. We've just had a very good graduation week with absolutely minimal disruption. Frankly, I think that says something very eloquent about our community. There were some folk there who we knew were going to mount a small, respectful demonstration. Actually what that was about was reminding us all that there are universities in Gaza that are unable to graduate students at the moment. I think actually they had every right to do that, but they did it completely respectfully. There are broader issues of history that we're also aware of in this, in this space beyond the Israel-Gaza war. The issues around sustainability, divestment, etc. and the University has to have active contingency plans in place in relation to all of those. So, you can never quite predict what people are going to do. But it's my job to try and predict it as well as I can.

The next question put to the Principal was, Vice Chancellor, you've given an impressive account of the work that is taking place in the entrepreneurial field, especially based at Guardbridge. I can well see that these activities will have a significant benefit for research and teaching in the University. I just wonder whether these activities have brought in a benefit to the University's income? Perhaps you could say a word as to what proportion of the income is now accounted for by these activities?

The Principal responded, so this is one of the reasons why we set up St Andrews Innovation, which does a number of things. It provides a way of channelling entrepreneurial activities as well as also providing, if you like, an umbrella, an aegis, under which we can also report the activities of the many forms of entrepreneurship that support the University. Including, for example, the University shop and some of our own spin out companies. Those activities, many of which have been going for a number of years, are important to us. I think the crucial thing to understand about spin outs, scale ups, particularly for a University like our own that has started on this journey relatively recently, is that you have to invest in order to accumulate. That is why we are focusing activity on the Eden campus and providing opportunities for companies to come and grow there. This will take time. At the moment, what entrepreneurial activities are producing is a small, a very small portion of the University's income, which is why philanthropy and securing other sources of revenue, including, of course, international fee income, remains so important. It will take time to build. But every year we are doing more and I'm thoroughly confident that if we continue to invest in support, I would say in the next five to ten years we will really see results.

The Principal then invited Professor Brad MacKay, Deputy Principal and Vice-Principal (International Strategy and External Relations) and Interim Dean of the Business School, to speak about the University’s new Business School. The Principal also remarked that Brad has had an incredibly busy year championing this activity, and paid tribute to the commitment and brilliance with which he has delivered that. 

4.      The new Business School – Professor Brad MacKay, Deputy Principal and Vice-Principal (International Strategy and External Relations) and Interim Dean of the Business School

Thank you very much Vice-Chancellor. It is a great honour to be invited to present what I think is one of the most exciting developments with one of our academic schools since the re-establishment of the School of Medicine. That is the Business School. It is very good to be with you this morning with the General Council. What I'd like to do is just give you a bit of an overview of some of the journey we've been on with the Business School, where we are and where we anticipate going as well. As the Principal rightly pointed out, this is also one of the important developments that also kind of relates to what we're doing with New College as well.

When I'm out representing the University, I get asked one of two questions. One is either;

Why don't we have a Business School at St Andrews?

or

We thought you did have a Business School at St Andrews?

But it's maybe worth just touching on why we took the decision to bring together two of our existing academic schools. The Business School has been created out of a merger with the former School of Economics and Finance and the former School of Management. Those two schools in themselves over the past 30 or 40 years have had various different incarnations at the University. But there is a number of very good reasons why we took the decision at this point. Many of you that will be familiar with the wider business school market, as it were, will know it's an incredibly competitive one internationally.

There's probably 16,000 business schools around the world. But what we are looking at doing is something very different. So even though this business school is in some respects a new development, a start up, even for our university, it is also on the basis of two legacy schools, two existing schools that we are bringing together. So we took the we made the announcement about 18 months ago that we were going to create a business school that was on the back of doing quite a bit of analysis and research and also, with some of the leadership from the two previous schools who also were kind of coming together with the communities within the two schools and saying that this is a really important time for the University to be embarking on this journey.

Bringing the two schools together started in earnest about 14 months ago, and many of you will know that the governance structure at the University is a fairly flat structure. So we have the centre as it is sometimes called, the senior management team, and then the central services within the University. But then the real units of operation tend to be our academic schools. What were 19 are now 18 academic schools. Each of those schools have a fair amount of autonomy. So even though we have various policies and frameworks that they operate in, how they are manifested within different schools can take different forms.

So, for example, when you start to think about things that are very important to our academic community, things like workload models, resource allocation models, all the processes and systems that make these schools function, they can have slight differences across different schools.

Like any other type of merger, there's an awful lot of operational complexity in bringing two schools together like this. That has really formed the basis of a lot of the work that's been happening over the past 14 months or so. We've had lots of workstreams, seven work streams in total, looking at things like curriculum, how we bring parts of the curriculum together or the way we approach curriculum.

Research operations, we have existing programs that each one of these previous schools run that we had to keep the show on the road as well. Seven undergraduate programs, a whole range of different, postgraduate taught programs, postgraduate research programs that are continuing.

It was also looking at how we keep make sure that those things are our business as usual and that for our students, our programmes continue as normal.

There's probably about ten reasons in total that led us to take this decision. Some of them were very much about internal pressures and others were very much about external opportunities.

One of the things that we knew, partly because of reasons of scale, was that we were going to be investing one way or the other in those two schools, particularly in terms of research. Both the previous schools, the School of Economics and Finance and the previous School of Management perform well in many of the domestic league tables and are very much at the top of them. That performance is driven primarily as the Principal was speaking a bit earlier on, by student experience and some other different elements. So very well performing schools in lots of different ways.

But we are also, as a small university, operating in a global higher education sector that is incredibly competitive. We are a small university that is also in an environment where there's generally giants that we are competing with. So some of it was about school and how we really reinforce the research opportunities and performance of those two previous schools.

The conclusion was that it didn't make sense to do that individually, but by bringing the school together, giving them a little bit more scale and an opportunity for us to invest in such a way that they continue to do the fabulous things that they do in terms of research and the sort of impact that comes from that research as well.

Speaking of impact, also thinking about we have a wonderful location here in the northeast of Fife, but when it comes to really reaching out to industry, to government, to the third sector and so on. Also thinking about how we're able to really develop those pathways to impact and make those sorts of connections. One of the things that can be really useful for doing that is a business school framework.

Thinking about the positioning externally, School of Management, for example, which there is a lot of them around the world, but sometimes how you articulate that can be a bit more challenging than say a business school, which tends to have a more defined understanding of what they're all about.

I should also just reinforce the point that business school's generally anywhere in the world don't just do business, but they also focus on third sector organisations, government and other types of business in a very general sense.

So thinking about how we're positioning our schools within this really highly competitive, global higher education space was also part of the rationale behind that. Enhancing engagement, again, about how we are not only reaching out to our local community, but how we're also creating those connections, that connectivity much further afield whether that is nationally or internationally.

As I was saying, we have a range of postgraduate programs and those programs have been around for a while. Once again, this is a quickly changing higher education space internationally. So thinking about how we bring renewal to some of those programs, which again means investment, but also thinking about what the opportunities are to make sure that we're well positioned within the national and international space.

Diversifying into new educational areas. The University does not have any plans to increase our student numbers in terms of our standard programs. We have just over 10,000 students. We've actually been working to bring those numbers down, given the sort of capacity constraints that we have both within the University estate but also within our local community. So we don't have opportunities or we have no intentions of growing those those standard programs. But as the Principal was also pointing out, we are facing as the wider UK educational sector is facing really extreme financial pressures as well. So we have to continue to think about how we diversify our income streams in an environment where government money is not only not coming in greater quantities, but in many respects is reduced, whether that's the per unit of resource that comes for particularly, teaching domestically, or it's cost recovery with the research that we're doing. All of this is up against inflationary pressures that we also have to be dealing with as an institution.

So whilst we don't have plans to increase our student numbers and our standard program, so our standard undergraduate programs or standard postgraduate taught programs, we do have to be thinking about how we diversify into other areas of education to generate the sort of income streams that allows us to cross-subsidise, particularly our domestic teaching, but also our research activities in our outreach activities as well.

So that means thinking about non-traditional types of programs. The Principal mentioned digital. That's one part of the equation. Other areas we are thinking about are short programs, things like executive education, which St Andrews has done a bit of over the years, but has never really leveraged in the way that a place like St Andrews should be able to, given that we are a destination location.

These types of programs can make use of the University of state, outwith term times when there's less pressure on the town and the University facilities.

Also how we think about enhancing our first class student experience. The Principal pointed out that we have been at the top of the league tables in terms of how we are have been giving a first class student experience in the UK for many, many years now. We cannot be resting on our laurels. We have to continually be innovating and making sure that we are developing in that area as well.

So how we continue to build on that first class student experience and also innovate to ensure that we continue to provide the leading experience in the country. Some cultural change as well. Sometimes we can be, you know, a little bit inward looking here in the St Andrews bubble. So this is also about how we make sure that we are not just focussed on our local community, but also very outward looking and again, thinking about those opportunities to be developing those connectivities, whether it's for impact, whether it's for student experience or for its research opportunities as well.

Increasing collaboration across the University. I'll talk a little bit about the USP for the Business School in a minute. But one of the areas that we are looking to differentiate ourselves from all those other Business Schools out there is doing things that we can do as a relatively small university. So, for example, we already have a culture of collaboration across the University where different academic schools come together, whether it's with joint programs or it's with collaborative research. These types of things in our Business School will be no different. It will be one that's embedded within the wider University.

The opportunities, for example, to be thinking about how our Business School works with the School of International Relations, which will form the two anchor schools in the new ‘New College’ development, or working with the School of Medicine or the School of Computer Science or the School of Psychology, will be very much be about how we create that differentiating aspect to our Business School here at St Andrews.

Then also supporting the University strategy. The five pillars that the Principal took us through and the very good progress we've been making there within our University strategy, a Business School has a role to play in each one of those. Whether it's the world class interdisciplinary research and teaching that we're doing, inclusivity and diversity. It's about how we think about sustainability. In this particular case, the role that organisations play in making that transition. Or it is in areas like digital St Andrews and thinking about the types of programs, one of which was mentioned in quantitative finance, that we can also leverage to diversify some of those different income streams and programs that I was referring to.

So what's your aspiration?

Well, our aspiration really flows from those ten or so reasons why we took the decision to create a Business School. So that's very much about a world class Business School. Everything we do at St Andrews has to be based on excellence and quality. This will be no different. Helping organisations to navigate the very pressing global challenges that we face, whether it's with health inequalities or it's with areas around sustainability or equity or generating prosperity.

Once again, making sure that the Business School is very much embedded at the very centre of our University strategy, we see this as another opportunity to really accelerate the different work that we've been doing in those pillars that the Principal took us through. Of course, providing outstanding research-led teaching in a first class student experience. That will be very much part of the differentiating factor of our Business School, something that we do, we believe better than any other university in the world.

It will need to be outward looking and connected. That's that whole engagement piece around the Business School. It needs to capitalise on our compact size and location. One of the questions I often get is, well, you're not sitting in a big city like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester or London.

That's very true. But St Andrews is a destination place. This is a place that people want to come to. So this is really about turning that on its head rather than having a business school, a big, loud, urban centre. It's about how we have the opportunity to actually bring people in areas like executive education into the St Andrews bubble so they can think about how, for example, they can lead their organisations as they address some of these really big challenges that the world faces.

Of course, we're not entirely unique in that way. The Tuck School at Dartmouth in the US, the Smith School at Queen's University in Canada, have similar types of locations and have been able to really carve themselves out, quite a unique niche for themselves by really turning that whole location piece on its head and using the convening power of St Andrews as a strength rather than a weakness. And then, of course, generating significant new income streams for the University. We have to be doing that if we're going to be able to continue to fund and cross-subsidise a lot of our other activities at the University.

We know that we're in an untenable financial arrangement in terms in terms of how universities are funded within the UK. But we also have to be on the front foot with these sorts of things and ensuring that we're able to generate the sort of income to support our wider activities.

So very quickly and keeping in mind that this is this is still a work in progress. We are just in the process of launching a very high level vision for the Business School. We're in the final stages of the appointment of a permanent Dean who looks absolutely fabulous. Then we'll continue as we've gone through this whole process of bringing the schools together and all the operational demands that that requires of really fleshing out the wider strategy for the school.

But we have had a huge amount of consultation within our student and our staff community and many of our supporters saying, what sort of a Business School would you like to have?

Just as a draft attempt at a mission and a vision around our University strategy, a mission ever to excel in business and society, playing on our University motto. Our vision, which is to be an unequivocally world class Business School with people, planet, prosperity, purpose, politics, and place at its heart - I'll come back to that in a second. Then values that are collegiate, engaged, innovative and sustainable, which very much speaks to the type of community we are and to our University strategy.

You put all those together and that leads to a purpose-led Business School at the centre of St Andrews. You can see some of the conceptual drawings for New College on the right hand side (from the presentation), where the Business School will be housed with the School of International Relations.

So very quickly, in terms of what really differentiates us, what's that?

Six P's

People is about providing that very immersive and personal staff and student experience that we are world renowned for, and making sure that we really harness that and play to that strength.

Planet. That is the defining issue of our generation and the next number of generations. Thinking about how our school can really be also playing its part in terms of thinking about how we create a much more sustainable future, in business, in organisation and leadership in some of these areas.

Purpose. Understanding the contributions that we can make to society through business and meaningful work. When you look, can you talk to graduates today and students coming into university? There has been a generational change in terms of what they are looking for in terms of their careers. It's not just about income, although that might be part of it, but it's also about how they're doing something that's meaningful, where they feel like they're having purpose and making some sort of a difference in their lives. So it's very much about putting purpose at the very centre of our business school.

Prosperity, of course. So how we think about generating wealth and economic well-being much more widely. But it's also about thinking about how we hold that to account. When you get these extreme inequalities that we've been seeing developing over the past few years.

Politics. This is partly that unique differentiating factor for our business school and bringing it together with the School of International Relations. We know that geopolitics has raised its head in very unhelpful ways in the past few years. If you're going to be out in international organisations, running organisations, international organisations, you have to be able to think about geopolitics and what that means for you. That is something that we feel that we could have a real strength in here at St Andrews and could be really quite differentiating for our business school.

And finally, Place. When you when you look at how any business school, anywhere in the world differentiates themselves, there's always an element of place that might be the universities that are embedded in the cities, the wider communities, and we will be no different in those regards.

In terms of our leadership team right now in the business school, we have a fantastic leadership scheme. I said that the business school was what came about by bringing these two former schools together. It has three departments that it's starting off with.

We have the fantastic Professor Kirsty Ball, who is currently head of the of the new management department. The areas of expertise that we have within the management department or in areas like accounting and governance, entrepreneurship and innovation, marketing and markets, public and third sector management and strategic leadership.

We have the fabulous Professor John Wilson, who is the head of the finance department with three world leading clusters in that department. In corporate finance, household finance and banking.

Finally in economics, we have the fabulous Dr Luca Savorelli, the outgoing head of department there. Here we have clusters of expertise and excellence in applied microeconomics, applied macroeconomics and behavioural and microeconomic theory.

So already within our Business School, we have clusters of world leading research and teaching excellence that is building on and will leverage as we really define our school strategy. One of the areas that I said that we are really looking at moving into is this whole executive education space and our academic director is Dr Marcel Lucas. With executive education, we'll be looking at really playing to our strengths, whether it's in finance, management or economics.

Marcel's research is in areas like fintech, so the inaugural programme for the business school will be in fintech, in digital finance, looking at things like trends in financial technology and what does financial technology look like? What is the role of fintech in financial behaviours? For example, fintech in Covid 19, regulatory and ethical considerations, financial behaviours. Then also how that fintech can be applied in financial services and that would be a three day programme. This is an example of the types of executive programs that we will be developing as we continue to really shape our school strategy.

New College will also be a hub for the social sciences. Those schools will be reaching out to other schools and it will be a fantastic facility, not just for the University, I should say, but also for our local community. It will play an important role in how we really leverage what I call that convening power of St Andrews, the ability of people to bring people in because it's a destination place that people want to be in, that will form a really important part of the wider school.

So I'm going to end there, and I'm very happy to take a few questions.

The Principal thanked Brad and then invited questions from the audience.

Question 1

These existing departments which operate out of very splendid locations, one of which is barely five minutes old. Will those present locations become redundant or will the new hub add to the existing locations?

Brad responded, the wider New College development also sits within a plan for the University estate that's over about 20 years in duration. So you'll know, for example, that in the North Quad, the science part of the campus, we have buildings that were built in the 1960s, and all those buildings are probably well past their shelf life and now need to be renewed and refurbished. To be able to do that, we also have to have a series of decamps and refurbishments, refits and all that sort of thing.

One of the things that New College helps us to do, actually, is create space for being able to do some of those refurbishments that are probably 30 years overdue now. So they will not be redundant. They will be used and in the fullness of time, of course, they will also serve other purposes.

The Gateway, which is where the management school is at the minute, will probably become a new home for one of our site schools. That work is still in development and will also form an important part of that whole sort of wider plan for the state over the next 20 years in terms of moving some of our colleagues into there while we refurbish other buildings.

Question 2

There's been a change in the way businesses are run in, let us say, the last 100 years. 100 years ago, a motor company would be run by somebody whose background was in building cars. Nowadays it's run by somebody whose background is in business.

Would you like to comment on that and decide whether you think it is good or bad?

Brad responded, I think it depends on the context. Just to give a few examples, I mean, during the financial crisis, we had banks being run by accountants and perhaps didn't understand the world of banking. So that was probably an example where in certain cases it didn't work.

But in other cases if you're running a business, you have to deal with external relations, you have to deal with shareholders, you have to deal with a whole host of things that aren't just about building cars. I'm not sure that Henry Ford actually built cars himself. He may well have done. He probably was quite a good convenor of people that knew something about them.

One thing I would say is one of my colleagues at Stanford, so I'm a professor of strategy, he was also a strategist. He once told somebody that ran a motorcycle company on the West Coast of the United States that he could teach him everything he needed to know about strategy in two days, but we could never teach him how to build a great motorcycle. But I think it's the job of a good leader to put people into place that know what they're doing. The whole rule of leadership has changed, it's just a totally different environment than it was a century ago.

Of course that means that the types of governance structures and the types of skills that are required for leadership has also evolved over a period of time.

I think the answer to your question is it depends. Sometimes you can have people that have come from completely different backgrounds than the industries that they're working in, but they can be fabulous leaders just by virtue of the fact that they're able to perform a lot of these other functions that are really important, whilst at the same time allowing people that know what they're doing in terms of engineering and other types of things, in terms of the operations to do their jobs. Sometimes it doesn't always work as well as it should do. That may be sometimes because people that have a different skill set want to get too involved in itself that they don't know as much about. This is all just theories. Thank you very much.

Question 3

Will the sustainability aspects of the business school folk provide a focus on the phasing out of fossil fuels within the global economy?

Brad responded, that is a that's an excellent question. At the moment, we don't have people that work specifically on oil and gas, for example, in the business school. I think that anything that has to do with sustainability has to look at that transition, but it also has to be done in a in a way that's realistic. Looking at the wider energy mix, for example, between renewables and that transition to renewables from things like fossil fuels.

There's no doubt in my mind that when you look at where we are in the world, that transition has to take place. We also need to have the types of leaders that are going out and running organisations that understand actually how you bring your shareholders and your organisations along with you as that transition is being made.

So sustainability? Well, without question, will be at the centre of our of our business school and that whole mix that has to be part of it. But not just that either. I think one of the things that often gets forgotten about is biodiversity loss, for example, as well, which is an issue that's kind of being, to some degree, overshadowed by climate change, but is every bit as pressing.

So I think there's a need for having some really systems level thinking about what the transition looks like whilst at the same time keeping in mind that we need to be generating the prosperity that allows us to close inequality gaps and other types of things. The intention for us is that we're kind of lucky in the sense that even though the new business school is based on two previous schools, we don't have a lot of the legacies that the well established business schools have. We have an opportunity at St Andrews, I think to bring some of that systems level thinking into our Business School in a way that can really make a profound impact on that sort of transition.

Question 4

I wasn't quite clear on the student population of the Business School. Whether you're going to be awarding, for example, undergraduate degrees in Business Studies first, or whether you expect people to come in with business. One of the big differentiators is whether people go straight to business school from university like London or whether, like Cranfield, they go in in their mid-twenties, having worked in business or another environment first. Could you say a little bit about that?

Brad responded, so at the minute our undergraduate programs are going to run as they have been running. We run programs in economics in different aspects of economics and management. Those programs will continue. There's two reasons for that. The first one is that they're successful programs. The second reason for it is that it takes an awful long time to change undergraduate programs. You have to take five or six years. You have to be well resourced and plan and have a huge amount of work tested. You have to be ready to launch two years in advance of them actually doing so. So at the minute, we do not have plans to change our undergraduate programs,

I just want to make it clear as well, even though it's economics and management, finance, we still at St Andrews absolutely have the intention of having a very strong Department of Economics, a very strong Department of Finance and a very strong Department of Management.

So we will be investing in those different departments. They will be sitting in a Business School framework, though. Some of the executive education programs that we're looking at will be post experience where we'll be we'll be targeting markets, of people that have it might be in middle management looking towards senior management and those types of things.

So the answer to your question is it will be a mix. But at the undergraduate level and to some extent at the postgraduate taught we will be continuing on in much the way that we have been previously.

That concluded the questions and the Principal asked the audience to join her in thanking Brad for his excellent presentation.

5. Any Other Competent Business

The Registrar & Clerk confirmed that there had been no intimations and no further business to be discussed. 

The Principal and Vice-Chancellor brought the meeting to a close, thanking members for their presence and inviting them to rise for the Benediction.