Robin's Blog

Apologies I’ve not updated my blog of late. But whilst we focus on the relocation from our old building into our new one, Robin’s Blog is taking a short break. It will return in September though, and I look forward to sharing my news and thoughts with you then.

In the meantime, you might like to take a look at the latest photos of our nearly finished building. It’s stunning.

Have a great summer.

Robin

By the time you read this it probably be all over and we will have a result. It’s been a general election campaign full of twists and turns, but what has been notably absent from the debate is what the parties really have planned for higher education. Universities have been the silent subject of the Tories and Labour, despite both parties having signed up the Lord Browne review of HE funding. The Lib Dems have come out with a proposal to gradually phase out student fees, but have yet to offer any detail on what an alternative funding mechanism would look like.

This weekend’’s leak in the Sunday Times, repeated in Tuesday’’s Guardian was that the Browne review “was hawkish”, creating a free market in fees. This would enable universities to increase student fees gradually until a market price was reached, defined by what students are prepared to pay. For science subjects this could lead to fee charges of nearly £15k per annum, with arts subjects considerably less. It costs Ravensbourne about £10k per year per student, with the maximum student fee contribution about one third of this. We wait to what happens in the Autumn when the report’s first draft is published.

Only three weeks left until we officially close our site at Chislehurst and prepare over the summer for our move to Greenwich Peninsula. It will be strange bidding farewell to a building that has served us well and been our home for so many years. But our future is almost here. The new building is looking amazing now that all the exterior tiling is complete, the construction plan remains well on schedule and we can’’t wait to take possession of the building at the end of June to complete our internal fit-out by September.

My short trip to Italy last week turned out, like those of so many others, to be a prolonged stay, much of which I spent queuing frustratedly for ways to get home, hook or by crook across Europe. As I write, I’m on a train to passing through Turin to Paris. But it could have been worse. Milan is not a bad place to be stranded, especially during Milan Design Week.

Having to spend more time there than I thought I went to the Milan Design Week exhibitions on offer in via Ventura and Zona Tortona. The via Ventura shows from the RCA, the Design Academy Eindhoven and the Scuola Politecnica di Design and also emergent groups such as Art book Milan, were experimental with both conceptual and practical outcomes. The work in the Zona Tortona was much more to do with the commercial outcomes of design (mostly furniture) with very polished displays including that of our own Tom Dixon who showed some new chairs he had designed, but his show was dwarfed by the big furniture and lighting manufactures such as Kartell. I was quite surprised by how ordinary much of this commercial stuff was even in italy who have seemed to have lost much of the design initiative and flair they were so famous for. If there was one country that seem to excel across the board it was the work from the Netherlands who seem to work with ease between the experimental and the commercial with some very smart young designers. Pleased to see that rapid prototyping was being use extensively in a whole range of products and especially l’artisan electronique, by Belgium’s Unfold.

However, the purpose of my trip had been to deliver a lecture at Politecnico de Milano on Ravensbourne’s transformation. I was very useful for me to gauge the international academic community’s response to the changes we are undergoing at Ravensbourne. It was interesting that support for our change was high, but perceived as an Anglo Saxon response (which it is) to European traditions of higher education. Closer to the American view of what HE is for, rather than the mid European concern with scholarship almost for its own sake. Much interesting discussion followed on the role of technology, in particular the evolution in product and information design from GUI (graphical user interface) to NUI (natural user interface ) – touch screen, with its emphasis upon gesture. Something we encourage our students to explore particularly in our BA (Hons) Design (Interactions) and MA/MSc Interactive Product Futures courses at Ravensbourne.

I’ve made my feelings known on the Digital Economy Bill and the outdated approach the Government is taking regarding the penalising of illegal file-sharing. Unfortunately, a greatly reduced version of the Digital Economy Bill was passed on Wednesday night in the Commons, focusing on these preventive and negative aspects of the original Carter bill, whilst eliminating much of the progressive Digital Britain agenda, including broadband for everyone anywhere as a democratic entitlement.

On a more positive note, I’m delighted to report that we have an anonymous donation of £1.55m towards the costs of the new building. And HEFCE has now agreed that funding for the original 100 additional student numbers awarded to us as part of our recent settlement covers the duration of study for each student. Our original concern was that we would receive this funding for 2010/2011 only. HEFCE has also announced its University Modernisation Fund intended to help institutions to generate efficiency savings and fund limited numbers of additional entrants. We are considering bidding for a small number of student places, but will have to seriously weigh up the impacts of this in the longer run.

And finally, next week, I’m off to Italy by invitation of the Politecnico di Milano. Politecnico di Milano is ranked as one of the most outstanding European universities in Engineering, Architecture and Industrial Design and a leading research institution. I will be speaking to a number of academics and business people there on the relocation of Ravensbourne. So good that our ambitious vision is generating interest in academic circles across the globe.

As I write, we’ve only 65 days to go before practical completion of our new building. At that moment, our building contractors Bovis Lend Lease will complete their involvement in this remarkable project, and hand over the ‘keys’ to us so we can get started fitting out the building. Just to be inside it at last, transforming this glamorous, tessellated shell into a workable, living and breathing space will be truly fantastic.

We have a tenacious, hard-working relocation team managing all of this on our behalf, and they’re doing a fine job of it. Contracts for all sorts of fixtures, fittings, facilities and technology are being negotiated and secured as we speak. The scale of it all, for what is a relatively small, but highly functioning space, never ceases to amaze me.

In the news again this week, we are offered more cogitating from the gods of academia and politics on the future of HE, following last week’s Guardian HE Summit. We are all in no doubt that we are facing tough and uncertain times: possible change in government, major review into tuition fees, tough budget cuts, to name a few.  But at least we’ll have more clarity on the latter very soon, when this week (18 March) all HEIs receive grant letters from HEFCE. Only then can we really embark on the difficult financial journey ahead.

In line with our strategic change programme, we are seeking ways to deliver education to meet the shifting demands of 21^st Century learners. Learners, whose needs can differ greatly depending on a variety of social and economic factors. One strand of this is developing the ‘long tail’ of some of our courses; creating on demand, bite-sized bits of training rather than just two or three year degrees. In doing so, we can offer a different kind of education to people outside of the conventional education system, whether they are from non-academic backgrounds, or simply don’t have time for work-based learning.

We are looking to trail this with our new degree in web media. Last week I met the inspirational Helen Hamlyn Trust to discuss this further. The Trust’s mission to support innovative education projects that will effect lasting change and improve quality of life fits perfectly with our innovative teaching and learning ambitions. We will be looking to submit a funding application to the Trust in the near future. This long tail approach will also form a new component of Ravensbourne’s revised web presence, something we will be improving radically over the next 12 – 18 months.

Elsewhere, great news last week from the Privy Council who have approved our proposed name change from Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication to just Ravensbourne. We can now press ahead with our new brand roll out this Spring.

From the widespread news coverage this week, it is evident the context for higher education is getting increasingly fraught. And Mandelson describing academics as “set in aspic” doesn’t help the cause. There is great uncertainty about the size and extent of impending funding cuts and indeed why HE appears to be singled out for such cuts so early. Although 2010-11 may not be too draconian, 2011-12 will be where the brunt of reductions in the teaching grant will be worst felt.

Whatever cuts are to come, it’s critical that we plan for the longer-term and not take knee-jerk actions which might damage the fabric. Our move into the new building will already ensure that Ravensbourne is positioned to be more fleet-of-foot, and more flexible in its operations – but we are also embarking on a new, longer-term, planning process.  At our Governors annual strategy day earlier this week, we discussed business models for the future of Ravensbourne post relocation, with presentations from me and strategic management consultants Graham Hitchen and Mike Boxall.

Spent last Friday evening at the first celebration of Greenwich becoming a Royal Borough (which won’t actually happen until 2012, the year of the Queens Diamond Jubilee). Council Leader Chris Roberts gave the best speech I have heard him give. I was especially pleased that he cited Ravensbourne as the borough’s most visionary project! Guests included Laban Director, Anthony Bowne – delighted that Anthony has been appointed Principal of Trinity Laban from September.

Yesterday saw the developed designs for the new Ravensbourne branding. They look terrific.  Johnson Banks are doing a great job, and I look forward to the brand rolling out out from the end of March.

This week, in my talk to the British Computer Society’s symposium Ideas Before Their Time, I outlined our vision for relocation and how we have created a building from scratch to meet the needs of a digital future. Today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach. They want to simulate industry practice, learn and study on demand and utilise the best in technology and mobile computing. This makes possible a variety of learning styles in virtual spaces as well as physical ones, where collaboration can be spontaneous as well as deliberate.

Our journey is far from easy – building an appropriate, engaging, challenging, ambitious and effective world-class learning environment is highly complex. Such complexity is not well understood, well documented or well implemented. And there are few models to work from. But we are trying, and are confident we will get there. It was good to see so many society members showing a keen interest in our ideas.

Made another visit this week to the new site with some staff and external visitors – these visits are now linked to internal discussions with course staff exploring potential issues in academic delivery. One of the issues causing concern in broadcast engineering has hopefully been resolved through the design and construction of a test trolley, which will allow the engineers to deliver at various locations around the building. A great idea in response to mobile learning.

I’ve already mentioned the substantial investment in Ravensbourne agreed by Greenwich Council in the last few weeks. One third of which – in the form of a £500K grant – will fund a specialist sector Skills Centre at Ravensbourne. It will be an important new facility, which will offer entrepreneurs, businesses and learners access to specialist digital facilities, expertise, teaching space and courses at Ravensbourne for a ten-year period commencing September 2010.

Through the [working title] Greenwich Digital Skills Centre, Ravensbourne will continue to develop and diversify leading edge business support and non-accredited skills programmes, which will benefit industry, raise educational achievement in schools and improve progression onto accredited courses. Ravensbourne will offer training that innovates to meet the challenge of the constantly evolving media industries in line with the ambitions set out in the Digital Britain report last year.

In HE we are all facing the pressure to diversify our products and delivery models to adapt to fundamental changes in education policy and funding. Let’s hope Ravensbourne is staying one step ahead of the curve.

The vision for our new location at Greenwich Peninsula is for us to become as much a destination for business as the first choice for talented creative students at the start of their careers. We will offer innovation space, training, technology, expertise and ideas to businesses in London and beyond. 6 Penrose Way (our new address) will also be the perfect location for showcases, guest lectures, exhibitions and corporate hospitality.

On Wednesday night Lord Falconer chaired a private briefing session in the Canary Wharf Plc boardroom to introduce our iconic building and what we have to offer inside. Industry leaders from Ogilvy, Apple, Microsoft, Virgin Media, Crystal Digital, Telefonica O2, Sennheiser and AEG gathered to learn more about potential partnerships with Ravensbourne and listen to messages of support from existing partners including Skillset, Gateway to London and Greenwich Council.

All in all it was a successful evening I think. And we had requests from every business to tour the new building as soon as possible, with Canary Wharf Plc kindly pledging the use of its Thames Clipper to get them there!