Activity update from the Chartered ABS

By Anne Kiem

In any education environment the summer brings into sharp focus the cyclicality of life. Universities hold their graduation ceremonies, marking the end of one era, with a short break before the beginning of the next. And it isn’t just the students who move on. There are a number of deans moving on from their current posts, among them Prof. Sue Cox, who steps down as Dean of Lancaster University Management School. I am delighted that Sue has agreed to facilitate the Deans and Director’s Development Programme from January.

There have also been a number of changes in the Chartered ABS office. Dr Julie Davies has moved on to a career in academia, and James Newhall has joined a consultancy firm. Joining our ranks we have Oliver Lowe, who is responsible for organising our conferences and Kathryn Diaz, who will be coordinating the development programmes. Currently, we are recruiting for a part-time committees and project coordinator to complete the team. You can see further details here.

We have appointed a public affairs consultant, Phil Hall, who will help us in our engagement with Westminster and Whitehall. We have all been hearing more about the priorities for the next parliament and key amongst them is raising UK productivity. The Chartered ABS is now putting out a call for thought pieces on how business schools can help boost productivity with the intention of using the best of these to inform our conversations with policy makers.

We have been having conversations with various officials about the UK’s attitude towards and policies on international students and stressing the importance of international students to our business schools, the wider university, domestic students and society as a whole. We are also preparing for Conservative and Labour Party conferences where we will be co-hosting roundtable events with the CMI. We are taking every opportunity to ensure the voice of business schools are heard in conversations about growth, productivity and the place of international students.

Usually, at this time of year we send out the salary survey. Following feedback, we have decided to delay the launch of this survey until September, when we understand that there is a greater opportunity to gather relevant data. Please watch out for that in a few weeks time.

Finally, we are delighted by the number of people contributing to the Chartered ABS website with articles about a wide variety of topics. If you haven’t checked the website recently I really recommend you take a look.

Anne Kiem
Chief Executive, Chartered Association of Business Schools