Dear colleagues,  

We start the summer term with great energy and momentum thanks to your commitment and hard work.   

In this month’s In Conversation with the President, we focused on operational issues, with updates on the Enabling Roadmap, the Staff Survey, the planned move of some Professional Services and other key initiatives.   

My thanks to Karen Foster (Director of Strategic Programmes & Change), Harbhajan Brar (Director of Human Resources) and Robert Kerse (Chief Operating Officer) for their presentations and to our Consul, Professor Wisia Wedzicha, for chairing the Q&A.  

Harbhajan briefed us on the Staff Survey and its importance. I hope you had time to review some of the positive changes catalysed by the last staff survey. Please take some time to fill the survey out. Your input is vital and it shapes the future of our university.  

Thank you to Karen for providing an overview of the Enabling Roadmap for our Strategy, including the major strands of work and their sponsors. We will come back to you regularly with progress updates. 

On Professional Services moves, Robert discussed the rationale – specifically, the desire to provide better workplaces for colleagues that better promote collaboration and innovation, the need to use our workspaces more efficiently and complete major building works at South Kensington both to improve their quality and hit our net zero target. We have already received strong feedback from staff that White City is the preferred location, if there are no viable options adjacent to our South Kensington Campus, given its strong Imperial identity and our plans to create major new facilities for education and research by 2028 along with additional amenities. We will keep you updated as this work develops. In the meantime, please do share your thoughts with the project team directly. 

Thank you for your questions on such topics as our net zero targets and advocacy work, and our brand refresh. If you missed the event, you can watch the recording online. We will publish follow up answers to any questions we didn’t get to in the session in the Staff Briefing newsletter on 10 May.  

I look forward to seeing you at next month’s In Conversation with the President event on 22 May. Before then, I encourage you to come to the Professional Services Discussion event on 15 May, where Richard Martin (Registrar and University Secretary) will talk about how we deliver a world-leading experience for our students. An invite will follow shortly.  

And finally, I encourage you to take some time off from your busy schedules to participate in some of the Mental Health Awareness Week activities on offer from 13 to 17 May. There is an excellent programme of events and workshops available. You can also find resources on the health and wellbeing webpages.  

Best wishes,  

Hugh 

President Hugh Brady 
Imperial College London