Contents Page

Papers for the General Council Meeting on 15 June 2019

1 Formal communications from the University Court 2

2 Report of the Academic Standing Committee 3

3 Report of the Constitutional Standing Committee 4

4 Report of the Finance and Services Standing Committee 4

5 Report of the Public Affairs Standing Committee 5

6 Meetings of the Business Committee 6

Papers from the General Council Meeting on 16 February 2019

A Presentation on the Annual Report by Principal 6 B Presentation of the Report of the Business Committee 24

General Council Meeting of 15 June 2019: Annex to Billet

Papers for the General Council Meeting on 15 June 2019

1 Formal communications from the University Court

The following Draft Resolutions have been received:

6/2019 Foundation of a Personal Chair of Fluid Mechanics7/2019 Code of Student Conduct8/2019 Foundation of a Baillie Gifford Chair of Data and AI Ethics9/2019 Foundation of a Personal Chair of Numerical Analysis

10/2019 Alteration of the title of the Chair of Black Studies11/2019 Foundation of a Personal Chair of Africana Philosophy and Black Male Studies12/2019 Foundation of a Chair of Design Informatics13/2019 Foundation of a Personal Chair of Applied Economics14/2019 Undergraduate Degree Programme Regulations15/2019 Postgraduate Degree Programme Regulations16/201917/201918/2019

19/201920/201921/201922/201923/201924/201925/201926/201927/201928/201929/201930/201931/201932/201933/201934/201935/201936/201937/201938/201939/201940/201941/201942/201943/201944/201945/201946/201947/201948/2019

Higher Degree Programme RegulationsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Global and African HistoryFoundation of a Personal Chair of Cognitive Science of Language and MultilingualismFoundation of a Personal Chair of Greek HistoryFoundation of a Personal Chair of Speech, Language and CognitionFoundation of a Personal Chair of Natural Science and TheologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Environmental LawFoundation of a Personal Chair of Emotions and SocietyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Anthropology of MigrationFoundation of a Personal Chair of Public Health in Social ScienceFoundation of a Personal Chair of Pacific and Postcolonial LiteratureFoundation of a Personal Chair of School Exclusion and Restorative PracticeFoundation of a Personal Chair of Student Learning (University Education)Foundation of a Personal Chair of Experimental NeuropsychologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Italian and Comparative LiteratureFoundation of a Personal Chair of Student Learning (Place-Based Education)Foundation of a Personal Chair of Language DevelopmentFoundation of a Personal Chair of Political HistoryFoundation of a Personal Chair of Uncertainty ModellingFoundation of a Personal Chair of Cognitive LinguisticsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Renaissance Visual and Material CulturesFoundation of a Personal Chair of Critical Design and Architectural CultureFoundation of a Personal Chair of Molecular Diagnostics and InfectionFoundation of a Personal Chair of Equine CardiologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Host Defence and Inflammation BiologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Avian BiologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Epidemiology and Global HealthFoundation of a Personal Chair of Epigenetics and MetabolismFoundation of a Personal Chair of Diabetic MedicineFoundation of a Personal Chair of Global Surgery and Data ScienceFoundation of a Personal Chair of Medical EducationFoundation of a Personal Chair of Glaciology and GeophysicsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Microbial Genetics and BiotechnologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Complex Systems

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49/201950/201951/201952/201953/201954/201955/201956/201957/201958/201959/201960/201961/201962/201963/201964/201965/201966/2019

Foundation of a Personal Chair of Medical and Biological SpectroscopyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Supramolecular ChemistryFoundation of a Personal Chair of Applied BiologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Bacterial Systems BiologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Environmental GeochemistryFoundation of a Personal Chair of Mathematical BiologyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Computer GraphicsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Networked SystemsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Biology EducationFoundation of a Personal Chair of Environment and SocietyFoundation of a Personal Chair of Computational ChemistryFoundation of a Personal Chair of Dispersive EquationsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Gravitational DynamicsFoundation of a Personal Chair of Artificial IntelligenceFoundation of a Personal Chair of Chemistry EducationFoundation of a Personal Chair of Health GeographiesFoundation of a Personal Chair of Machine Learning and Computer Vision

2 Report of the Academic Standing Committee for the General Council meeting on 15 June 2019

Convener of the Academic Standing Committee: Professor Stephen HillierThe Academic Standing Committee’s remit includes consideration of all matters relating to teaching and research and the provision of facilities that impinge on the academic life of the University. This academic session’s priorities are equality and liberty, including physical disability.

A meeting of the ASC was held on Thursday 24 January 2019 with Professor Jane Norman (Vice Principal People and Culture), to consider student disability. Professor Norman explained that the former Principal commissioned a review panel to assess disability provision and make recommendations.

Committee learned that a ‘disability’, defined by the Student Disability Service, includes ‘hidden disabilities’ that are not obvious. Around 9% of students and 3% of staff have a declared disability. Engagement with the disability agenda was addressed by surveying 3018 students with disability adjustments in place. Only 8% had responded although the majority of these were satisfied with progress. The value of this metric is uncertain, since it is likely that mainly those students who were unsatisfied with their personal situation would have opted into the survey.

Accessibility remains an issue. Members heard that the University Estate comprises 550 buildings, ranging from ancient to modern. There is now ‘a statement of aspiration’ applying to new buildings and refurbishments but it is a work in progress and it is likely to take a further 5-10 years for implementation. There is continuous monitoring and co-ordination of activity between Estates and Health & Safety, to ensure that recommendations are correctly understood and implemented. Committee agreed this to be a critically important aspect of University life, which should continue to receive whole scale attention.

ASC was also updated on progress with the various liberation and diversity campaigns (Black Minority Ethnic, Disability, LGBT+ and Women) that have been launched across the University. At its meeting on 17 April 2019 with Diva Mukherji (EUSA VP Education) and Kai O’Doherty (EUSA VP Welfare) the Committee was informed how these campaigns particularly benefit individuals in marginalized communities such as LGBT+ students. However, there is a continuing challenge to join up students, staff and resources towards individual campaign success. Worryingly, mental health is an issue for all of the liberation campaigns. Pressures on University support services in this regard continue to rise. Peer support schemes are being piloted and special circumstances policy relating to mental health is being reviewed. An annual mental

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health and wellbeing week has been introduced to raise awareness of issues among students and staff. A new liberation campaign – trans/non-binary – will be launched next year.

Sexual and gender-based violence also tackled by EUSA. #NoExcuse aims to encourage everyone to take collective responsibility for ending sexual harassment and violence on campus. A perceived institutional strength of Edinburgh is its performance in the Athena Swan scheme, which recognizes advancement of gender equality. However, the University has no Equality and Diversity Committee, felt by students to be an impediment to the broader equality and liberation agenda.

3 Report of the Constitutional Standing Committeefor the General Council meeting on 15 June 2019

Convener of the Constitutional Standing Committee: Professor David Munro

The Constitutional Standing Committee (CSC) has met four times this academic session; the most recent meeting took place on March 20th. The focus of its work continued to be in reviewing and updating the Constitutional Arrangements for the Working of the University of Edinburgh General Council and its Business Committee.

CSC considered drafts of revised sections beginning with a new introductory section on ‘The Legal Context’, which aims to provide a general lay introduction to the statutes and ordinances within which the General Council operates. Key elements of the relevant legislation and ordinances, formerly listed in Section I, will be collated in an Appendix at the end of the revised Constitutional Arrangements.

CSC went on to consider revised drafts dealing with General Council Membership, registration, statutory powers and responsibilities and the conduct of meetings; election of Chancellor; appointment of General Council Assessors; the composition and functions of the Business Committee; the formation and remit of standing committees; and the formation and remit of short life search committees and working groups.

At the end of the meeting, a timetable for the completion of its review of the Constitutional Arrangements was discussed, the aim being to present the final document to the Business Committee for approval in the autumn prior to its presentation to General Council at its Half-Yearly Meeting in February 2020.

4 Report of the Finance and Services Standing Committeefor the General Council meeting on 15 June 2019

Convener of the Finance and Services Standing Committee: Mr Jock Millican The Finance and Services Standing Committee of the Business Committee met with Lee Hamill, the new Finance Director. Lee had previously been Deputy Finance Director. Lee gave a short presentation on the Annual Report and Accounts to 31st July 2018. This was followed by a robust and interesting question and answer session.

The Report is integrated so that it is informative, transparent and accessible to all stakeholders with achievements shown against the Strategic Plan objectives. Layout is continually evolving and improving e.g. introduction of ‘Material Issues’ highlights key issues such as Pensions, Brexit, City Region Deal and Student Experience and the risks and opportunities involved.

The Report also ensures that stakeholders are clear on understanding and managing risk which is under constant review. Hugh Edmiston, Director of Corporate Services, chairs the Risk Management Committee which meets quarterly to assess management of strategic and operational risk and reports to the Court. University’s willingness to take risks is shown but not with reputation or health and safety.

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Ongoing discussions about the future size/shape of the University conclude that there shouldn’t be too much growth but instead a rebalancing of student numbers and concentration on the efficiency of systems and processes.

The FSSC also met with James Saville, Director of HR. James joined the University one year ago after a career that has been in HR in food manufacturing, financial services and the Civil Service. We had a very open and candid meeting covering a variety of topics including service excellence, pensions and pay, EU members of staff and ability to recruit them and staff experience survey.

James indicated that key to improving the current situation was better, more consistent communication of the issues and what was happening. Service excellence needed to be consistent is the approach to improving it, while having enough flexibility to accommodate the differences in the colleges. He felt that the work being done by the senior management team on values is critical and will be a basis for the developing approach.

The FSSC recently met with Gary Jebb, Director of Estates. He outlined the how the developments and refurbishments are now co-ordinated with the overall strategy for the University. He outlined the average expected spend per year over the next 10 years and then detailed the major projects that will occur. With planning requirements, designing and building times it is vital to have them identified at an early stage. The committee’s questions were answered frankly. It was a very useful meeting and Gary will be invited back in the future.

5 Report of the Public Affairs Standing Committeefor the General Council Meeting on 15 June 2019

Convener of the Public Affairs Standing Committee: Ms Sophie Marshall

The Public Affairs Standing Committee (PASC)’s focus on community has continued since my last report, hearing more from the student perspective with a meeting where we heard from EUSA sabbatical officer, Georgie Harris and most recently, April’s meeting where we received an update of the work of Development and Alumni.

In the presentation from Georgie Harris, the EUSA Vice President Community, we heard about student integration into the local community and the many successes that have come from the EUSA volunteering service, with over 3500 students engaged in regular volunteering activities. She also told PASC that the pressures of student accommodation, in turn put pressure on local communities and students themselves, particularly as communities sometimes viewed students as synonymous with the University’s expansion.

In April PASC met with Grant Spence, the Director of Alumni Relations and Rachelle Norry, Head of Alumni Engagement and heard about the University’s new alumni relations model. The model is to be more holistic and community focused, with a less specific emphasis on fundraising. It will have a greater focus on the student experience, viewing the entire alumni journey as opposed to starting once a student has left the University. Alumni Relations are also considering how there can be better links between alumni and current students to promote the intergenerational exchange of ideas and experiences. There have already been a number of successful initiatives to date, including The Insights Programme, and the launch of an online community, Platform One, is a further way for the University community to connect.

Our final meeting of the session will be with Theresa Merrick, Director of Communications and Marketing looking at the University’s communication strategy and it will give us time over the summer to reflect upon the General Council’s own approach to communication and engagement.

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6 Meetings of the Business Committee

The Committee has met twice since its last published Report, viz. 21 February 2019 and 9 May 2019

Papers from the General Council Meeting on 16 February 2019

A Presentation of the Annual Report of the Universityat the General Council Meeting on 16 February 2019

Principal and Vice-Chancellor: Professor Peter MathiesonPrincipal: My name is Peter Mathieson for those of you that haven't met me before. There's a particular pleasure to add my greetings to those joining us online from elsewhere in the world. I think that's a very helpful precedent, if I may say so, Secretary. I think we might think about broadening that and maybe even changing our timing of meetings to let people from other parts of the world join us in future. My task is to give you a report. I'm going to do that in three parts.

I thought I'd start off with some general remarks about the state of your University. I’ve then got a series of slides, most of which are lists, and I'll run through them relatively quickly because the information on the slides is largely drawn from the Annual Review, which you've got a copy of outside.

But it's to try to illustrate to you some of the examples of some of the excellent things which are going on in your University and it can only ever be a sample, so I apologize to anybody whose examples are not included in that report. And then at the end I'll talk a little bit about the future, which I hope will be of interest to members.

As Harriet said in her introductory remarks, it's now almost exactly a year, just over a year, since I arrived. One of my first duties in the job was to address the meeting of the General Council this time last year. I'd probably been here two weeks at the time. So that was in some ways easy, because I didn't know anything about the University and I couldn't be held responsible for anything. I recognize that a year on neither of those things are still true, so I've been saying to people I do have this slightly strange feeling at the moment. Part of me feels as if I've never been anywhere else, and part of me feels as if I've still only just been here for five minutes. It's kind of curious starting to understand it, but still recognizing that I've got a lot to learn and that there's a lot that I don't know.

Some of the year that I'm reporting on was actually predating my arrival, because I'm reporting on the academic year 17/18 and I only arrived halfway through that academic year. I've been here a year, and what would I say about the University of Edinburgh? Well some things I already knew, and if anything, my year here has just confirmed those.

I already knew that the University was a wonderful organization with tremendous heritage, with a reputation to be very proud of, with fabulous history of achievements, in both research and education and knowledge exchange and civic contribution. I knew about City Deal, which was mentioned a couple of times in some of student's remarks.

I'm very happy to say more about City Deal, although I wasn't going to cover it in my slides, but City Deal is just an example of the way a university like this one should be thinking about its future. That was created before I arrived, so I can take no credit at all for the creation of City Deal.

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For those of you that don't know about City Deal, basically it's a group of initiatives based around what we call data driven innovation. The University of Edinburgh is extraordinarily good at data science, it's been extraordinarily good at data science for many years. It was the second university on the planet to teach artificial intelligence: only Stanford taught before Edinburgh.

We’ve been teaching artificial intelligence since the 1960s when it was not fashionable and we've continued to teach it through a period when it was unfashionable, until a period now where everybody's talking about artificial intelligence, so building on that heritage, people in the University created this notion of data science as applied to the future.Data science particularly as applied to education in the community, as applied to industrial linkages, as applied to the world's great challenges, public health, cyber security, clean energy, clean air, water supplies, etc. and the application of our expertise and our heritage in data science to addressing some of these major issues.

That’s basically what underlies City Deal; it's an injection of government cash, mostly from the UK government, some from the Scottish government, with the 237 million pounds that we receive in total from the UK government being the largest grant ever made to any university in the UK, so, it's a very significant injection of government cash.

It has to be matched by us and by other partners. The matching funds bring the total funding of the City Deal. The £237M is just what comes to us, but the total funding is well over a billion pounds over a period of about eight to ten years. It’s a really exciting injection of cash to help us. It’s mostly capital, so it's mostly around buildings or modernization of buildings. It's not revenue so it doesn't allow the funding of revenue expenditure including salaries but it is a cash injection to support the University in doing some of the things that it wishes to do to capitalize on its expertise in data science.

I can say more about it but that's just it in a nutshell, it's a very exciting set up projects. We've made some really bold promises. My job is to oversee the delivery of those promises, and I take that responsibility very seriously and I would just report to you that so far it's going very well.We're ahead of the performance indicators that were set for us. The writing of the business plan, so that the government will release charges of this money, is going very well. We believe that even if the government changes, which of course is a possibility; if the government changes, we believe that these promises will endure beyond any change of government. We have good reasons for being reassured on that. This is going to be an important part of the University's wherefore some years going forward. That's just one example, but there are many others I could give you, but the University's in a strong position.

We have some, what I've been describing as icebergs ahead. We have some hazards that are approaching us as we navigate the next few months and years. Clearly Brexit is one of them, I'll say more about that at the end. There's also an ongoing dispute about pay. The University, the sector, the higher education sector, is in dispute with its staff about pay.

The trade unions are currently balancing their response to that so that's a potential problem that may still not yet be solved. You'll remember that one of my pressing tasks on my return to the UK from a few years overseas was the industrial dispute around the USS pension, which affected this and a number of other universities, and caused a very bitter and protracted period of dispute between the universities and their staff. It was a very unpleasant and challenging period for the staff, and for the management, and indeed for the students. That industrial dispute was eventually resolved, but it was resolved by a mechanism, which actually didn't really solve anything.It really it just delayed resolution of the problem and the pensions issue is far from solved, and there are lots of discussions going to try and address why that is, but that's another issue which is still going to need to be solved. That’s another issue which could, in theory at least, lead to further industrial action. We hope that it doesn't, but that's a problem which is being moved rather than solved.

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Then there's the review of tuition fee funding in England led by a person called Philip Augar. It's known as the Augar Review, or the review of the funding of post 18 education. Now, it is in England and so there's a bit of a tendency for anyone this side of the border to say well, that's England, we don't need to worry about it. Actually, we do need to worry about it, because 20% of our students come from England, also implications for funding of higher education in England cannot be ignored by the devolved nations. We think that there are very serious connotations for Scotland and for Edinburgh, depending on quite what the Augar review recommends, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely that they will leave tuition fees where they are, so they're likely and they said they will cut tuition fees in England.

The widely touted figures are they'll cut it from the present £9,250 for an undergraduate year to £7,500. We don't know if that's true or not but that seems to be increasingly the rumour. That cut would have major implications for our income. And if the cut was replaced by an increase in educational grants from the UK government to universities in England to make up for that shortfall, that would need to be followed in Scotland by a formulaic translation of that money into Scotland.

There are two or three different ways that that could happen: we would not be guaranteed to get the same top-up that English universities would get in the event of a top-up. We don't even know if there's going to be a top-up. If there would be a top-up, it's likely that it wouldn't be comprehensive, it would be targeted on expensive subjects, particularly STEM subjects.We don't actually know whether medicine and dentistry would be included in that cut, if there is a cut, but obviously, there are a number of other science subjects which are expensive to provide, and the belief is that any educational fund top-up is likely to be targeted at those expensive subjects.

There are two or three potential unintended consequences of that. You could see a situation where the arts, humanities and social sciences are disadvantaged. That would be something that we've largely warned the treasury about and you could see that students from widening participation backgrounds are discouraged from studying the so-called more expensive subjects, which would be a really serious, unintended consequence.

We, and others, have been making a lot of noise to the UK government to try to alert them to some of these dangers, but that's certainly another area of uncertainty at the moment. The Augar report was set originally as going to be published some time ago. It's currently withheld and will be published in February, but the latest is that it probably won't. It'll probably be published either, depending on what happens with other things that the UK government is wrestling with, it may be published around the time of the spending review and it may be published as a manifesto item for a future general election. We just don't know, but, certainly, these produced these major issues. Pensions, pay, tuition fees and, of course, Brexit, have major implications for the future funding of the University and we need to have contingency plans to deal with all of those. Again, all I can tell you in brief summary is that we are working very hard to understand the potential implications of all of those things, including the dreaded no deal Brexit.

I think the University of Edinburgh is as well placed as any university in the UK to withstand these turbulences and to navigate these icebergs. But there's no question that, depending a little bit whether they all land at once and scale and severity of them, this could have very major implications for our other plans. Whilst we're planning boldly in terms of capital development and in terms of the various things that we might improve or modify, we do have to do it in the context of being fiscally responsible and dealing with these various issues. I would say, the University of Edinburgh is in pretty robust shape, but we can't be complacent about the fact that everything's going to be smooth for the next year or two.

I'm just going to give you a few facts. These are some figures, and again, we'll provide these slides, but most of them are available too from other sources. This is just some information about the student body at the University, divided by the three Colleges according to where they come from on entry to the University.

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This is by College on this side, and you'll see that 59% of our student body is in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. It's easily the biggest College, with 25% in Science and Engineering, and Medicine and Veterinary Medicine accounting for 16% or 6,000 students, a total down here of 41,000 students.

This is now a very sizeable university: 41,000 students. It's not the biggest in the UK but it's amongst the biggest. One issue that Tracey and I, and others, have spent a lot of time thinking about in my first year here is the size and shape of the University. I'll say more about that at the end. There is no doubt that the University's grown very substantially in recent years to reach this figure of 41,000. I suppose philosophically, the question is, is 41,000 big enough? Do we want to be bigger, smaller, or stay the same?

If I just briefly summarize where we've got to in our thinking about that, we think that the University probably has grown to a size that is big enough. We think that over the next eight to ten years the overall size of the university will probably stay roughly the same. Within that, there will be growth in some areas, and there will be shrinkage in others. These external influences that I talked about, perhaps particularly Brexit, will influence those areas which grow and shrink but overall, we don't believe that the University needs to grow for growth's sake, we think it's big enough at around that size.

Of course, this doesn't take in our online provision. We have two and a half million students signed up to our MOOCS, or Massive Open Online Courses, so we could present that your University has two and a half million students. The capacity to expand our live provision is effectively infinite, but this is talking here about on-campus students. If you look where they come from, these are the breakdown figures here. So roughly, a third of the students come from Scotland, just under; roughly a third come from international, in other words outside the EU; and roughly a third come from the IUK. It's not quite a third for these numbers as you can see.

The Scottish students and the EU students are bracketed together because of the tuition fee guarantee. 42% of our students in total are in that category whose tuition fees are supported by the Scottish government. Their education is not free, and it irritates me, and I've said this both publicly and in writing, when people talk about free university education, it's not free.If you want a good quality education someone has to pay for it. It's only free in the sense that the students don't pay tuition fees. Someone has to pay. The Scottish government in this case has to pay, and they don't give us enough. This tells you about how those student numbers break down.This is the same number at the bottom here, 41,000 and in total. The overall breakdown is a substantial majority of undergraduate students. So well more than half of our student population is undergraduate, just around 10,000 are postgraduate taught students, and 5,500 are postgraduate research students and their breakdown between the Colleges is in this way.

So again, in every category as you'd expect, the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences is the biggest but this gives you the breakdown in total. One thing that we might change is the size and shape of the University. What we think might change is the proportion of our provision which is to undergraduates. At the moment, as you see, it's predominantly undergraduate, but we think that that may shift because that may reflect student demand. This slide similar to this was shown last year when, as you may remember Charlie Jeffery did the annual report because I'd only just arrived and he kindly agreed to report on the year.

In that presentation, he reported that, for the first time last year, the number of students from China, and here this means greater China, so it's mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau and Taiwan, last year for the first time, the number of students from China had just exceeded the number from the United States of America. That was the first time that it happened last year. You can see that this year that that growth has

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continued and in fact now, there's quite a significant difference in the number of students from China. China and the United States together account for an extraordinary proportion of our overseas students.

In the current year group it's around 4,000 from Greater China, so that growth is still continuing. That raises all sorts of issues which people may want to pick up. Sorry, Hong Kong is picked out separately here, I should say. But then these are the other countries, and you can see that there are relatively small numbers from many other countries.

There’s interesting questions raised for us about whether we should target growth in any of these other areas. I should say I've been visiting the schools of the University during my first year. I've tried to get around them and I've got around more than half of them so far. One figure that lives in my mind is when I visited the School of Education down at Moray House. There was one post-graduate programme, in which there were 48 students enrolled in the programme and 47 of those students were from Mainland China, so that's a kind of extraordinary representation of the way this large group of students from oversees nations can influence our student populations.

This clearly raises lots of issues about how do you make sure those students get a truly international experience. If their class is almost entirely from one particular nation, then we have to try and provide their international experience in other ways. We’ve got thoughts about how to do that, where they live, with their social activities, with their sporting activities, and various other ways of trying to ensure integration.

This tells you something about the health of the University, the applications and the acceptances here. The brief headline is that we get roughly ten applications for every place that we can accept. So we are heavily oversubscribed with students. When I talk at the end about student satisfaction and the work that we're trying to do to address issues around student satisfaction, one argument you might make is well, we can't be doing too bad of a job if we've got ten times as many students that want to come here as we can cope with. This continues to be true; we can't necessarily guarantee that that will continue to be the case but I would predict for the future that we will be oversubscribed with students. To me, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't pay attention to what happens to the students when they get here.

We are at least in a healthy position in terms of many students wanting to come. You could see that the figures, these are the previous two years underneath, you could see that the figures haven't changed very substantially. We get more applications from women than we do from men.That's true for nearly all the universities, I think probably all the universities in the UK. We accept roughly in the similar proportions, as I say we're ten to one oversubscribed. Briefly, the finances again, lots of details available for you in the financial report. We didn't quite make a billion pounds turnover, much to the disappointment of the recently retired Finance Director who wanted to be able to retire saying that he'd been the Finance Director of a billion pound organization. We didn't quite make it. But we will definitely exceed a billion pounds in turnover this year. So this is again, as judged by turnover, a very large organization with a turnover of around a billion pounds.

You can see the expenditure here, fortunately for us, was less than our income. These are the ways the figures break down: so substantial contribution from tuition fees and other education contract; big contribution from research income, that's growing. Again, in the latter part of 2018, that grew even further. Funding body grants giving us total assets of 2.2 billion. So again, as judged by these numbers, a very substantial organisation in good financial health but with some challenges ahead.

So I know in last year's slides, and I think in previous years, you've tended to have great, long lists of appointments in the Colleges. I've decided not to do that because I think it's all available to you from other sources. This just summarises the numbers. So new appointments, healthy numbers in all three Colleges, but I would say that staff turnover is relatively low. We don't have major issues of staff turnover, including

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EU staff. There’s clearly a worry that staff from the EU may feel that, with Brexit and with the uncertainties of our future immigration policy, that they should think about leaving.

We know that a lot of the staff from the EU, and indeed overseas staff from outside the EU, are nervous about the current situation. We know that because they tell us, but at the moment we haven't seen major changes in turnover of EU staff or indeed non-EU staff, and I think that's very welcome.

We do see these numbers in terms of new appointments. The University's awarded 42 honorary degrees in this academic year. Again, I've made no secret of my opinion that the University of Edinburgh awards too many honorary degrees and under my leadership, we will award fewer. But there were still 42 last year and I’ll tell about some of them in a moment. EUSA is the Edinburgh University Students' Association. You'll know that they have a whole series of award schemes. Perhaps the most prestigious of those awards schemes are the awards that they nominate and give themselves for teaching and in the academic year of 17/18, they received over 1,600 nominations for nearly 800 staff.

So there are a very high number of staff that are very highly regarded by the student population for their teaching contributions. These names here indicate some of the awards that they've given. So the Best Implementer of Student Feedback, that was awarded to Sakie Chiba-Mooney in the LLC. The Best Assessment Feedback Award by Dr. Eleoma Bodammer also in LLC. So feedback and assessment are two of the really contentious areas for universities to do well and for students to feel concerned about. You can see that at least in some parts of our University, there are people leading this area at a very high standard, recognized by the students.

I think when we think about how to improve various aspects of student satisfaction, we should be looking to the bits of the University where it's already very good, and try to spread those best practices across to other parts. We're also reviewing the University's Personal Tutor scheme. Last year, the award for the Best Personal Tutor was won by Dr Jamie Cole in Physics and Astronomy, and Katherine Inglis, again in LLC.

LLC does well in these awards, won the best practice in inclusive learning and teaching. So great recognition of some excellent practice. Of course, there are many, many other excellent teachers across the University included in this 1600 nominations and maybe in some cases not. This is another long list, which I won't read them all out, but the teaching awards have all sorts of other categories. Best Student Who Tutors, Best Support Staff (I want to get rid of this term). As many of you heard me say, I think it should be called Professional Services rather than Support Staff. But, anyway, that's up for the EUSA to describe their prizes.

Best Supervisor, Best Course, Best Overall Teacher. So again, more evidence, I think, of the excellence of our staff and the way that they're appreciated by our students. The University also makes awards for various other categories, including various staff awards. We have a set of awards called a Chancellor's Award, that scholars are given in the name of our Chancellor, but decided by the Principal.

These were awards decided by my predecessor because they were 2017. These are to pick out particular examples of innovation, or relevance, or creativity, or going beyond the day job, if you like, to extreme personal dedication to teaching and research. In 2017, the Teaching Award was awarded jointly to Professor Charles Cockell, School of Physics and Astronomy, and to Professor Alison Koslowski in Social and Political Science. The Research Award was awarded to Professor Polly Arnold in our School of Chemistry, one of the University's real rising stars, if you've not met her. The Impact Award was awarded to Professor Francisca Mutapi, who's a remarkable Professor of African origin doing work of great impact in health in Africa, but doing it in Edinburgh. She won an award for the School of Biological Sciences.

The Rising Star Award was to another one of the University's great stars, Devi Sridhar. A young woman who is leading some of the work in the Usher Institute, which is our Institute of Population of Health Sciences and Informatics, critically important to the City Deal which I mentioned earlier on, jointly with Dr. Mirko

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Canevaro in History, Classics, and Archaeology. These are some of our great stars. We have many, many more.

The Principal's Medals that are open to professional services and academic staff and also to students, are awarded in recognition of outstanding contribution to some aspect of the University’s function and/or to the wider community.

In 2017 the Exceptional Service Medal was awarded to Professor Aziz Sheikh, one of the most prolific researchers in the University. Aziz has the most incredible research publication and grant funding record. Truly remarkable in my experience and he is recognized with this award particularly for his work in establishing the Allergy and Respiratory Research Group. Actually, Aziz does many other things as well, he’s a really remarkable individual.

The Service to the Community medal, this went to undergraduates Alexandros Angelopoulos and Sam Kellerhals in the School of GeoSciences. They worked on a project called Project Elpis, which is targeting people in refugee camps in Greece, to try and connect them to their country of origin using modern mobile phone technology. Again, real impact way beyond Edinburgh.

The University also awards the Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science. This can be either given to an individual or a group. If none of you have looked at Curious Edinburgh, I'd recommend it. It's an app, which allows you to, especially if you're a newcomer to Edinburgh like me, to understand some of the interesting places in the city that you can go. Niki Vermeulen and Bill Jenkins are responsible for the creation of this. It's well worth using. It describes bits of information about Edinburgh, which I gather even long standing citizens of the city sometimes find as a surprise.

Other ways in which our staff and students are recognized include the Queen's Honours. In the New Year's Honours List 2018, Professor Iain Torrance, who is an honorary professor with us and, as you know, is the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, received a knighthood for services to the church theological education, interfaith dialogue, the army, and work to combat homophobia. Our own Lady Susan Rice, who's a member of the University Court, received a Damehood for services to business, the arts, and charity in Scotland.

The Commander of the Order of the British Empire was awarded to Professor Lesley McAra. As well as being Assistant Principal for Community Engagement, she was given the award for her services to her specialist field, which is Criminology. She is also the Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute, which is the entity that will occupy the former Royal Infirmary when it's fully developed, and which is part of the work going on in the City Deal.

Professor Andrew Morris, who is a medically qualified Academic physician, who's currently seconded most of his time to run a UK-wide institute for health data research, which is absolutely world leading, and Andrew is uniquely qualified to lead that. This award was for services to Science in Scotland, which is what really preceded his appointment to that job. The reason he was appointed to that job is because, what he's done is some really remarkable application of data sciences actually to the management of diabetes, leading to substantial reductions in the instance of diabetic complications and that started in a small scale in Dundee, where he worked in Dundee.It was then extended to the whole of Scotland, and is now being tested in Guangdong Province in Southern China, which has a population of 108 million. So going from 5 million in Scotland to 108 million in Guangdong Province represents real scale. And then Officer of the Order of the British Empire to Derek Bell, Honorary Professor in MVM and to Fiona Bradley who's an Honorary Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.

So again, tremendous awards for our staff. Margaret Frame, who many of you know is a leading cancer geneticist working in the University of Edinburgh to the Western General, was awarded the OBE as well for

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services to cancer research. Dr. Angela Thomas, another one of our honorary professors and Professor Kathryn Whaler in Geophysics.

And then, the Member of the Order of the British Empire to Ms. Hayley Walters, who also works out of the Vet School. In the next set of honours, which is the Birthday Honours list in 2018, we also received a number of recognitions. Alison Elliott, latterly Associate Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire, as was Professor Carole Hillenbrand and Dr. Ethel Quayle for the reasons cited here.

The Member of the Order of the British Empire to Professor Andrew Calder in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences and to Andy Chadwick who is an Honorary Professor in the College of Science and Engineering and one of the world's leading experts in carbon capture and sequestration; a very important strength of the University of Edinburgh.

In terms of recent recognition of some of our research excellence, people recognized for their lifetime achievements in research, included Emeritus Professor Sir Tom Devine, Professor Mark Steedman, Emeritus Professor Michael Rotter, and Professor Jean Beggs. These will be names I am sure are familiar to you because they have contributed to the University for many years.Noted for Life Time Achievement for other Individual Distinctions, a Medal of Honour to Bill Gilmore in Criminal Law. Philip Leverhulme Prize is a very prestigious prize awarded by the Leverhulme Foundation. Dr. Naomi Appleton, another one of our young rising stars, was awarded one of those.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Dr. Richard Henderson, a Physics alumnus of the University and Honorary Doctor of Science here, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for his work on cryo-electron microscopy which has been extraordinary important both in medical practice but also in medical research.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Michael Rosbash who was a former researcher here in Edinburgh. He has been a leading authority on circadian rhythm, which is basically the periodicity of functions in the body through the 24 hours of the day and night; extraordinarily important in biology right across the species.

Other highlights, and again, it's only possible to pick out a few of these, but in August 2017 our students did extraordinarily well in the competition called Hyperloop. So you'll have heard when we go to London in the future, we'll do it by getting into a pod, and be transported very fast down a tube to get to London. With some of our students leading some of this work, they were honoured in an international competition for their work, and it was on the Edinburgh to London route. So I don't know whether I'll live long enough see this happen, and I'm not really sure if I want to or not, but it's a very interesting concept.

The University invested a million pounds towards the end of 2017 in a partnership with Big Issue Invest, which is supporting social enterprises and charities, looking at social problems in Edinburgh and further afield. In October of 2017 work on infections in Africa, this will certainly feature in your June meeting.

We have some work to be very proud of in the way that we're contributing to some of the problems afflicting various parts of Africa. So later on in the year we publicized work on ice loss, so this is mapping the West Antarctic glacier. This is a multi-university collaboration, multinational collaboration.

I've already mentioned the Edinburgh Royal infirmary, so this is the schematic of the building here. It'll be known in the future as the Edinburgh Futures Institutes. It's going to be an absolutely iconic image, I think, for the University of Edinburgh. It's a huge building, it's currently a shell, but watch the developments. You won't be able to see very much from the outside, but I hope this will be a really significant part of the

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University's future. It’s being supported by an anonymous 10 million pound donation from an alumnus to help support the development of the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

At the beginning of 2018 the creation of a body called FinTech Scotland, which is highest in the University of Edinburgh, but not owned by us as it were, it’s hosted by Edinburgh Innovations. FinTech is basically the application of modern technology to the finance world, to banking, and to transactions. Scotland is a leading authority on FinTech and the fact that we're contributing to a Scottish initiative with the Scottish government on FinTech, I think is another source of pride for us.

We are committed to a low carbon future. You will have read and heard, I'm sure, that the University of Edinburgh is regarded as a sector leader in low carbon technology and in our commitment to become a carbon neutral organisation. We’ve got a number of areas where we can evidence that excellence.

We've also been proud of our involvement in a modern apprentice scheme. A UK wide scheme to encourage people that would otherwise not think of working in places like universities, to come and work and to learn their trade on the job as it were. This is a picture of Laura Ferguson, who's one of the people employed by the University under that scheme.

Our student athletes did fantastically well at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, winning nine medals, including eight in the swimming events and one of which was a gold in the springboard diving won by Grace Reid. The first ever, Scottish female diver to achieve this and one of our current students.

If any of you haven't seen this sculpture at Easter Bush, again, I recommend it. Unfortunately, it was raining on the day that the Chancellor opened it, but it's a thing of great beauty. Created by Andy Scott, who you'll know from The Kelpies. This is called Canter and it's outside the Charnock building at Easter Bush. A beautiful sculpture to symbolize the Vet School's excellence. In June, in the middle of 2018, we started work on what will be a substantial new development for students and their well being. Particularly centered in Bristo Square, but bringing together Counselling and Disability Services together with medical practice and pharmacy which at the moment are fragmented, but bringing them all under one roof.

We do a lot to encourage our students to shine. Edinburgh College of Art students partnered with the festivals to create costumes for the opening ceremony of the International Festival. This was, again, an iconic opportunity for the University to contribute to the city. Costumes were designed over a long period of time and they were a major feature of the opening ceremony and this was part of Scottish Government’s Year of Young People.

You may have read about our pioneering work in fertility. Edinburgh scientists, this really made international headlines, growing female egg cells outside the body so they can be used later for in-vitro fertilization. Here's a technology which will impact people particularly receiving treatment for cancer or other diseases during their years of fertility. Evelyn Telfer, working together with colleagues in New York, is leading this here.

This young man holding a chicken is Appolinaire Djikeng. He’s one of our great stars working in the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health. This is an alliance with SIUC and with an African institute, backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the aim, basically, is to improve the health and productivity of poultry and cattle on which large parts of Africa depend for their protein source, by modern molecular technologies. Appolinaire is a great star.Some of our students have promoted world peace. You’ll know that the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Some of our students contributed to some of these works so they share in the award, if you like, of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Thinking about the application of some of our excellence in Data Science to the National Health Service, we’ve taken a leading role in, particularly through the Usher Institute. I told you about, Aziz Sheikh. He and his colleagues have been working with colleagues UK wide to think about how the National Health Service in England can benefit from digital technology. I spent 19 years as a consultant to the National Health Service of England, and I can tell you it really does need to benefit from modern technology. The extent to which England is joined up in its ability to think about the delivery of healthcare is woeful compared to Scotland.

One of the reasons that Andrew Marshall is able to do what he did in Dundee was because Scotland has a unique patient identifier and digital systems that talk to one another. England doesn't have either of those things. Certainly digitisation has great potential to improve healthcare and this work's been done together with Imperial College and Harvard. They’ve created a thing called the NHS Digital Academy, which I'm certainly watching with interest because when I worked in the health service, the inability for x-ray departments in different hospitals or blood test departments in different hospitals to speak to another was a constant source of frustration.

One aspect of City Deal, which we're very proud of when we talk about what the City Deal means, is work that's going on in Newbattle Community High School. This is a school just redesigning itself and designating itself as a Digital Centre of Excellence. One of the academic staff, Professor Judy Robertson, has been leading some work together with the school where first of all the teachers are educated in data science, and then they, in turn, educate the pupils in data science.The aspiration for this school is that every graduate of this school will have a qualification in data science, which will equip them for the future. We now have five other schools that are interested in joining into this project so this has potential for real scale across the whole of Scotland.We’re very concerned to make sure that we're relevant to the city and the city's reaffirmed this in its renewal of the social impact pledge and establishing things like a Centre for the Homeless and Inclusion Health. Working with the NHS, with the City Council, and various other partners of the city and ensuring that our students are heavily engaged with some of their work in the community.

There is an issue for us about the way that we're seen by the city and this is a research project where people were asked about the University. Generally, the majority of people think the University's a good thing but if you ask them for the details of what they do, or have they ever used the facilities, or have they ever visited the University, or the University website, in this case the answer is often no. One thing that you've heard me talk about before is this question of the other 50%.

So in a developed society roughly 50% of that society will engage with a University. They'll know what the University does, or know students who'll go there, or they work at the University, or they know something about it. The other 50% will usually not know what a University does and in some cases will be hostile to the University and think it's for somebody else, it's not for them.My aspiration is to have the University as relevant to that 50% as it is to the other 50% that directly engages. So that's the conclusion to my report, I just wanted to finish with a few words on some of the things about the future. We're engaged at the moment in three very major pieces of work.One is a refresh of the Strategic Plan. The University's last Strategic Plan was published in 2016. When I first arrived we thought, rather than start with a new strategic plan, what we would do is, we would look at that strategic plan and we would refresh it where we felt it needed refreshing, particularly in response to some of the external events which had not been anticipated at the time that plan was written. But as this work has gone on it's become clear that actually what people have the appetite for is a much more radical rewrite of the Strategic Plan and thinking not just for the next three or four years, but thinking about a ten year vista.

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So we're now engaged in a much more substantial piece of work to produce a new Strategic Plan, which we hope will be much more distinctive and much more detailed than the current one. One aspect of this, and, again, I've written extensively on this subject and some of you will have read it, is around the idea that we base our thinking on values.

This will be relatively unusual, most universities don't approach their strategic pattern this way but I certainly think, and I think my colleagues would agree with me, that one of things that Scotland is respected for is its values and its tradition of educational excellence and of social responsibility. We think that this forms a very suitable backdrop for the future strategic part of the University.We want to align with strategically important goals. One possibility is that we align ourselves very closely with the United Nations Strategic Development Goals, the SDGs. Because they represent an analysis of what the world needs and they include big challenges like some of the ones I mentioned early on about cybersecurity, water, energy, food, and what not.

So identifying our strategic priorities, because we can't do everything, we have to focus on something, we have to prioritize our resources. We think if we do this on the background of a set of defined values which we've consulted upon, and then define some strategic priorities, this will be a very distinctive and exciting way forward for the University.

I mentioned student work on student satisfaction. So, again, it often comes as a surprise to people, especially when we're oversubscribed ten to one with students that want to come here, it often surprises people that actually the measures of student satisfaction suggests that our students are not terribly satisfied with certain aspects of their time here.

It's not actually about quality of teaching, it's actually much more about other things. It's about aspects of the infrastructure, it's about aspects of the communication, it's about the way the University works. We've started a whole series of pieces of work to address aspects of student satisfaction. Because we want the University to provide a better deal for our students.Even though we know that lots still want to come here, we still feel that there's pressure to do better when they get here. It's also become very clear that we can't think about student satisfaction without also thinking about staff satisfaction. The question of whether our staff is satisfied or not has never really previously been formally addressed here.

During 2018 we designed, launched, and completed the University's first ever all staff survey. We actually asked the staff for their opinions about the way things work at the University and the messages from that were very interesting. I mean, the first thing was that there was quite a lot of heterogeneity across the University. Some parts of the University seem to have much greater staff satisfaction than others. Secondly, there was a bit of a tendency for people to be very satisfied with their immediate environment or their immediate colleagues whichever part of the University they work in, but to feel a bit more disconnected from the University as a whole, the central part of the University, whatever that means. So we think there was some really important messages for us coming out of the staff survey and we pay attention to those in addition to paying attention to student satisfaction.

The other thing that we're paying a lot of attention to is what we call Widening Participation, so trying to ensure that the University is accessible to all. If any of you read The Daily Telegraph you'll have seen an article written by me yesterday or the day before in response to some publicity. The Daily Telegraph clearly doesn't approve of our policies because they believe that we might be lowering standards by trying to make the University accessible to students from unconventional backgrounds. I very strongly disagree with that. I don't think it's about lowering of standards, I think it's about levelling of the playing field and our efforts to address this are very much aimed at achieving that.

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Last, but not least, how can I say something optimistic about Brexit? To European colleagues that are either online or here, I apologise. I have my own views about whether Brexit is a good thing for the country or for the University, but quite frankly my attitude to Brexit at the moment is I'm just sick of it. I just want it over and I wish that we could get on with it and I wish that we just could get on with coping with it. I'm very confident that the University of Edinburgh will survive Brexit. I'm very confident that our students and staff will continue to feel valued and welcome here, but until we can actually start doing it, until we can actually get on with it, it remains this horrible feeling of paralysis and uncertainty, which is what people really deal very badly with. John Smyth is here somewhere, where is he? John is an oncologist. I've often made the analogy from my medical practice that patients can often deal with bad news. What patients really loathe is that period of uncertainty before they know whether it's bad news or not. I feel as if the nation is in that period at the moment. We actually don't know what it's going to be like, or what's going to be happening or how bad it is. Until we can get to that point where we do know and start dealing with it, we're going to remain in this position of paralysis.

I can't give you any inside information on Brexit, I only know what you've been able to read as well. My own view is I think it's very likely that there will be a deal of some sort. I think the strength of feeling in the EU and in most parts of the UK government to avoid the no deal Brexit, I think, remains very strong, but the closer we get to the deadline the more likely a no deal Brexit will happen by accident. I think, generally, everyone agrees that that would be undesirable. I just plead for some certainty, and I just wish we could get on with it and I don't want the planning of the University's future to be too much influenced by Brexit.

As I've said already, we don't see increasing turnover of our EU staff but we know our EU staff are very concerned about the future. I worry not so much about the ones that are here, but about the ones that may never come. Because they may feel that the UK is not welcoming to them or they can't be certain that if they do come they'll be able to stay long term.

In terms of our student populations, we saw the figures at the beginning. We take substantial numbers of very high quality students from the EU. Presumably, after Brexit, they will have to pay tuition fees at whatever level Non-UK students pay, so they would go from having education subsidized by the government to education that they have to pay for. We think that's very likely to reduce the number of EU students that come to Scotland, but we don't expect it to reduce to zero.

We expect it to reduce to possibly to something between 10 and 20% of its current levels and the question of what happens to the funding that currently supports those students after Brexit, we cannot get an answer to, because again, everyone just says we don't know, because it's all so uncertain.

So the sooner we can start getting some answers the sooner we can get on with it, the sooner we can cope with Brexit and all that it brings. I hope that by next year's meeting at this time of the year we'll have some clarity and we'll be able to move on. Because I do think the University is in a position of great strength to deal with Brexit and any other turbulence we have to face, but it's the uncertainty which is getting us all down at the moment and with that, Rector, I think I'll stop.

Rector: So we thank the Principal very much for that comprehensive report and can invite questions from the floor and just remind members to wait for the roving microphone to speak clearly, giving your name, degree and year of graduation. Also just to say to members who've being watching the live stream that there is the provision for questions online. So we can call out the questions and so can I see any questions from within the room at the moment?

Linda Hendry, MA, 1971 Indian Religion and Philosophy. My attention was drawn, yesterday, on Facebook, by Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links, to the situation at the top of Middle Meadow walk, where the Future's Institute is, unfortunately. It was described as moribund but I think it's more a sign or a hoarding, whichever you want to call it, needs either removed or refreshed, because it's increasing the tatty

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look of the area. Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links don’t think is welcoming to people and they had got grants to put up signs and to try and make that area look nicer.

Principal: So this issue was brought to my attention yesterday, I've seen some of the pictures as well. The hoardings actually don't belong to the University, they belong to Quartermile, and so actually they're not under our control directly or that we can clearly influence the owners. As regards to the statement that the Edinburgh Futures Institute is moribund, the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the moment is a building site and it will not be moribund, and I promise you that in the long term. I think the improvements will include better signage but at the moment it's very much in development, so it literally is a building site. The graffiti that's on the hoardings, I agree, is not very nice to look at, and we will try to influence the owners of those hoardings to do something about it.

But I think it's a temporary issue in the sense that that site will be developed into something and I absolutely believe it'll be a most spectacular development for Edinburgh, but in the meantime we have to have hoardings because it's a building site.

Rector: Thank you, any other questions? Yes, you sir.

Finlay Marshall, MA 1967 Maths and Natural philosophy: Principal, one of your earlier slides showed the number of applications and acceptances, and tended to indicate a degree of stability between the ratios of the applications and acceptances, which, of course, might be a demographic factor. What it didn't do, and I think perhaps it might be a more useful statistic, is to see the number of acceptances received to the number of offers made because of the fact that you have multiple applications being made. That might give a more realistic trend to see whether there is any trend towards Edinburgh being more popular or Edinburgh being relatively less popular as the years have progressed.

Principal: Okay, thank you very much. Tracey will probably be able to answer that question better than me because she knows the facts, but I agree with your general point. I think the ratio of total applicants to numbers accepted is stable. So by that yardstick alone, I think we can say that our offer continues to be very attractive, but as you rightly said, can mask demographic trends. Also the number of universities that people can apply to varies quite differently depending on where they're coming from. So there needs to be some thought given to that breakdown as well, but Tracy will be able to give you more detail.

Tracey Slaven, Deputy Secretary, Strategic Planning Thank you, yes, the statistic that you're referring to is also remaining stable, so that's the percentage of offers which are accepted by applicants. It’s roughly in the high 30's to the high 40's, depending on which subject area the offer relates to and applicants who applied through UCAS for our undergraduate programs can make five choices. So if we were, on average, getting what you would expect, then we would be getting about 20 percent as an acceptance rate and we're achieving almost double that so I think that reinforces how positive the University is seen.

Rector: Thank you, and can I just ask, have we got any questions coming online?Jock Millican, BSc Chemical Engineering, 1973 Thank you, we've received two. One has been able to be here, Linda has just delivered hers, and the other one that we've received is from Dimitrios Iotradis, who’s President of the Edinburgh University alumni association in Greece. He writes “United members in the General Council, it's a privilege to be able to participate online in the General Council half yearly event. Our question, and it's a Brexit one:

There are growing anxieties regarding the status of Greek, and other EU, of course, students in terms of, especially but not exclusively, post-graduate program payment after the 2021 academic year. Would they qualify as home or overseas students? In terms of employment, would graduating students be eligible for employment in Scotland and the UK? There’s a number of Edinburgh University Greek graduates who are currently working in Scotland and the UK. Thank you for your consideration.”

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Principal: Again, I might ask Tracey to contribute to this answer as well, but I mean, the quick answer is, well frankly we don't honestly know beyond the next year or two. We've received guarantees for the next year or two about continued recognition of the status of EU students according to the current rules, certainly for the next intake. We're waiting to hear about the intake after that. As to post graduation employment, there's recently being some relaxation of that, but we still don't think that's enough. The most recent migration act talks about six months of ability to work post-graduation.

Most other countries around the world, especially places like Canada that have much more imagination about these things, will allow you two or three years of post graduation work experience. The Russell Group are pressing for that period to be lengthened, but the honest answer to our colleagues in Greece, is that we just don't know.

One of the things that we're pressing on, is to understand the migration status of EU nationals, and indeed non-EU nationals, and whether they'll all be the same post-Brexit. The current indications are that they will be the same whether you're from the EU or outside the EU, but the reality is we don't really know. Tracey, anything to add?

Tracey Slaven, Deputy Secretary, Strategic Planning: I think the only thing to add is that for those who are currently students, and obviously their status is guaranteed until the completion of their course. But, if they apply for settled or pre-settled status, then that does give them the ability to stay and work after their degrees are finished, which is something that had been in question for those who were going to complete after Brexit date.

Rector: So I was just going to say that members who are joining us online can continue to submit questions. So, if anything arises, feel free to email that in.

Angi Lamb, Former Court Assessor 2013-2017: Does the Principal see the number of students from greater China peaking?

Principal: Well, so I'll give you two quick answers, the simple quick answer is no, but actually it's up to us so we can influence that decision. I mean in terms of the scale of China and the number of students that might be a) willing to come and b) be suitable for us to take, we're way beyond the maximum, way below the maximum. The scale of China just beggars belief. One statistic that I can give you because I just remember it from my previous life, is the number of university graduates that there are in mainland China per year, is 7.5 million. There are 2,500 universities in China. So there are 7 1/2 million graduates, of which a significant portion will seek post graduate studies somewhere else, many of them in the UK.

So although we've got 4,000 students, there are 7.5 million that may be graduating next year. So I think we're way below the numbers that might be willing to come, and might be very suitable to come. Whether we want to encourage further growth in that student population is a matter for us to decide.

I cited the example of the class at the School of Education, where that class is effectively like a class at a Chinese university. That's not necessarily ideal for either for those students or for the other students so we do need to pay attention to issues of integration and issues of heterogeneity and diversity. But it's up to us really how we grow that market. I think there's certainly potential for further growth if we want it.

Brian Smith, MA, Philosophy, 1966: One of the statistics that George David, a historian of the University, used to often draw a lot of attention to was the disparity between the number of people who entered on a course, and those who graduated at the end.

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Do we have any statistics or idea of how things are tending within the University. Not about the relation of admissions acceptance, but those who start and those who actually complete. Are we satisfied with what that statistic is and is it going up, or down, or in some other way?

Principal: So we do gather information and that's clear it’s a very important statistic. Generally, I'd say that our completion rates are high, and are certainly comparable to other universities like us. The one area that gives me concern is that the completion rates are slightly lower in students from disadvantaged backgrounds, than they are from students from so-called conventional backgrounds.So one aspect of why I think when we talk about widening participation, it's not just about getting more students into the University, but it's ensuring that they succeed one they get here and there's some evidence that students are less likely to complete, if they come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The other area which is causing a lot of concern in this sector at the moment is black and minority ethnic students, who despite entering with equivalent levels of qualification seem less likely to complete their courses. That’s an issue that a number of universities are trying to think about, and why that should be, and what can be done to address it.

In terms of stability with time, Tracey, is it staying the same or getting better or..?

Tracey Slaven: We are talking about very, very small changes but we have had some concern that there was a decline in completion rates among our Scottish students, but we have recovered that in the last two years. Obviously, it needs a constant attention to make sure that support framework is in place but we are talking about 94-95% completion rate.

Principal: And compared to North American universities where completion rates are often woefully low, completion rates in British universities generally are very good, and in Edinburgh, they're as good as anybody's.

Margie Taylor, BDS 1978 MSC and Public Health 1985: I'm very interested in the widening access agenda, and I'm just wondering is there anywhere we can read more about your strategy and plans for that, please.

Kirsty MacGregor MA 1981, DipEd, 1982, MBA 2001: I was struck by the 60:40 ratio of female to male students, and that seems to be fairly stable for the last few years. I'd just be very interested to hear comments on that because obviously it has significant impact on the University as a community.

David Houston: PhD in Mathematical Physics 1976, MBA 1987. I’m very pleased to hear that as a new Principal you're challenging the concept of continual overall growth which we seem to have had, certainly as long as I’ve been a member of the Business Committee, and probably rather longer than that.

I've always felt that there was perhaps a correlation between that continual growth with the poor student satisfaction levels. In fact the increase, perhaps of that over some period. Of course it's possible to grow things as you've mentioned in your very good presentation; lots of new initiatives happening, but would you like to comment on whether you've reached any conclusion on stability or even decline in overall numbers, in order to increase the value of the University? I'd be very interested to hear if you've got anything worked out, thank you.

Principal: So, first question was about can you read more about widening participation structure? The answer is yes you can.

We've recently published and launched a new widening participation strategy which, I think, should be available on the website. The Daily Telegraph article goes into some of the thinking behind it. I suppose that brief headlines would be, well firstly, the current targets that are set for us are based around post codes, so

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called SIMD-20, the index of multiple deprivation - the lowest 20% SIMD cohort - is identified by the Scottish government as being associated with disadvantage. That measure's quite controversial because there are parts of Scotland that have a post code which should reflect disadvantage but doesn’t and there are other parts which have disadvantage, but the post codes doesn't reflect it. So that measure alone is not without its controversy, but by that yard stick against which targets are set for us, the University of Edinburgh is doing very well, even before the extensive implementation of the new strategy. So there's work going on to try and improve the percentage of students that come from those backgrounds, coming into Edinburgh.

Are we satisfied with that answer? No, we're not satisfied with that as a measure and we're not satisfied with the level of progress we've made, because there is further progress to be made. indeed the government targets get harder and harder as years go by so there's an even more stringent target. We've achieved the 2020 target three years ahead of schedule, but the later targets are even more demanding. So we are doing work to try and understand how best to assess educational disadvantage. Some of it would be about postcodes, some of it's about other things. As I said earlier on, we're doing a lot of work not just to increase the numbers of students coming here but make sure that their chances of success are enhanced once they get here.

The University's got a number of initiatives, including being very generous with financial support, because economic barriers are obviously one of them, but also things like buddy schemes and partnering of existing students with new students to try and ensure that they're properly supported when they get here. It's not a straightforward question of just lowering the grades to allow people in.

What the Daily Telegraph seems to take issue with, and I personally think they're wrong, is that if you lower the grades to a student you are necessarily lowering the standards. I just don't agree with that, and I feel strongly about this because I came from that kind of background myself.The context, the expectation of what you can expect a student of given ability to achieve has to be interpreted in the context of their home, their school, and their region. The same expectations can’t be levied at somebody coming from, in my case in rural Cornwall, compared to Eton, for example.

They're just not the same playing field, so what I think we're trying to do is something which is very difficult, is calibrate that difference. What allowance should we make for educational disadvantage? There is no easy answer but we have a strategy to develop it and any thoughts you have about it and any ways we can improve it would be very welcome.

The question about 60:40 female to male ratios, that is quite high. In Hong Kong for what it's worth it was 53:47, in most other Russell Group universities it's quite similar to ours. It's very variable across subjects, so there's some subjects where Engineering subjects for example, male students still predominate. In some subjects particularly Law and actually increasing the Medicine and Dentistry, female students predominate.

I think the simplest explanation is that we have a very major dependence on secondary school qualifications as our way of assessing suitability and it's a well known fact that girls do better than boys in secondary school. Boys seem to suddenly discover, and I've got a son and a daughter and I can tell you, anecdotally in my family, it's absolutely true. My son took a few more years to discover the value of study than my daughter did and I think this plays out across schools in the attainment. If you just look at exam grades, the attainment is better among female secondary school students than it is about males. Now whether that's because female students are inherently cleverer or more hard working I wouldn't possibly comment but there's no doubt that if you don't take account of other measures then you will end up favouring female students. I don't think we're very different from most other universities, are we?

Tracey Slaven: No, in terms of broad comprehensive universities, the balances are about the same. I think the one thing actually, that the two questions do give us as a challenge is that that imbalance between the

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genders get increasingly broad as you move into disadvantaged groups. So girls will see academic routes out of disadvantage where I think sometimes peer pressure on young men makes it much more difficult for them to admit that they need support because that's the route they want to take. We are doing some quite innovative work with local football clubs to try and break in and show young men, demonstrate using our existing students, that they can combine sports excellence with study and make progression through that route as well.

Principal: Okay, back to the point that Brian made, that our completion rates are very respectable but in American Universities, and I happen to know about Georgetown, and Stony Brook, in the US because I worked with them when I was working in Hong Kong, they recruit more men, but more females complete.

So the dropout rate is very much higher in male students than it is in female students in the US. Again, there are various reasons why that might be. It’s complicated but we certainly don't represent the population in our student populations. We need to think about how can you identify the male students with real potential other than just taking exam grades. Because again, it`s an central theme for me, but exam grades without context are dangerous. On the topic of growth, we've done a lot of work thinking about this.

We've asked each part of the University, the Colleges and the Schools, to predict what they would like to see in an ideal world in terms of growth of their programs, undergraduates, postgraduates, research, teaching, whatever and we've amalgamated all that in to a composite picture and the headline is no growth for growth sake. But it doesn't say no growth, because there will be growth in some areas. An example that I usually pick on when I'm talking about this is engineering. So our engineering school is very good, but it's small compared to the major competitors, Imperial, Cambridge, UCL. So if we really want to have impact as measured by a combination of quality and size, we're already very good so we can't make the quality much bigger, much greater.

If we want more impact we've got to make the size greater. Engineering is one area where we may see talented growth and we know that's important because of social impact, because of student demand and because of industrial demand. So that's one example. Maybe we are still too small.But if that area grows, we expect other areas to shrink so the overall size will remain the same, with a possible movement from our current level of undergraduate predominance, to a level of more post-graduate provision. Because, again, we're a little bit unusual with the extent of our undergraduate dominance.

So overall size, probably about the same, but that doesn't mean no growth. As I also said, when I made that remark, it leaves out consideration of online growth where we think there will be online growth. But we're talking about on-campus provision. I think the point that you're making, which I completely agree with, is that you can't think in terms of growing unless you think about the other implications. So accommodation, transport, classroom size, teachers to staff ratio, students to staff ratio. If you grow you have to take all these into account and I think the University has done that. We’ve reached a point where I think a lot of the staff feel unless there's changes in infrastructure provision, we can't grow any further.

That's one of the factors why we've really come to this conclusion that we're probably big enough.

Kristina Szumelukowa, MPhil, Archaeology, 2006: I was a mature student in Archaeology and Ancient History. In talking about future growth and the shape and scale of university, what is the sustainability of the four year undergraduate course, and what pressures would there be to actually, potentially, reduce that? So that in one way you've increased capacity, but another, you might actually be prejudicing quality that we already have.

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Principal: Fabulous question, and one of my favourite subjects. So if I just give you a little bit of background. When I worked in Hong Kong, it had recently moved from a three year undergraduate curriculum to a four year undergraduate curriculum.

I met with Charlie Jeffery when he was representing the University of Edinburgh and I was representing the University of Hong Kong and I said to him, well we've moved to a more North American style curriculum and he said no you haven't, you'd actually moved to a Scottish group.I think, at that time, which was a few years ago, I hadn't quite appreciated that Scotland has always had a four year undergraduate curriculum. So the question really is, what is it about four years that makes it better? Underlying your question, I assume, is the fact that England has just approved two year degrees in some circumstances.

And that there is a certainly a move to say why does it take three years, why can't you do it online from your bedroom and accumulate credit in the way that some education providers wish. Certainly, no one, at the moment I think, in Scotland, is saying that we can't, we'll have to go away from a four year undergraduate curriculum.

But I do believe very strongly that we need to justify why it`s better. Why is it that four years gives you a better education than three or two? I think there are very relatively straight forward arguments that can be made to address that but we just can`t be complacent and assume that we`ll always have four years.

A sort of related thought, which maybe will be a subject for future meetings. We are having some, I think, quite exciting discussions about curriculum reform. So we might do something really, really radical to the Edinburgh graduate curriculum, partly motivated by this question about having to justify four years but mostly actually motivated by the fact that we think the graduates of tomorrow won't welcome just being specialists in one subject; we know that graduates are likely to have several different jobs during their careers. The latest statistics I read from the United States were that the graduates of today will have seven different careers post university with the median time between graduation and the first career change being twenty two months.

So we’re no longer preparing somebody for a specialist subject which they will then look into the rest of the days, to be frank, outside things like Medicine, Dentistry and Law that's always been the case. It's increasingly being the case. We need to equip our graduates with generic skills, which will allow them to be flexible, allow them to do different things as technology changes and as the world changes.

The way in which I think we might need to do that will be around curriculum reform. That will also allow us to address issues of student satisfaction where currently one of the main problems with our undergraduate provision is that we pretend to offer massive levels of choice, but in reality a lot of that choice can't be delivered because of time tabling or because of geography.

And so, I hear any number of students say, I came here because I thought I could study X and Y, and then I find out that actually I can't, because they're time tabled together or they're in different parts of the city. We need to decide what choice we really want to offer and then we need to make sure that choice is deliverable, and that can also be a part of curriculum reform.

Rector: Thank you very much. Plenty food for thought for future General Council meetings. Thank you very much for your report and for the questions that members have brought forward.

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B Presentation of the Report of the Business Committeeat the General Council Meeting on 16 February 2019

Convener of the Business Committee: Professor Stuart Macpherson

Rector, Principal, Members of the General Council and Guests.

I am particularly pleased to welcome General Council members, especially those who may not have attended one of our functions previously, and particularly those joining us on-line from the many European centres that the Rector has just enumerated.

The Business Committee and its subcommittees have spent the first section of the 2018-19 session in many enjoyable and instructive meetings. However, before explaining these I have to complete my report on last session by describing the Half Yearly Meeting held on June 9th last year. We heard interesting presentations from Gavin McLachlan, Chief Information Officer and Librarian to the University and Jeremy Upton, Head of Library and University Collections. There then followed a fascinating tour of areas of the Main University Library previously out of bounds to most of us. This comprised the Treasures Room, the Centre for Research Collections including the Digital Imaging Unit and the Exhibition Gallery. This visit again demonstrated the opportunities for General Council members to volunteer their services to many parts of the University and if anyone is so inclined I would encourage them to do so.

As I have previously reported, the majority of our probing work is done through our subcommittees, and I cannot give enough credit to the subcommittee chairs who mastermind this effort. There are currently four subcommittees.

Steve Hillier, Chair of the Academic Standing Committee, reports that his committee’s aim is to keep abreast of all relevant issues concerning the University’s academic affairs. Steve views his group as a critical friend to the University and their areas of interest are always prioritised following consultation with elected members of the student community. This session’s work plan includes mental health, as it did last year, curriculum diversity and equality and liberation. Two meetings have been held so far. The first on Curriculum Diversity with Mr Tom Ward, Director of Academic Services and the second with Vice Principal Jane Norman on Student Disability.

The Finance and Services Standing Committee is chaired by Jock Millican. They met last autumn to understand the scope of the City Deal and the University’s involvement in it, including the commitment in terms of money and resource. Hugh Edmiston, Director of Corporate Services and Senior Vice-Principal Charlie Jeffery addressed these issues, as well as the manner in which the challenging targets will be met and the nature of the legacy to the University.

The committee also met both the retiring Director of Finance, Phil McNaull, and the incoming Director Lee Hamill, to discuss the Annual Reports and Accounts for the year to 31 July 2018

David Munro’s Constitutional Standing Committee has a challenge to keep a watching brief on the implications for the University of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and no doubt this will feature in many subsequent reports.This session the Committee has also been asked to carry out a comprehensive review of the General Council’s constitutional arrangements that were last updated in 2011. Professor Munro is keen to make the final document accessible while continuing to provide appropriate reference to the legislation and university ordinances as well as minuted decisions of the Business Committee. The outcome will be presented in due course to the Business Committee and then at a General Council Half Yearly Meeting.The Committee met with Dr Lewis Allan, Head of Court Services who gave an update on University Ordinances, particularly changes governed by the passing of the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act in 2016.

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The Public Affairs Standing Committee, enthusiastically chaired by Sophie Marshall, report that they have another packed agenda reviewing the engagement of the University with the local community, assessing how the University communicates with alumni and considering the cost and provision of student housing and transport.The Committee met with Gavin Donoghue, Head of External Affairs, who discussed the City Deal, the launch of the Widening Participation Strategy and the refresh of the Community Engagement Strategy. More recently they met EUSAs Vice President Community, Georgie Harris who described the many examples of students engaging positively with local communities.

All four subcommittees report their findings back to every meeting of the Business Committee. There we also receive a personal report from Theresa Merrick, the University’s Director of Communications and Marketing. Thus, I am confident that the Business Committee keeps itself very much up to speed with University affairs. It is obvious to me that all members of the Business Committee have a deep and continuing interest and concern for the development of their University. I would thank them for giving so much of their time to supporting the staff and students of this institution.

General Council members will be aware that last autumn we welcomed our new Secretary, Professor Ann Smyth. I would now like to report on two of Ann’s initiatives.

Firstly, recognizing the University’s expanding global reach, Ann felt that we should consider just how the Business Committee scrutinises international academic affairs. We have therefore set up a Working Group to consider this matter. This is chaired by the Business Committee Vice-Convener Gordon Cairns and comprises the chairs of all four Standing Committees. The latter because at present global affairs straddles the business of all four committees. The group has already met twice. Its deliberations will continue throughout this session and the outcomes reported to the Business Committee. Thereafter the conclusions will feature at a future Half Yearly Meeting.

This meeting has already received the results of the recent elections to the Business Committee. I am delighted to see some very valuable faces re-elected and welcome our new member. I am sure they will all enjoy their time on the Committee and appreciate a closer view of the workings of their University.

Ann’s second initiative has been in relation to these elections. She is very aware that several General Council members choosing to vote on line have experienced difficulties. She has been and will continue to work hard with the relevant professional services within the University to understand why barriers arise and what can be done to address them. She asks for your patient support while they work through the issues.

Both Ann and her assistant Alison appreciate as much notification as possible regarding problems with on-line voting. However, they would also urge members to regularly check the General Council website where there is open easy access to news of General Council activities and events including recently introduced reports from the Business Committee and its Standing Committees.

Now to end on some excellent news. Members present last year will remember that the meeting passed a motion concerning the General Council’s Court Assessors. Part of this was that these positions should be appointed rather than elected. That decision stands and we are currently advertising for two such Assessors. I would urge relevant members of the General Council to consider an application for these positions. Not only does such an appointment take one to the heart of University affairs but in addition we have a report from one of our Assessors at every Business Committee meeting on the previous meeting of Court – another very important manner in which we keep abreast of matters.

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The second aspect of last year’s agreement was that we would have three Assessors but that one would also serve as the Chancellor’s Assessor. Since then the University has reconsidered and clarified this decision and I am pleased to say that they have recommended returning to the current position where we have three General Council Assessors on Court and that the Chancellor continues to nominate a Chancellor’s Assessor as at present.

I am sure you will agree that this is a very satisfactory outcome for the General Council.

Rector: that concludes my report.

Any member who does not have web access may request a copy of Annex to the Billet from the General Council Office:

Ms Alison MacLearyAssistant to the Secretary of the General CouncilThe University of EdinburghRoom B2.9, Charles Stewart House9-11 Chambers StreetEdinburghEH1 1HT

(email: general.council@ed.ac.uk)

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