Prospectus for Change

Background

Since 2019, the University has made good progress with achieving its vision as outlined in our strategy Practical Wisdom: Brighton 2025. This has included:

• Strengthening the University’s finances and returning us to a position where we are now able to consider opportunities for strategic investment.
• Reviewing our academic and professional services structures to deliver the best possible academic and wider experience for our students culminating in the introduction of new structures from the start of the 2021–22 academic year, including our seven new schools.
• The completion of the Big Build redevelopment of our Moulsecoomb campus, including five new halls of residence, a purpose-built new home for our School of Business and Law (Elm House) and a range of fitness facilities and Students’ Union facilities.

The Big Build has demonstrated what can be achieved in creating modern, high-quality teaching, residential and leisure facilities that are accessible and contribute to our net-zero carbon ambition. It has underlined the importance of our estate as an enabler for our academic ambitions and for our ability to perform successfully in a highly competitive recruitment environment. The conclusion of this phase of our estate strategy led us naturally to consider the next stage of its development in support of Practical Wisdom: Brighton 2025, and what foundations we lay for the University’s long-term future.

In October 2021, we published our Prospectus for Change for consultation. This set out the University’s bold and ambitious plan for the next phase of our strategy and how the evolution of our estate will support us in further developing a compelling experience for our students. It included proposals to ensure that our new schools, some of which are split geographically across multiple locations, are co-located on a single campus, allowing our schools to develop their own distinctive culture, to support collaboration and partnership across related academic disciplines and to better enable each school to deliver its academic vision.

The proposals were informed by a detailed picture of our estate and facilities, focusing on key issues such as running costs, carbon emissions, accessibility, maintenance requirements and long-term requirements for investment. It was clear that important decisions were required to ensure that we can maintain and develop our estate to achieve the following objectives:

• To deliver on our academic vision by co-locating our academic schools on single campuses.
• To create facilities for student learning and for staff which reflect the ambitions of a modern university.
• To create dynamic and accessible campuses that support our goal of becoming a net-zero carbon university.
• To create an affordable estate for the long term.

Elm House in Moulsecoomb

Outcome of the public consultation

To inform our thinking and develop a firm proposition for our future estate and facilities, we undertook a six-week public consultation between 27 October and 10 December 2021.

We actively sought views from a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure we had a clear picture of the impacts – both positive and negative – before any final decisions were made. More than 700 responses were received, with the majority agreeing that the proposals would enable the University to meet our objectives.

A consultation summary report and Equalities Impact Assessment was shared with the University Executive Board and the Board of Governors in January 2022 and the plans contained in our Prospectus for Change have now been approved.

Our plans

We will now:

• Consolidate the University’s provision on three campuses in Brighton – at Falmer, Moulsecoomb and City – leading to the closure of our campus in Eastbourne and the Leaf Hospital from the start of the academic year 2024–25.
• Bring together the new School of Sport and Health Sciences on our Falmer campus, moving the provision currently based at Eastbourne to Falmer by the start of the 2024–25 academic year. This has been enabled by the buying back of the long lease for the site formerly occupied by Virgin Active and the redesign of those facilities to meet our needs.
• Bring together the new School of Humanities and Social Science in Mithras House on our redeveloped Moulsecoomb campus, co-locating it from its current sites at the Falmer and City campuses by the start of the 2023–24 academic year. Significant investment and redesigned facilities will deliver an estate that supports the pedagogic ambitions of the school.

We believe that these changes will allow the University to achieve its objectives – making the best use of our existing resources and focusing investment on managing the sustainable modernisation of our estate.

We will deliver new and distinctive campus ‘hubs’ to provide students with lively and vibrant focal points, acting as natural meeting places to socialise, access services and feel part of the campus community.

We will bring together student-facing support services, food and drink outlets, shops and other amenities in an active and socially engaging environment.

And we will provide our staff with the facilities to deliver their teaching in a modern environment as well as supporting their research and knowledge exchange.

Timeline

October 2021
Proposals made and consultation opened

January 2022
Outcomes of consultation announced

September 2023
School of Humanities and Social Science moves to Mithras House for 2023–24 academic year

September 2024
School of Sport and Health Science moves to Falmer for 2024–25 academic year; University operates from three campuses

2024 onwards
Further estates development to support strategy

Impact of plans

We have developed a clear picture of the impacts that the changes we are now making will have on our staff and current and future students. Our plans will mean that:

1. The School of Sport and Health Sciences will move to Falmer in 2024–25 at which point the University’s campus in Eastbourne will close.

2. The Leaf Hospital in Eastbourne will close as of the start of the academic year 2024–25. The way in which the University delivers podiatry placements will be subject to further discussions with staff at the Leaf Hospital and our NHS partners. Discussions will be influenced by the changing funding priorities for Eastbourne and Hailsham Clinical Commissioning Groups and the end of the current service contract in July 2023.

3. The School of Humanities and Social Science will move to Mithras House for the start of the academic year 2023–24.

4. Some students already registered with the University will be impacted by the changes. This includes undergraduate students in the School of Humanities and Social Science who started in 2021–22, who will move to Mithras House to conclude their final year of study in the academic year 2023–24.

Also impacted will be students who started foundation years and four-year courses in the School of Sport and Health Sciences in 2021–22, who will move to Falmer to conclude their final year of study in 2024–25.

Postgraduate research students in both schools may also be impacted.

The University will now begin to plan in detail for these moves. This will include writing to those students who are impacted before the Easter 2022 vacation to explain how they will be affected. We will share all the relevant information with students about these changes, including how we will ensure that courses can continue to be delivered with equivalent access to physical resources as well as to teaching. At that time, we will also invite students to submit written comments and/or attend a course meeting so that we can ensure that their views help inform our detailed planning. We will work with students as groups and individually to address any particular concerns moves might raise, for example from an equalities perspective. Through this approach we are confident that we will maintain the quality of the student experience throughout.

5. For students joining courses in the two schools from the 2022–23 academic year onwards, the University will take the opportunity through the application process and associated published course information and communications to brief applicants about campus moves at the point at which they are making a decision to study with us.

The approaches outlined above for engaging with current and future students will ensure that the University meets its obligations under consumer law and as set out in its Student Protection Plan.

Atrium, Checkland Building, Falmer