The UniForum project, developed by Cubane Consulting, was undertaken to help us to understand how administrative and professional services that support the teaching and research activities of the University are structured, and how they compare to a number of our Russell Group peer institutions.
A data collection programme ran from May to October 2016 to capture activity during 2015/16. It focused on activity carried out by all staff employed on non-academic contracts, and included certain services provided by external suppliers. Colleagues across the departments, divisions, GLAM and UAS took part in the exercise to attribute each individual’s time across 15/16 to a number of Cubane’s activity codes.
Since the collection occurred consideration has been given to the use of the data, but more widely discussions with Divisions, Departments and Services have taken place about how we can make the support of teaching and research simpler and more effective. This consideration led to the establishment of the Focus Programme to enable this work in a way that is appropriate to the context of the University of Oxford.
The results of the data collection through the Uniforum Survey plus a Service Effectiveness Survey ran in November 2016 to enable us to assess the quality of service delivered by different administrative functions are now available (SSO required).
