Ravensbourne

We're an innovative, industry-focused university sector college located in the heart of London. We're champions of creativity and collaboration, dedicated to giving our learners the specialist skills and opportunities they need for outstanding digital media and design careers. We have a community of approximately 2,400 students and offer practically focused digital media and design courses from pre-degree, undergraduate, and postgraduate to professional short course level.
Driven by industry standards and supported by the latest high-performance technology, we produce highly employable and enterprising graduates. We have a strong track record in graduate employability and business creation. Ravensbourne also hosts more than 100 creative technology businesses alongside its student community that utilizes its leading-edge technologies and media resources and collaborates with its student body and industry partners.
We hope you will choose Ravensbourne and become a member of this hugely talented community of staff, students, and creative businesses based in the heart of the digital Greenwich Peninsula in London. This strategy sets out Ravensbourne's critical priorities for the three years ahead to 2018
Demand for Ravensbourne's higher and further education programs has grown substantially, and we have expanded to meet it. Graduate employability and entrepreneurship have flourished at the center of our curriculum, with strong industry links underpinning our academic courses and excellent graduate employment rates (more than 95% of our 2014 graduates were in work or further study within a year of graduating).
We have been at the forefront of pedagogic and collaborative innovation for creative education and technology-enhanced learning.
Our whole community has been engaged in the development of this strategy. It is a process that has had the full, active, and facilitative engagement of Ravensbourne's wider community from the outset. Governors have been involved through the Executive Team-Board of Governors away-day on 22 April, while the Executive Team and Senior Management Team (SMT) have been fully engaged throughout the process, and all staff and students have had the opportunity to contribute through a series of workshops and number of feedback mechanisms. External, industry and local government partners have also been consulted so that the strategy presented here reflects the aspirations and represents those closest to Ravensbourne. At the same time, SMT and the Project Team have benchmarked the emerging strategy against those of competitor institutions in the HE sector, thus ensuring this document can stand well alongside Ravensbourne's peers' aspirations.
Alongside the engagement process, the development of strategic objectives has been informed by an analysis of Ravensbourne's size, shape and finances, and external funding prospects. In drafting this strategy, we have attempted to balance ambition with realism and, in so doing, have chosen to look in detail three years ahead while at the same time keeping a long term horizon in mind. Early scenarios demonstrated that Ravensbourne needs to grow its core numbers to remain sustainable, reflected in the strategic objectives. A range of scenarios was explored, ranging from dramatic expansion to more modest growth. The agreed target of between 2,500 and 2,700 students is identified as the most realistic and sustainable if Ravensbourne invests appropriately in staffing infrastructure. The student experience is improved alongside growth.
Alongside this story of managed growth, there are commercial ambitions, emerging industry trends, new educational delivery models (such as apprenticeships), and a new partnerships strategy. This new strategy provides the basis for a financially sustainable business model that will meet our students, staff, and external partners' needs and equip Ravensbourne to thrive and grow over the longer term. As well as our shorter-term aims, the document refers to longer-term aspirations and aims to position Ravensbourne so that further growth across education, commercial activity, and research is realistic and achievable beyond 2018.
The document presented here begins with Ravensbourne's vision, followed by articulating the mission as the vehicle by which this will be achieved. The values on which the college's activities are based follow this and describe the four key strategic aims for the 2015 to 2018 period. Each aim is supported by several objectives, with progress against these being assessed against the same section's measures.
The strategy presented here is only a distillation of the thoughts, images, words, and ideas of the people involved in its development. While the document sets out Ravensbourne's vision, values, and direction for the period ahead at a high level, engaging the institution in its development has enabled staff to think in detail about what actions, structures, and processes are needed deliver the strategy. The consultation process has provided the college with a coherent set of material to inform the implementation plan's development, and a summary is included as Annexe 1. A more detailed operational plan will be developed following the Board of Governors' approval of the strategy.