Sustainable growth and financial capacity
Surrey will grow beyond its current borders, to drive forward a clear objective to be an internationally-recognised institution. Through this period of growth, Surrey will increase its financial resilience, creating the capacity to invest sustainably in its people and its facilities, while maintaining the quality of its education and research.
Aspirations
Our vision is to grow the impact and reach of the University. This needs to be underpinned by a strong and resilient financial position, that creates capacity for continued investment to sustain core activities and support development of talented people and facilities. To achieve this, we must grow and diversify income streams, while managing our asset base astutely.
The goals
The approach
The sector faces significant financial pressures due to increasing costs, combined with increasing volatility in student recruitment, while the domestic student funding model remains static. Therefore, a strong balance sheet must be maintained to manage these risks and others yet unforeseen.
A long-range financial forecast will underpin investment choices and resource. This will be supported by effective reporting and controls which address the University’s principal risks ensuring the financial impacts of the University’s commercial choices are understood and balanced, securing best value, as they grow in complexity. A more rigorous approach to supplier management, process efficiency, pricing and cost recovery will also be developed to ensure value is optimised.
We will develop and expand commercial and philanthropic partner relationships to grow and diversify these income streams, proactively managing our intellectual property and physical assets to release greater returns and build seed funding to expand the pipeline.
Attracting a larger number of students from a variety of backgrounds, both domestically and internationally, we will undertake both on-campus and remote study programmes. Recruitment will be delivered by effective marketing and through leveraging our widening global connections to bring the quality of our education and student experience, within an ideal location for study, to a wider audience globally. We will also leverage the power of partnerships and transnational education to diversify and increase revenue.
We will continuously enhance our prospect management processes to deliver a customer-focused and efficient experience and as the impact of our alumni network grows, the quality of our education will speak for itself. In addition, we will systematically work to ensure our portfolio of programmes is optimised and attractive to prospects in all markets.
Leveraging technology and innovative teaching methods we will make education more accessible to those who cannot attend campus physically, to reduce the pressure on facilities and accommodation provision and to manage our environmental impact. As the academic headcount expands in support of the growing student body, we will also develop more flexible organisation models to ensure optimal allocation of effort and talent and realisation of economies of scale.
Through optimisation of all our financial levers we will ensure a strong platform from which our ambitious goals can be realised.
