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UWS Making the Difference: Strategy

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UWS Making the Difference: Strategy
UWS Plan: Making the Difference Overview (opens in a new window)(PDF, 112Kb)

The UWS Making the Difference Strategy 2010-15, was endorsed by the Board of Trustees in December 2009. It is the cornerstone of UWS strategic planning and captures the key priorities to 2015.

Key Focus Areas

The Strategy includes three key focus areas, with 19 associated projects:

create a superior and engaged learning experience
develop focussed, relevant and world-class research,
build organisational and financial strength

Key Performance Indicators

The Strategy includes five key performance indicators (KPIs):

Widening participation
Student retention
International Enrolments
Research outcomes
Postgraduate load

The KPIs align not only with the mission, key strategic directions and objectives for the University but the emerging Government agenda and broader, rapid changes internationally.

Links With Relevant Plans

The Strategic Plan is also linked to enabling plans (teaching and learning; research and community engagement) and to specific plans and KPIs for Divisions and Colleges.

MTD Online

This electronic ‘plan on a page’ ensures all concerned can quickly see the high level strategies being pursued by the University, how they relate to each other and then their associated KPIs and 2015 targets.

From the same page, users are able to click on a particular strategic action or KPI to see how these are being implemented in appropriate and responsive ways at the local level. For example:

clicking on any KPI enables you to see the targets to 2015 across the University.
clicking on any one of the strategies (‘what we will do’) enables you to see how these are being implemented locally.
clicking on the vision, “What we are” themes and “What we believe in” themes enable you to access greater details.

UWS is developing systems to enable you to link directly to the actual performance outcomes for each College and Division in each KPI area.

The UWS Approach to Strategic Planning

The UWS planning framework continues to follow the Plan-Implement-Review-Improve (PIRI) cycle endorsed in the Cycle 1 AUQA audit. However, how this operates has been completely reviewed and a more integrated, efficient and IT-enabled model has now been adopted. A steered engagement approach, consistent with research on effective change in higher education, has been adopted.

Under this approach the overall strategic directions of the University are set, along with aligned KPIs and targets and then local academic and professional units develop linked action plans to implement them. The approach is distinctive because it is IT-enabled and integrates strategic positioning, planning, resourcing, review, monitoring and improvement.