Transcript: Vice-Chancellor's message for the end of Hilary term 2025
A transcript of Vice-Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey's end of term message to staff
Dear colleagues,
Congratulations on another great term, and thank you again for all your many contributions to our core mission of research and teaching.
I hope you are well, and enjoying the early signs of spring in our University Parks and college gardens.
I'm speaking to you today from the beautiful environment of the Department of Education. A fantastic department that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting recently, and which is renowned not only for its outstanding academic programmes, but for its world-leading research. The department undertakes research in a huge expanse of areas such as early childhood education and care, critical digital education, such as with the launch just recently of an AI in education hub, applied linguistics, including the Learning in Families through Technology or LiFT project, higher education and comparative and international, amongst others. The department has once again been crowned first in the UK and third in the world for education recently, in the Times Higher Education subject rankings for 2025. It stands at the forefront of research in education globally, earning it the top rating in the last three Research Excellence frameworks. Alongside all of this, it also plays a vital role training the next generation of teachers for our UK schools: just one more example of Oxford's excellence and contribution to the world.
Since I spoke last to you, there have been some fantastic developments for our University. First, it was wonderful to officially welcome Lord Hague of Richmond at his admission ceremony as Chancellor in the Sheldonian on 19 February. A wonderful day was had by all, and it's clear that William and Ffion are going to be wonderful additions to our community and Oxford family.
The People Strategy has now launched, showing our commitment to the experience of all staff and to delivering high-quality people services for everyone at Oxford.
I was also delighted to see our terrific shortlist for the Vice Chancellor Awards this year. The award ceremony will be on 15 May, and there's a showcase of the teams and individuals involved in the Weston Library before then. Please do take a look at the amazing work you and your colleagues do, and thank you to all who made nominations this year.
This term, we are proud to have published our latest Technician Commitment Action Plan, which outlines the activities we will undertake as we continue our work to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technical staff across the University. We have also launched the latest video in the inspiring series 'Oxford’s Technicians: Stories from the Hidden Experts' to showcase further the expertise of our technical staff and their valuable contributions to our core mission.
I know some of you would like to know more about our fundraising plans. Well, colleagues have been leading a broad consultation with the divisions about how to approach our upcoming campaign and what we'll be fundraising for, to ensure it meets Oxford's priorities and needs. We will keep you posted in the coming months.
Looking ahead, on 31 March, all University-employed staff will receive a personal invitation via email to take part in the Staff Experience Survey. Whether you are an academic or researcher, or have a support, technical or professional role, do please take this opportunity to tell us about your experience. Your voice is critical to ensuring that we think about how we can make our University a great place to work, and to keep delivering on our mission and teaching, research and the advancement of learning.
I know that some of you have been asking to hear more about what's happening with the strategic plan for the University. Well, I'm pleased to be able to let you know that there will be more on this very soon. Council and Conference of Colleges have been discussing our next plan in recent months, and the draft plan will be shared more widely from April for comment and feedback: thank you to everyone who has worked so hard on this.
Well, that's it for now: if you have any questions or feedback, I look forward to hearing from you. I wish you all the very best, and I really hope that you can take some time to rest over the Easter break. Take care and thank you.
