Our Strategic Focus to 2027

Our Strategic Focus to 2027

Transform our distinct models of creative education.
Valuing our disciplinary strengths and traditions, we will deliver new inclusive ways of learning and teaching that provide greater opportunities for collaboration and flexibility, giving students more agency over how they learn and ways to make a positive impact through their practice.
Impact through creative research, innovation and partnership.
Groundbreaking, dynamic, experimental and in partnership with organisations and individuals that share our mutual values and ambitions, together we will contribute to new knowledge and demonstrate the role of creative people and practice on society.
A sustainable, independent art school.
Our practices, procedures and administrative systems will be creative, simple and efficient. We will energise our people, our resources and commitment to addressing the climate and ecological emergencies through innovation and working in a collaborative and transparent way.

Transform our already distinct models of creative education

By 2027 our education will be renowned for the ways in which it positively transforms the lives of our students and those who benefit from the work they go on to do.

To achieve this, we will work in partnership with our students to continuously enhance our pedagogies and curriculum, ensuring all students have equal opportunities to succeed, realise their ambitions and make a positive contribution to their communities.

We will prioritise the student experience, including investing in our learning resources – workshops, library and technologies, archives and collections and cultural engagement, ensuring they all support student success.

Together we will:

Equip our students for the world with core literacies in social justice and climate action, digital literacy and collaboration. We will encourage our students to be enterprising and socially active using their creative skills to address the major social and environmental challenges of our times. We’ll do this by increasing opportunities for collaboration with others within and beyond the School, with a range of partners across the creative and cultural industries and wider economy.
Develop new ways to study at the GSA through distance and low residency programmes and courses, new routes and modes of delivery. Through this we will provide opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds to benefit from a creative education. We will develop innovative and high value partnerships across academia, industry and our disciplines and ensure that our programmes and curricula are contemporary - collaborative, challenging, internationally orientated, inter-cultural and decolonised.
Ensure our admissions, pedagogies and curricula are inclusive and intercultural. Through sustained efforts we will introduce voices that have been historically marginalised, internationalise our culture, practices and services and increase the socio-economic diversity of all students and their ability to access exchange opportunities as a core part of their programme of study.
Rethink how our academic, technical and student focused professional services work together to ensure a seamless and student centred approach to engagement. Through inter-team collaboration and digital transformation of services, we will adapt our structures and processes in order to deliver real and sustained improvement to our student experience.

Our Outcomes

Strategic portfolio developments to capitalise on new and interdisciplinary opportunities.
New and more flexible ways to study, conducive to life-long learning. Working with schools and colleges in Scotland and abroad, increasing our articulation activity.
A coherent portfolio of programmes with clear routes into and through our pre-degree, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels of study.
Refreshed and contemporary curricula, with embedded core literacies across all academic schools and interdisciplinary opportunities.
Increased student mobility, placements, live projects and partnership opportunities.

Our Lead Indicators

Final Year UG % student satisfaction

BaseLine

Target

Postgraduate Taught % student satisfaction

Baseline

Target

Sustaining excellent student retention

Baseline

Target

Graduate Outcomes – Positive Outcomes (HESA)

Baseline (2018-2019)

Target

Growth through developing new ways to study at the GSA through new routes and modes of delivery.

Baseline
(total student numbers FTE)

Target
(total student numbers FTE)

All baseline 2020-2021 unless otherwise stated.

Impact through creative research and innovation

Our focus to 2027 is to create the environment in which our researchers can thrive, collaborate and deliver impact. We will establish new Research Labs as place-based centres for the concentration of our research, innovation and knowledge exchange activities, creating a knowledge ecology that supports our future research and educational ambitions.

Our Labs will provide richer ways to collaborate together, engendering a positive and supportive environment for our staff. They will facilitate research intensity and growth, develop our research culture, support internal collaboration and create the conditions to attract new and more diverse research partnerships, growing its research intensity, income and impact.

The global community faces a complex range of critical issues including the climate emergency; sustainability; health and wellbeing; gender, race and social injustice; cultural and educational development. Addressing these issues requires adaptable problem-solvers with expertise in creative complexity to collaborate and work across disciplines.

Our researchers do this, moving with great agility between the digital and physical realms, producing work that inspires people to see the world around them differently. They actively demonstrate the role of creative people and practice for the benefit of society, giving shape and form to ideas and concepts that do not yet exist and co-design solutions for positive change in a range of settings from local, to global making the world a better place.

Together we will:

Produce high-quality, impactful research and knowledge exchange focused around our areas of research excellence.
Focus on collaboration and inter-disciplinary research, becoming partners of choice for academic, industry, the third sector, cultural bodies, local government and other civic agencies.
Develop place-based regional strengths that link to national and international research partnerships, building on our established European and international partner network.
Grow our research intensity and income, to sustain our research portfolio, develop areas of research excellence and make impact.
Develop our research culture, engendering a positive and supportive environment.
Maintain our position as one of the UK’s largest post-graduate research communities in art and design, generating new knowledge and developing the future generation of creative academics and researchers.
Maximise the potential of our unique heritage, from our distinctive archives and collections, the Mackintosh Building project and our partnership with our city and its collections as unique, valuable and inspirational resources for research, scholarship and engagement.

Our Outcomes

Implement our new Research Strategy building on our REF2021 identified strengths, weaknesses and competitive performance.
Establish new Research Labs, focusing on place-based opportunities and strengths, bringing together research activities, people and areas of excellence into coherent groupings to maximise collaboration, income, high quality research outcomes and impact.
Invest in people, developing and empowering our academic colleagues and attracting the best to work with us.
Deliver a programme of innovation and knowledge exchange projects linked to the Mackintosh Building Project that supports and prototypes our academic vision for the future of the Mackintosh Building.

Our Lead Indicators

**% of outputs returned to the REF as 3* and above (REF2021/GSA)**

Baseline

Target

**% of REF impact case studies rated as 3* and above (REF2021/GSA)**

Baseline

Target

20% increase in number of Postgraduate Research Students (headcount)

Baseline

Target 2027

Total Research Income (HESA)

Baseline

Target

All baseline 2020-2021 unless otherwise stated.

A sustainable, independent* art school

By 2027 we will have started the transformation of our Glasgow campus to support our academic ambitions and commitment to net zero, invested in our staff and ensured all parts of the GSA are contributing to our financial sustainability, in order to secure our future ambitions.

As a small, specialist, highly focused art school with a global reputation, we will continue to build our reputation and extend our reach, working in partnership with others and ensuring our students and staff have the best experience of studying and working here. This means we need to consider how to improve the way we work and the important role of all our staff and their contribution to us in achieving our strategic ambitions.

We will engage all our staff in our plans for the future of the GSA and enable them to realise their inherent potential to effect change. We will empower them to maximise the effectiveness of our estate, IT and digital infrastructure and work to diversify our income streams allowing us to focus our investment areas of strategic priority. We want them to reinvigorate existing relationships and build new partnerships locally and internationally and be confident in articulating the values of the GSA, the creative education and research we undertake and the impact of our staff, students and graduates.

*The Glasgow School of Art is a small, specialist, higher education institution funded by the Scottish Funding Council. We are one of a small number of UK art schools who remain a legally independent and autonomous institution.

Together we will:

Develop Ethical Leadership developing an open, honest and ethical approach to leadership throughout GSA.
Nurture Talent and Capability retaining and attracting the best academic and professional services staff, reshaping our organisational structure to create sustainable teams focused on collaboration and delivering the highest levels of student experience, research excellence and partnership.
Invest in our future estate through inclusive design, quality place-making and climate emergency mitigation.
Become financially sustainable, generating income and rethinking how we spend and invest.
Radically improve our efficiency and become digitally enabled, integrating our business processes, systems and platforms in a strategic way which adds value and improves the experience of studying and working.
Communicate clearly about who we are, what we do, how we do it and our values and impact.

Our Outcomes

Implemented our People Strategy developing our people across the GSA, empowering them to succeed and thrive through a culture underpinned by ethical leadership and an inclusive, respectful environment.
Commenced implementation of our Estates masterplan and our strategy for net zero.
Commenced the rebuilding of the Mackintosh Building as an integrated part of our Estates masterplan and academic ambitions.
Supported areas of income generation, partnership and growth, achieving an annual operating surplus to invest in our future.
Grown our philanthropic support across scholarships and student support, learning infrastructure, research excellence and capital development.
Implemented better processes, systems, information management and internal communication, decluttering the organisational landscape to make us more efficient, effective, collaborative, transparent and evidence-based in our decision making.
Refreshed our narrative reflecting our contemporary ambitions, our heritage and our place, creating closer relationships with our neighbours and key stakeholders and maximising the potential of our Creative Network.