Dear all,
I write to update you on the mixed news we received on funding for higher education and research over the past few days.
On a positive note, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall MP, confirmed increased funding for UKRI over the next four years (the period covered by the Spending Review). In doing so, she underscored the importance of investment in both curiosity-driven research and R&D targeted at national priority areas, including those highlighted in the UK’s Industrial Strategy.
Disappointingly, however, yesterday’s Budget confirmed that the government is introducing a new levy of £925 per year for international students which will be collected from English universities from 2028-29. The levy will add an estimated £12 million to our annual costs which is in addition to the £10 million already incurred by the previous increase in National Insurance contributions. We have lobbied hard against this levy arguing that it runs contrary to the government’s own growth ambitions, as set out in the industrial strategy, which has high-end STEM skills, research and innovation at its core. I can assure you that we will continue to work hard on this issue but, in the meantime, the University Management Board will continue to mitigate the impact of these substantial additional costs on Imperial.
Finally, a few words on the ongoing strike action at Imperial. Our pay award was set out in July and included a 2% increase across the board – higher than the 1.4% awarded nationally to other universities – as well as improvements to other key benefits. Combined with other pay initiatives, including automatic increments, achievement and equity pay awards, and higher National Insurance contributions, the total cost of Imperial’s current staff pay is budgeted to rise circa 4.5% in 25/26 with a further 1.6% in new staff to support growth and workload concerns. Our pay and benefits are benchmarked against other Higher Education institutions and the London market, and our strategy continues to be to pay the median-to-upper quartile compared to these benchmarks. We have reviewed historic flaws in the benchmarking process pointed out by our union colleagues and confirmed that these errors have not impacted on our median-to-upper quartile pay principle either historically or this year. We will initiate a fresh review of our benchmarks in early 2026, in advance of the next round of pay negotiations, and have invited our staff unions to participate in this process.
Despite some of these external challenges Imperial continues to be a world-class university thanks to the collective endeavours of our staff and student community.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Professor Hugh Brady, President