Refreshing our Strategy for 2035

"The University of York exists for public good."

That statement of purpose - the first sentence of our University Strategy - captures something vital about the University of York, a commitment crafted at our foundation in 1963 which has been renewed across the decades since then. 

It is a commitment that resonates: when colleagues talk to partners and collaborators; when new members of staff apply to York; when our students cross the stage at graduation; when we devise our teaching; when we discover and apply knowledge through our research. It is also a standard to which we are rightly held by the university community, and by those we work with beyond it.

The strategic vision for the University of York, articulated in 2020, was intended to help us understand what it meant to be a University for Public Good as we entered the new decade, and how we would work together to deliver on that commitment through to 2030. 

But a lot has changed since 2020. We have seen perhaps the most turbulent period for universities since the Second World War, involving a global pandemic, a level of instability at home and internationally we’ve not seen for decades, acute cost of living challenges, financial crisis in the sector, and a raft of policy changes which have radically altered the context in which the University has to operate. And the next few years, to be frank, look no less turbulent. 

Against that background, we have not managed to progress some of the ambitions we set out in 2020. In other areas, like the Mumbai campus, we have moved further and faster than anything envisaged in 2020. In others still, like the rapid development of AI, we are in the midst of grappling with the opportunities and challenges technology is going to bring. 

Some things don't change

All that means it seems timely to reflect back on, and where appropriate refresh, what we wrote in 2020. The word ‘refresh’ is important. We are not going back to the drawing board. 

Our commitment to public good is an enduring one, whatever challenge or change is thrown at us. So the four strategic principles we identified in 2020 will remain: environmental sustainability, interdisciplinary collaboration, internationalism, and inclusion. 

Our commitment to quality in research and student education is also non-negotiable, as marked in a top ten performance in REF 2021 and a Gold award in TEF 2023. Maintaining high levels of quality will remain at the heart of any University of York strategy.

And a strong sense of community is vital too. Though we have seen strains, we also have examples of strength amid adversity: in our Times Higher nomination as University of the Year 2021 for how we supported students through Covid; and the contributions of staff of all kinds in supporting colleagues and students to flourish, as celebrated in our Inclusive Impact Awards. And the University came through painful cost-reduction programmes in 2024 and 2025 without experiencing the division and disruption that other universities have seen. Maintaining and harnessing that sense of community will be vital in negotiating the opportunities and challenges of the coming years.

Our Strategic Aims

So the question is: how do we maintain principles, quality and community in a turbulent environment, and as we work through the financial challenges facing the sector? 

The open meetings we held in late 2025 began a discussion on this: how we had created a window of opportunity through what were often difficult and painful actions to restore financial equilibrium; and how we needed to move on and grasp that opportunity. 

In those meetings I highlighted two areas in which we needed to think afresh: 

• in deepening our anchor role in city and region as we look to attract more talented students from the region to study at York; and as we shape the economic development ambitions of our new Mayoral Authority through our research; 
• and in rethinking how we work internationally as we build new partnership-based channels of international student recruitment; and as we develop what may become a network of York international campuses which open up new ways to deliver student education and develop our research.

I also stressed in those meetings that reaching financial equilibrium was only a starting point. 

We needed to press on to build the financial resilience that will not only support our day-to-day operations but also the longer-term investment in digital and physical infrastructure that will underpin our future success. 

That provides a backdrop to a revised set of Strategic Aims. 

The current Aims for Research and Education - and our commitments to quality in those fields - remain in place, as does that for Community. But we are separating the former Aim of Local Commitment on a Global Scale into two distinct opportunities, focused on our impact on the communities in and around York, and our growing global reach and ambition.

And we are introducing financial resilience as a new Strategic Aim. Back in 2020, we had seen stability in sector finances for a decade or so, and our strategy documents had less to say about finance as a result. That stability has clearly gone. Keeping a sharp focus on financial resilience will be critical as we refresh our Strategy, open up this window of opportunity, and meet the challenges ahead. 

So the refreshed strategy will be organised around six Strategic Aims as follows:

• Curiosity-driven and action-oriented research
• Providing an education that empowers
• Creating a community without limits
• Civic engagement and regional partnership
• Global partnerships and impact
• Securing our financial resilience

These six Aims, underpinned by our enduring Principles, will shape our thinking and set out paths of action through to 2035.

Strategic priorities and hearing from you

Over the next couple of months, we are organising a series of discussion forums where you will have the chance to reflect on these Strategic Aims and what they mean for you. 

We will prompt discussion around a set of questions, designed to help us imagine the kind of University we might be in 2035, building out from some of the changes we have seen, and how we have responded to the challenges of the last few years. 

Community questions for our Strategy Refresh

We'll be asking our community to select the topics that matter most to you, to focus discussions around one or two of the following:

1. How will we work across disciplines and institutions to maintain our competitiveness and success in research as funding opportunities change over the next years?
2. How will we drive up the proportion of industry income in our research portfolio to double or treble that of now by 2035? 
3. How much space in our curriculum should there be for work-related learning and skills as we adapt to a changing graduate labour market and changing student expectations?
4. What will it take for York to become an online education provider at scale?
5. How will we ensure our teaching and student services support the increasing diversity of our students (widening access, commuter, articulation, international, online, part-time, CPD, apprenticeship, transnational educational partnerships) as the modes and locations in which we deliver our education evolve? 
6. How will we build and deepen a civic partnership in York which helps to renew and deepen public trust in universities?
7. What is our appetite for closer collaboration with partner universities in the region in research, student education, enterprise and university operations? 
8. How will we practise our academic mission of quality and purpose across, say, five transnational educational partnerships (TNE) campuses in different parts of the world? 
9. How will we grow the scale of our research portfolio through international partnerships, including work developed through our TNE campuses?
10. How will we support academic and professional services staff to fulfil their potential at the different stages of their career in light of change in the sector? Do we understand and support the needs of all of our staff in the light of these changes? 
11. How will we need to adapt and develop our partnership with our student body amid the changes we are set to face?
12. How different will our physical and digital infrastructure need to be in ten years time?

We’ll use ideas and insights prompted by these discussions to draft the refreshed Strategy, and shape the priorities for delivering it, by the end of this academic year. 

You’ll be able to find details of opportunities to join this conversation on our Strategy pages, starting with some all-staff introduction sessions in March to help set the scene and answer your questions. 

I look forward to seeing you at some of these sessions and thank you in advance for the ideas you will bring to the conversation. 

Charlie Jeffery
Vice-Chancellor and President