Strategic review and financial statements 2020 Strategic review and financial statements 2020 Council membership 1 August 2019 to 31 July 2020 Contents The Council is the University’s governing body and, among other matters, it is responsible for overseeing the administration and management of the affairs of the University and is required to present audited Council membership 2 financial statements for each financial year. Foreword by the Vice-Chancellor 4 Chair of Council External members appointed Other senior officers Strategic review 6 and Pro-Chancellor by the Council of the University John Mills (until 31 December 2019) Simon Amess Chancellor Governance 14 Sir Keith O’Nions Vicky Bailey Baroness Young of Hornsey OBE (from 1 January 2020) Lynette Eastman Registrar Financial review 20 Dr Paul Greatrix Vice-Chair of Council Sonya Leydecker (Secretary to Council) Nora Senior Independent auditor’s report 28 Sherry Madera Pro-Vice-Chancellors Professor Graham Kendall Members ex-Officio Carolyn Morgan Statement of principal accounting policies 31 Pro-Chancellor Trevor Moss Professor Nick Miles OBE Dr Hamid Mughal OBE Richard Newsome Professor Sarah Sharples Financial statements 34 President and Vice-Chancellor Sir Keith O’Nions Professor Robert Mokaya Professor Shearer West (until 31 December 2019) Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellors Notes to the financial statements 40 Provost and Deputy David Tilly Professor John Atherton Vice-Chancellor Professor Jeremy Gregory Professor Andy Long Appointed by the Professor Todd Landman Treasurer Students’ Union Stephen Walton From 1 August 2019 to 30 June 2020 Professor Sam Kingman (until 31 December 2019) President Professor Kevin Shakesheff Ian Kenyon (from 1 January 2020) James Pheasey Chief Financial Officer Education Officer Pro-Vice-Chancellors Margaret Monckton Professor Sarah O’Hara Cassie Ulrich Chief Digital Officer Professor Dame Jessica Corner From 1 July 2020 to 31 July 2020 David Hill Members of staff Union Development Officer Director of Human Resources Madeleine Fox Jaspal Kaur Professor Clive Roberts Education Officer Dr Rachel Gomes Rebecca Craven Professor Kevin Lee Professor Jo Lymn (from 16 September 2019) Dr Gabriele Neher 2 3 Strategic review and financial statements 2020 It has been a challenging year for all of us – a year without precedent in the last century. However, amidst all the uncertainty and stress of the last few months, I feel proud of the way staff and students have adapted to ever-changing circumstances and the huge commitment they have shown to maintain our missions of education and research in hugely difficult circumstances. At the University of Nottingham, this has been a year of two Of course, our research has been at the forefront of the battle distinct halves, divided along the fault line of the coronavirus against Covid-19 this year. From working towards a vaccine, to pandemic. While the year began as we prepared for more familiar assessing the societal impact of the disease and helping to inform issues – Brexit, new regulatory demands, potential reforms to the public, our scholars continue to bring their expertise to bear. student fees and increasing global competition – it ended with The pandemic has left its mark on 2020 in the most profound a challenge on an altogether different scale, as we adapted to ways, touching almost every aspect of our lives. But all over the operating during a global pandemic. world we are learning to live with it, and the experiences of our campuses in China and Malaysia have demonstrated different This was uncharted territory for everyone involved. Moving ways of adapting to the constraints that we must endure to keep to a ‘blended’ teaching model on a Covid-secure campus was ourselves safe. an enormous task, and I would like to put on record again my thanks for the hard work of the staff who made it possible. The process of recovery will pose health, social and economic Against a background of significant financial losses and voluntary challenges, and it is likely to change things we took for granted, redundancies, it has been a truly remarkable demonstration such as the way we travel for business, pleasure and for trade. of the spirit, talent, ingenuity and dedication of our university The virus will also change the context in which we address issues community. that previously preoccupied us, like climate change, sustainable food and tackling modern slavery. Despite all the difficulties of the year, we have made many positive steps for the future. Our new University Strategy A resilient approach means we will be ready for whatever turn articulates the vision, values and goals that are shared across the pandemic takes, and I commend my colleagues for the our global community and will guide our research, teaching and outstanding job they have done this year in adapting to a fast- operations over the long term. It was the result of an extensive changing situation that has led to us living and working in an consultation with staff and students on all our campuses, entirely different way. I know we will all continue to play our parts providing us with an ambitious and positive direction of travel in preparing the next generation of leaders, our students, as they in these testing times. in turn prepare to shape the future. The strategy includes a pledge to support the city of Nottingham in its ambition to become carbon-neutral by 2028, underlined by our own Estates Development Framework which will help to cut carbon outputs and increase energy efficiency across all our operations. That spirit of collaboration underpins our new civic agenda – Foreword by the Universities for Nottingham – which will harness the collective will of the county’s biggest institutions to deliver economic, social, health and environmental benefits to residents. On campus, we seek to foster equality, diversity and inclusion with a new action plan to help dismantle structural racism in our Professor Shearer West Vice-Chancellor systems and institutions. A new Access and Participation Plan President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham will help to support and nurture potential in the undergraduates of the future. 4 5 Strategic review and financial statements 2020 We are at the heart of real progress in shaping the future and changing people’s lives for the better. Solving problems Beyond coronavirus, our researchers have parasite multiplication and transmission to continued their outstanding work in a humans. Their findings could mean a way Strategic and improving lives wide range of other fields, helping to solve to prevent the malaria parasite Our research programme has a well- problems and improve lives on a global being transmitted. deserved reputation for helping to address scale. some of the biggest problems facing the A blood test developed as part of planet today. Across a range of disciplines, A new type of wearable brain scanner pioneering research at the University review and with a global network of partnerships, is revealing new possibilities for offers new hope for increasing survival we are at the heart of real progress in understanding and diagnosing mental rates from lung cancer by significantly shaping the future and changing peoples’ illness, allowing the whole brain to enhancing the early detection of the lives for the better. be scanned with millimetre accuracy. disease. An NHS study found that taking Researchers believe the new scanner the EarlyCDT-Lung blood test resulted in Headlines in 2020 have been dominated could be significantly better than anything a 36% reduction in late stage lung cancer by the fight against Covid-19, and our that currently exists, more flexible and compared to standard clinical practice researchers and graduates have been at significantly cheaper. – a statistically significant reduction the forefront of that battle. We have been compared to the current NHS standard involved in nearly all the major national Another team won £1.8 million to develop of care. clinical trials for Covid-19 vaccines the world’s first contactless three- alongside much other research, including dimensional body scanner to aid early Biomedical engineers have developed a the national sequencing project. An detection of diseases such as cancer. new material that can be 3D-printed to in-house testing service was specifically Using infrared light as a non-invasive create tissue-like structures, indicating designed to tackle asymptomatic imaging tool, the scanner will be able to that key parts of human tissues and organs transmission among students and staff, provide clearer diagnostic information could be replicated in the laboratory. supporting efforts to control outbreaks than any of the established technologies. Using a protein to replicate the structure among university communities. It has the potential to produce faster of arteries and veins could help in the disease diagnoses and treatment for development of safer and more efficient A range of non-clinical projects have patients – as well as considerable cost drugs, meaning new treatments reach studied the wider health, social and savings to the NHS. patients more quickly. economic impacts of the pandemic, while a donation of £12 million of equipment A new technique to speed up quantum to Lighthouse Labs is helping to support computing could pave the way for huge the national diagnostic effort. We also leaps forward in computer processing played our part in supporting the NHS in power. Employing a new experimental this most critical year, by ensuring that approach which utilises trapped Rydberg graduating medics and nursing students ions, the technique could allow quantum could complete their studies early to join computers to be scaled up to sizes where the NHS frontline. It was a fitting way to they are far more useful in solving the mark a double milestone at the University: problems of everyday life. the 50th anniversary of the start of In the School of Life Sciences, a medical training, and the 30th anniversary breakthrough in understanding how of the first nursing training.