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Management Board Briefing Note 20 March 2009
BRIEFING NOTE
SUMMARY OF MATTERS CONSIDERED BY THE MANAGEMENT BOARD
ON FRIDAY, 20 MARCH 2009
MONTHLY REPORTS
1. Monthly Reports were received from the Rector, the Senior Principal, Faculty
Principals, the Principal of the Imperial College Business School, the Chief Operating
Officer, the Pro-Rector (Education), the Pro-Rector (International Affairs), the Pro-Rector
(Commercial Development), and the College Secretary. The Board also received a Health
and Safety update as well as the monthly Financial Management Report and the
Communications Report.
OVERSEAS STUDENT NUMBERS
2. The Director of Planning gave a presentation on the reasons why the College would
be likely to benefit from increasing its overseas student numbers, and the various ways in
which this could be achieved.
3. The Board agreed to increase the number of overseas students recruited to
postgraduate taught courses at the College from the next academic year. Faculty Principals
would be asked to aim for an overall increase of approximately 330 students to enable the
College to meet the increasing demand for taught master’s courses, as demonstrated by the
significantly higher number of applications which had been received so far this year.
CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
4. The Board considered a report on the College’s Continuing Professional
Development provision. The College’s current provision was organised independently by
various departments and units, but principally by the Centre for Professional Development
in ICON; the Faculty of Medicine and AHSC. The report showed that other universities had
a much bigger presence in this market than the College.
5. The Board agreed that, although the external CPD market was growing, the
competition was well entrenched, and it was likely that the most lucrative market segments
would be badly hit by the current crisis. If the College was to increase its presence in this
market, it would require significant investment and it was unlikely that the College would see
a return on this investment for several years. Therefore CPD would not be a viable means
of increasing short-term income during the recession.
Although the Board had no appetite for a significant expansion in CPD at this time, it was
agreed that existing and any proposed CPD courses would have to be profitable and should
also be subject to appropriate quality assurance arrangement. To this end, the Board
agreed that the College should identify an academic champion to encourage moderate
development where appropriate and also to manage QA for CPD. In addition to this central
champion, it was suggested that each Faculty should also identify a Faculty-level champion
for CPD.