Started the month on a real high witnessing our local football club go up and go global by sealing their Premier League promotion on 2nd May! Well done to AFC Bournemouth. Missed yet another bank holiday weekend as was on the plane to Doha, Qatar for the 5th QS MAPLE conference - been with it since its inception so very proud to see it come this far. There were over 300 participants; a good mix of corporate and educational representation and increased UK participation than in previous years. I chaired some excellent research and innovation sessions and even the Qatari Prime Minister graced us with his presence! A week later we ran our last Global BUzz workshop for the year to nail our Global Engagement Plan. Really great participation and engagement – I am so excited to proceed to publishing our Global BU strategic plan in time for the start of the new academic year.
The recruitment process for our four new Associate Deans is drawing to a close and I am looking forward to the Global Engagement Team finally being complete very soon.
More exciting news came from the HEA at the end of the month as we found out we were successful in our application for a Strategic Excellence Initiative bid. Building on our previous two successes for the Strategic Enhancement theme, our proposed Global Talent Programme is a really visible and credible expression of BU going global.
Next two months are super busy in drawing the first year of Global BU to a close and allowing some time for reflections over August before moving to delivery of our ambitions from September!
Dr Sonal Minocha
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement)