Questions from the April event

This update was shared in the Friday 26 April Staff Briefing. 

Great Service Programme 

Investment in replacing ICIS?

The Great Service Programme will deliver a replacement for ICIS. This is just one of several projects that will transform how we work together and deliver the best possible service to students and colleagues.

The programme is focused on our finance, HR and research admin post award systems. Oracle will provide the software and we have commenced our process to select our delivery partner to help us replace ICIS. We expect to go live with a new system in late 2026. We will keep you updated as the project develops.

How are you learning from others?

We have based our approach on both our previous experiences (good and bad) as well as learning from others institutions in the UK and overseas. This includes seconding colleagues into the team from across our faculties and support services to provide expert insight and experience of delivering operations.

We have also conducted direct engagement with other HE institutions (UK and abroad, including Edinburgh University) to really understand the challenges they faced, what we can do differently and what has worked well.

We have put in place a number of actions to support our learning:

• A multi-disciplinary team, with representation from different areas of the university including faculties and departments. They really understand how the university works and what it needs
• Scaling up capability and capacity in key areas that we know will be essential, such as service design, change, technology, data, testing
• Starting work early that we know will take time but is critical to the programme's success
• Establishing the right governance and decision-making framework
• Really thinking about how we will engage through key phases like design to make sure what we do meets our users' needs and challenging our delivery partners to work with us in a way that helps us to build understanding of new ways of working early.
• Made connections with HE institutions that are slightly ahead on their programmes to continue to learn as we go

As we build our engagement networks we will continue to listen to the university and welcome ideas about how we can keep you involved and ensure we get the right outcomes.

Professional Services Workspaces

You can watch the event again online and read Robert Kerse’s summary message.

What amenities will there be?

Our work to identify a location for the Professional Services Hub has been mindful of the need to provide access to a range of staff amenities. We will engage with you to understand your requirements. We will set out more on how to do this soon.

We have already started conversations with existing amenities teams, such as the Early Years Learning Centre. This is to understand both the impact of any moves and the type of provision that may be required at a new location. Once a new location for the Professional Services Hub has been confirmed, we will be able to develop the next level of detail.

Although Professional Services moves are one of our strategic priorities, we are working across all campuses to maintain and improve work environments.

How will you build a community?

We will work to embed the new Professional Services Hub into any new location, making efforts to maintain and grow our shared Imperial identity. More information and opportunities to explore the new work location and wider environment will be set out when a location has been confirmed.

Representation and equality?

We will work with our staff Unions, Staff Representation Groups and our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team to ensure any new work locations are inclusive, allow adjustment where specific need is required and provides spaces for a range of working requirements. We will also work directly with all the teams involved to understand their specific needs.

Local community engagement?

In thinking about the future location for the Professional Services Hub, we are mindful of the relationship we will have with the local community. We have focused our search on areas with an existing Imperial presence, strong transport links and see this as an opportunity to engage communities with the Imperial mission.

How will it reflect Imperial’s culture?

We recognise that feeling part of our community is important. Our search has therefore focused on areas already associated with the university. The Imperial identity will be reflected in any new workplace; which we will keep investing in to grow a sense of community - physically, digitally and globally.

What design will the new hub have?

There will be opportunities for staff to feed into the design process for the new space. This may include testing new furniture and layouts, visiting the new location to understand its amenities and feeding in ideas and proposals around requirements and ways of working.

We are keen to encourage staff to get involved in the design of the new Professional Services Hub spaces. This is both a chance to think about what types of space teams need to achieve their roles, but also to think about new spaces that will enhance how we work together.

Details of how and when you can get involved will be shared in due course.

Travel?

Once a location for the Professional services Hub is agreed, our current shuttle bus service can be reviewed.

We anticipate that wherever the final location for the Professional Services Hub is, that car parking, as it is in much of London, will be limited.

In searching for a suitable location for the Professional Services Hub, access and proximity to Transport for London services was a key factor. The White City area is served by Central, Circle, Hammersmith and City underground lines. Overland services are also interconnected at Shepherd's Bush Station.

As a university we are committed to championing cycling. Once a new location for the Professional services Hub is confirmed, we'll build on our relationships with relevant local councils to encourage safe cycling routes.

Technology needs?

It is anticipated that staff may need to work across multiple professional services locations. The technology requirements to allow us to embrace more flexibility will be looked at as part of our requirements capture. The move to laptop provision will continue as we support staff to work across locations, including home. It is recognised that adjustments may need to be made on an individual basis and this should be discussed via line managers and relevant support teams.

Work Location Framework and days of working?

At this stage there are no plans to make any immediate changes to the Work Location Framework, but it will be kept under consideration for review as our future service model emerges. Once our service model is defined, we can start to better understand the specific location operations. Our key commitments are to encourage and facilitate cross-team collaboration whilst meeting our commitments to space utilization and meet our net-zero goals.

Professional staff spaces at South Kensington?

Whether based at South Kensington, or any other university location, it is intended to develop work spaces where staff can come together to work. It is recognised that staff will need the ability to work across multiple locations depending on their specific role and relationships with colleagues.

Maintaining service continuity?

We will work with colleagues across the university to understand and put in place the necessary business continuity measures for our services to students and staff so that the move minimises the impact on them.

HR

Work location framework

Our work location framework is set out here:

Work location | Administration and support services | Imperial College London

The Framework now has two categories: hybrid and onsite. This is sufficiently flexible to accommodate the majority of staff work patterns.

Staff members with a disability who require an alternative work pattern or other adjustments may wish to use the workplace adjustments process.

Support and training for staff?

All service area owners should build into their budget a specific allocation for local training, this is in addition to the training funded by the university and produced by the Organisational Development and Inclusion (ODI) Teams. (See all ODI courses, and Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre courses.)

Training needs should be established between the employee and line manager as part of the ongoing 121 meetings and ARC process, prioritised and supported by balancing the needs of the individual and the service. Individuals can also use coaching skills to develop others where they are subject matter experts. Individuals can also look at using funding via the Apprenticeship Levy and Study Loan.

Training for managers

The People and Organisational Development team provide training for managers in order to help them build self-awareness and self-reflection to be an effective and inclusive people manager and positively impact wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, delegate, build a team, or have the necessary conversations.

Imperial has development programmes and resources specifically designed for aspiring managers. This includes Online learning for Aspiring Managers and Level 3 Certificate in Leadership and Management. There is also a development programme for New and Current managers. We also have coaching and micro coaching which helps with skills development and a new Manager as Coach programme.

Development pathways for all staff

To progress in your career, it is important that you are having regular development conversations in your on-going 121 meetings with your line manager. The ARC conversation should be happening at least once a year with you and your line manager. Career development discussions should be part of the ARC.

Please also visit the career development webpages where you will find the Career Moves toolkit and guidance on having those Career Conversations, plus other career focused workshops.

In addition the following support options can also help in this area: Building Personal Resilience, the Springboard Womens Development, and the Coaching Academy are programmes available to staff who are looking for support in this area.

Discussions on job titles, job families and professional services more broadly are starting to help us to see more clearly where potential development routes could be built, enabling people to see other roles and how they might prepare themselves to apply for them. If any managers want to find out more about a facilitated session to draw up a bespoke ‘career moves’ map for their team, please get in touch with Susan Littleson (‪Deputy Director - Organisational Development and Inclusion).

Brand

We now have a new visual and verbal identity that are rooted in our science heritage, modern, confident and expressive. Both elements articulate Imperial's purpose and vision, our strengths – including our London location – and our impact, all while differentiating us in a crowded and competitive landscape.

Building our brand supports the ambition and vision of our new institutional strategy and will deliver multiple benefits, from attracting the best talent, funding and partnerships, to our general reputation and ranking. Our own community also signalled a clear desire to bolster our reputation and get Imperial the recognition it deserves through the strategy consultation process last year.

Our project webpage sets out answers to some of your most frequent questions, including our approach to our name, and the community engagement we ran last year and, if you missed it, do read Hugh Brady’s community message on brand.

You can learn more about the brand, including how to start using it in your own work, at the Brand webpages. 

You can read our response to FOI requests received about the brand in February and March 2024 on the website.

Brand tracking and measurement

The long-term goal is to increase brand awareness and influence people’s behaviour, whether that’s the decisions prospective students make, whether and how much philanthropic donors give us, or who partners with us. We will track this using brand tracking systems – we have established a benchmark using our previous brand and will be carrying out ongoing tracking and measurement of metrics across our all of our audiences including our internal community.

Our name

Our name is one of the strongest brand assets we have. It’s recognisable and carries weight in the academic and research worlds. Ask any potential student or research partner to name a top STEM university and there’s a strong chance they’ll say “Imperial College London”.

What we have done, however, is make “Imperial” an official visual shorthand for our name in our logo. Our full institutional name – Imperial College London – remains unchanged. Through our research and discovery, we found that many of us, and our wider stakeholders, instinctively call us “Imperial” rather than the longer “Imperial College London”. And when we write about ourselves, we may say things like, “Imperial is a London-based STEMMB university” or “Imperial is a Top Ten global university”. London remains a hugely important part of who we are, and will be fully reflected through our brand outputs, such as through imagery and text.

We recognise that the word “Imperial” comes with certain connotations and historical connections to the British Empire. Rather than hide away from this, we believe it’s important that we put our name into context and encourage an honest and open dialogue about our history – while also telling a confident and proud story of what Imperial means today. We’re an institution that’s open and welcoming to all. We’re committed to equity, diversity and inclusion. We’re working hard to widen participation. And our work is all in support of our mission – to achieve enduring excellence in research and education in science, engineering, medicine and business for the benefit of society. We’re proud of who we are and we want people to understand this positive, progressive story – and see the impact that Imperial creates for the benefit of society.

Sustainability

Net zero target by 2040

We have committed to a net zero target by 2040 for our scopes 1 and 2 emissions, reducing scope 3 where possible, as it is an ambitious yet realistic target for our campuses.
 
The challenge lies in the scale, age and diversity of the central London campus buildings, which currently have limited incoming electrical power to run low carbon heat solutions. We are already making progress by installing LED lighting and automatic control upgrades for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems – this will reduce our energy and carbon as well as make our buildings more comfortable.
 
We have a fairly complex journey towards net zero, with our energy-intensive laboratories and the difficulties in relocating occupants during necessary renovations. Typical net zero projects in the property sector usually prioritise fabric improvements, but many of our historic buildings hold listed status, limiting the ease of retrofitting, and the dense nature of our site presents further challenges. When we worked with ARUP to develop our decarbonisation plan, we challenged them to develop an approach that is ambitious and realistic, delivering as quickly as operationally possible. Given the size and complexity of our campuses, it’s not obvious at the moment how we could go faster than our current plan.
 
However, where challenges arise, so do innovative solutions. Our investigations suggest that a hybrid approach may be the quickest route to achieving net zero – combining air source heat pumps for baseload heating with gas boilers as backup during colder periods and peak demand. This solution will bridge the gap until we are able to configure a fully heat-pump solution within our constraints.
 
Read more about our net zero efforts

Our IT provider

ICT recently completed a contract renewal, which considered sustainability, for the supply of End User Computing (EUC) devices such as laptops and desktops from HP. These considerations included:

• Leveraging HP sustainability and renewable processes.
  • HP have built environmental considerations into their processes including in manufacturing. One particular point of interest is in the construction of laptop devices using waste material from ocean plastics. The HP Dragon Fly has a chassis made from this material, whilst other models have internal components made from the same material.
• Buying lower powered devices.
  • Using lower powered devices reduces the amount of electricity they use day to day whilst delivering modern performance. Previously, ICT bought top of the range processors with no real consideration for the overall impact. Reducing the power of the processor to the next level down provides a device that is more than adequate for most use cases with a reduced power requirement. Where a higher-powered device is required through a justification, one can be provided.
• Recycling old computers, giving away old devices that function for charitable purposes and devices are delivered once ordered and palletised reducing the associated packaging.

Learn more about ICT's sustainability work and plans for 2024

Donations from fossil fuel companies
 
We are using our influence through our investments, research partnerships, sponsorship and other interactions to drive decarbonisation, especially in the oil and gas sector.
 
We will not invest in or work with energy companies who are not demonstrably working towards meeting the Paris Agreement targets, we will not accept funding from fossil fuel companies that is directed at propagating the existing extraction business and we will use sanctions where necessary to ensure our engagement is strong and effective.
 
Read our Socially Responsible Investment Policy.

Imperial has launched a new framework, Imperial Zero Index, to assess annually how our energy industry collaborators are performing in their commitment, strategy and operational efforts towards net zero. We expect to disengage from academic and research collaborations with companies that score poorly against its criteria. The Index will also be used to inform our investment decisions. Read more here.