Sustaining excellence
For The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) to meet the aspiration outlined at the start of this document we must establish the leadership, governance and financial strength needed to underpin our aspirations, through a continued capability to invest and make the most of the people, programmes and infrastructure that will be the basis of our future success.
Leadership and sound investment must also be translated into outstanding institutional performance, which means motivating and supporting people and encouraging academic and professional service units to excel.
By providing an environment where people can and do excel, we aim to be recognised as a first choice employer for people from a broad range of backgrounds, and to open the University to the best local talent around our campus.
To sustain excellence in the increasingly competitive national and global context we operate in, it is imperative we use all our assets to their full effect, to raise the quality and level of outputs and accomplishments and protect our strong position. One key underutilised asset is our large, growing and widely distributed alumni population. Alumni can play a key role in contributing to the experience of current students, and developing contacts with other universities and private companies worldwide. Our reputation is another asset which we need to protect and improve, especially as measured by key global and national league tables and our visibility in national and global media publications.
Our principles
- The University’s staff are the basis of our success. We attribute much of our success to the quality of our academic, professional, and support staff. The scale of our ambition means that, more than ever, we need to attract, retain, and motivate staff of the highest calibre.
- Optimising management effectiveness. For the foreseeable future, successful universities will be distinguished by their underlying, continuous and measurable improvements in efficiency, productivity, effective cost control, and informed, skilful and well supported management at all levels.
- One University, one set of corporate systems. It is our responsibility to make cost savings and attain optimal, demonstrable efficiency. As an organisation, it makes sense to rationalise and harmonise our processes and systems so we can support them more effectively.
Background
UNMC is a globally recognised higher-education institution, known for the quality of its teaching, learning and research. The Campus provides a high-quality learning environment where students benefit from excellent facilities and small class sizes with an average student to staff ratio of less than 20:1. Staff are the heart of any University and the quality of academic, professional and support staff is key to the success of the institution. There are currently over 250 members of academic staff, which includes senior staff seconded from The University of Nottingham, UK as well as highly-qualified international and local staff. UNMC enjoys Tier 5 Excellent status in the official Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions.
Significant investment has been made in the student experience with the development of new, on-campus student accommodation which will result in an additional 1,200 beds and associated new income streams.
UNMC has successfully obtained competitive research funding from the Malaysian government and other external institutions – with research income topping RM5m in 2012. Collaboration with the prestigious Crops for the Future Research Centre has also provided significant funding for a range of doctoral projects.
The potential for expansion and growth at UNMC is significant. The University saw a financial surplus of over RM5 million in 2012 and student numbers have increased by over 1000 in the last three years.
Challenges
- Tuition fees are the major source of UNMC’s revenue, a revenue that will be vulnerable in an increasingly competitive market environment.
- Competition for public and private research funding will remain high.
- Competition for the most able staff will grow, making it essential that we continue to ensure that UNMC is an attractive working environment and that we invest in developing individuals of the highest calibre.
- We need to develop and maintain a service delivery infrastructure of the highest quality, in terms of both people and systems, to ensure that our student experience is internationally excellent.
Aims and objectives
Below are our major aims. Beneath each are the main objectives and activities we will focus on to ensure we achieve our aims by 2020
- Improve UNMC’s financial security:
- Develop robust financial plans that incorporate a commitment to a sustainable surplus to support future investment in the development of the campus
- Implement a clear strategy that results in cash generation and long term debt reduction to improve the University’s financial strength and therefore its ability to respond to unforeseen changes in its funding and other income streams
- Maintain a clear focus on cost management
- Diversify income streams by:
- reducing the proportion of University income that results from mainstream tuition fees
- increasing philanthropic and business related income streams
- Develop the leadership, governance, and general capability of staff:
Improve the quality of the management staff throughout the University by identifying and developing new leaders to make sure we have a pool of home-grown future leadership talent.
- Optimise the capability of all University staff by:
- recruiting, retaining and motivating high calibre internationally minded staff from a worldwide talent pool
- develop career progress support for our staff in order to allow them to maximise their potential
Responsibility
Lead
Mr Tilliampalam Sangarapillai, Director of Non-Academic Services, UNMC
Support
UNMC Management Board
Ms Lizdawati Abdul Rahman, Director of Human
Resources, UNMC
Mr Andrew Unitt, Chief Financial Officer
Ms Anita Stephen, Alumni and Donor Relations
Manager, UNMC
UNMC Management Board Owner
Mr Tilliampalam Sangarapillai, Director of Non-Academic Services, UNMC
Measuring success
Financial performance