Seven years of Sykes

Sir Richard Sykes

Felix News and Deputy Editor, Andrew Somerville, looks back at Sir Richard's tenure at Imperial

Sir Richard Sykes has only three weeks left of his seven and a half year term as Rector of Imperial College, succeeded by Sir Roy Anderson who officially takes over in July. He leaves behind him a very different College to the institution that he took over in January 2001. Felix examines the impact that he has had during his time in South Kensington.

When Sir Richard was appointed as the thirteenth Rector, Imperial faced an uncertain future. Although Imperial College was well respected academically, and regularly placed second or third in the league tables, College's finances were in a mess, governmental subsidies were under debate and facilities were in great need of modernisation. College Council made the surprise choice of appointing not an academic, but a business leader to take care of these issues and plan Imperial's future: Sir Richard, then CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, was picked to take control after Lord Oxburgh's departure.

The changes that he brought with him were immediate, and his stated aims were clear. Sir Richard's vision of the future of Imperial College was of an internationally competitive "university business" (as he referred to it), a world famous centre of lucrative research, modelled on the biggest successes in the US. He has more or less succeeded in these aims: Imperial is now fifth in the THES world rankings; the profile of College has indeed been raised worldwide, especially in Asia (he even appointed a Pro-Rector (International Relations); College's finances have expanded; outdated campus facilities are being refurbished and replaced; and research is now Imperial's main strength. But these achievements have not come without price, and many have questioned whether the direction that Imperial has taken under Sir Richard serves the university's primary purposes.

Sir Richard himself has been almost constantly surrounded by controversy over the past 7 years, both within Imperial College and nationally, due to his outspoken views and "authoritative" style of reform. He has attracted criticism from College staff, academics and students for his approach; 'absence' of consultation with the members of the university; his business focus (Sir Richard is also Chairman of the 'Reform' think tank: a lobbying group that pushes for more private sector involvement in public services); support for top-up fees; and the magnitude of his salary, which at £348,000 is the UK's largest for the head of an educational institution.

To get the full picture of the changes that Sir Richard has made since 2001, one needs only to look at the differences in College statistics between then and today.

Since 2001

The most obvious changes that Sir Richard has made are in the student body and departmental research. It is in augmenting these aspects of the College that he has increased the income so greatly and safeguarded Imperial's financial future. However, the changes are drastic, and have almost certainly had unforeseen repercussions.

The number of full time students at Imperial has increased by 22 per cent over the seven years, from 9,975 students in 2001 to 12,129 students last year – a massive change in number. In addition to this, the makeup of those students has also changed drastically.

In 2001, 20 per cent of full time students at Imperial were overseas students, coming from countries outside of the UK and EU. This was similar to the proportions within comparable universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Harvard and Yale. Last academic year, however, the picture at Imperial College was very different. Thirty per cent of full time students are now from outside the UK and EU combined, a massive proportion for a relatively small student population. UK students make up only 40 per cent of the total, and according to statistics, students from China now make up approximately 15-20 per cent of the students at Imperial College. Imperial College now has a larger proportion of overseas students than all of the comparable UK and US institutions by a significant amount.

Similarly, when we examine the increase in the total number of students, we find that there are 2,154 more students at Imperial College now than when Sir Richard entered as Rector, but of these new places only 514 have gone to Home and EU students combined. The rest have gone to overseas students. Over the last 7 years, for every Home/ EU student place created, there have been more than three overseas places created.

This trend is reflected in the balance sheets, and thus the financial planning of the College. In 2001 fees from overseas students accounted for 5.6 per cent (£22 million) of College's income, and in 2007 this increased dramatically to 10.1 per cent (£56 million) of the total income. This suggests that Imperial's financial stability now relies almost twice as heavily on overseas fees. This sum has not just been increased by recruiting more overseas students though. The fees charged have also increased dramatically, with an increase in the average from £11,055 to £15,427 between 2001 and 2007 (compared to the average Home/EU of £1,578 to £1,894 – probably largely due to Top-up fees).

However, this 22 per cent increase in the total number of students is not matched by a proportional increase in spending on teaching. The number of academic staff has decreased since 2001 from 3531 Full-Time-Equivalent staff to 3067 FTE staff. Similarly the average academic's proportion of teaching time has decreased from 22.6 per cent to roughly 18.5 per cent in 2006. This is again significantly lower than either of our main UK competitors, Oxford (23 per cent) and Cambridge (21.5 per cent), especially given the distribution of teaching load per subject. This is especially significant since science subjects require far more teaching time than the humanities which will certainly affect the Oxford and Cambridge averages.

It would appear that our academics are, under Sir Richard, spending far less time teaching than they used to. This decrease is matched by a massive rise in the average amount of time spent on research, increasing from 44 per cent to approximately 53 per cent over the seven years.

Worth it?

As was previously stated, Sir Richard has undoubtedly achieved his aims as Rector of Imperial College, rebranding and all, but the statistics lend weight to the arguments of his critics. Whether his business-like attitude and focus on the corporate nature of the College is best suited to its primary purpose of education and research is still very much under debate.

From the experience of being a student here, and from the statistics themselves, it appears that criticisms of this approach are valid. Students seem to be paying more for their degree, but receiving less and less teaching. The support structures and social aspects of the College appear ill-equipped to cope with such a radical demographic change, leading to a divided and isolating campus which feels, to many students, remarkably impersonal and uncaring.

What is certain is that the focus at Imperial is no longer on students. Whether this trend spreads across the country as universities struggle to compete for funding and elite status, or reverses with the incoming Rector and his more academic experiences, remains to be seen.

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