Accessibility statement

Preparing papers for University Partnerships, Enterprise and Engagement Committee

Partnerships, Enterprise and Engagement Committee (UPEC) is a senior University committee which considers a substantial amount of business. To enable it to function efficiently and effectively, please read and observe all of the guidance below.

For further information, contact Zoe Deacy-Clarke, Secretary:

zoe.deacy-clarke@york.ac.uk

Why UPEC?

When planning an item of business for UPEC, you should have a clear understanding of why it needs to go to the Committee, bearing in mind it's remit as set out in its UPEC Terms of Reference 2023 (PDF , 228kb).

New policies and initiatives, strategic approaches and any other business with significant implications for the University community must be formally approved by UPEC. An agenda item is therefore likely to be asking the Committee to do one or more of the following:

  • Formally approve a policy/procedure

  • Approve some recommendations for action - with an implementation schedule where relevant 

  • Make a decision in relation to a number of options

  • Express a view in relation to a particular issue/ proposed policy or recommendations, in order to inform a decision to be made by third party

  • Endorse a strategic need for further work to be carried out in a particular area, prior to bringing forward more detailed proposals.

Alternatively, you may just be reporting information for the Committee to note as part of its knowledge base – but you need to be clear why it needs to be brought to the Committee’s attention.

Please note:

1. UPEC is not an appropriate forum for broad consultation: its role is to consider finalised proposals once such processes have taken place. See the ‘Advance preparation’ tab for further information.

2. UPEC is responsible for reporting and monitoring of HEIF. Papers requesting HEIF funding need to go via the HEIF working group.

 

Advance preparation

It is strongly recommended that colleagues developing business other than routine reports for consideration by UPEC should invite engagement from/ consult with the wider community as part of the development process, prior to submission to UPEC. The same applies to initiatives which have implications for other colleagues from the professional support community. 

You will need to plan your piece of work to build in sufficient time to consult with your chosen groups (bearing in mind their own deadlines for formal agenda papers) and respond to their input, prior to preparing your paper in time for the UPEC deadlines. 

 

 

 

Writing papers

1. Be clear what you are asking the Committee to do with your paper (see the ‘Why UPEC’ tab). General, unfocused discussion is not an efficient or productive use of Committee time! The convention is to highlight your instruction to the Committee as a freestanding sentence or paragraph in bold, e.g. UPEC is asked to approve this proposal. The instruction(s) should also be pulled out in the cover sheet to the paper (see Formatting requirements' tab), so that members can see at a glance what they are being asked to do. This is particularly important if there are a number of instructions to the Committee distributed through the main paper.

2. UPEC looks to you to have a thorough grasp of the subject of your paper. Your role is like that of a civil servant: you should be providing advice and guidance on the issues at stake, not vice versa. If you wish for action to be taken or decisions to be made, lay out specific options. If you are looking for a steer on a certain issue, make the parameters for discussion relatively narrow, and explicit. Remember that discussion time for your paper will be limited: the average slot for an item is around 10 minutes.

3. You should briefly set out the background/context to your proposals. If the development of your item of business has involved consultation with the wider academic and/or professional support community, a summary of the process should be included in your paper so that the Committee can be confident that input has been sought at an appropriate level from representatives of the staff which the initiative is going to affect.

4. Whilst it is important to include sufficient detail to inform meaningful discussion, ideally papers should be no more than 5 pages in length, focusing on the key information and summarising where appropriate. In particular:
(a) The Committee’s focus is on strategic decision-making and points of principle. Operational detail is the responsibility of the University’s professional support services, and should be kept to a minimum for UPEC’s purposes.
(b) You should not ask Committee members to process unmediated data for themselves: they rely on you to produce summaries and pull out key points.
(c) Where detailed information is needed for context, this can be provided in the form of an appendix to the main paper, or via a link to further information online.

5. Further University guidance on writing committee papers can be found here. Examples of well-constructed papers are also available from the UPEC Secretary on request.

Formatting requirements

1. With the exception of Working Group minutes, all papers must be accompanied by a coversheet.

A UPEC cover sheet template is available: UPEC Cover Sheet Template V1 (MS Word , 28kb)UPEC example cover sheet (MS Word , 27kb)

2. In line with University branding and accessibility guidelines, UPEC papers should be presented in Calibri font, point 12 minimum. This includes the font on diagrams and/or tables.

3. To aid UPEC’s discussions, please ensure that pages are numbered and that bullet points can be individually referenced i.e. (a), (b), (c) or (i), (ii), (iii), etc. For lengthy discursive papers, it is also helpful to number paragraphs.

4. In order to keep printing costs to a minimum, contributors are asked to present papers in black and white unless colour is absolutely necessary (e.g. for the presentation of line graphs or complex data where grayscale variants are not appropriate).

5. Please submit your paper in an editable format e.g. Word/Excel as opposed to PDF, so that the relevant agenda and enclosure numbers can be added for the Committee's reference. It is helpful to incorporate a document header for this purpose as part of your paper so that the original pagination stays in tact once the above information has been inserted. (The same principle applies to inserting page numbers, above).

 

UPEC deadlines

1. Deadlines for inclusion on the agenda

 Please contact the Secretary at any point up to the deadline in question to propose items for a particular UPEC meeting. You will need to:

(a) specify the title of your paper(s), and

(b) indicate what the Committee will be asked to do with the information i.e. consider/note for information/endorse/formally approve etc.

(c) specify whether your paper is FOI Exempt and/or confidential.

Following the deadline, the Secretary compiles a list of the agenda items proposed, for approval by the Chair. Unless you hear otherwise, you should assume that your item has been accepted.

Further items are only accepted after the deadline by agreement with the Chair. Please note that in line with University practice, the Committee does not accept tabled papers, except in exceptional circumstances by prior agreement with the Chair.

 2. Deadline for submission of papers

Papers should be sent complete and ready for circulation to the Committee Secretary via email (zoe.deacy-clarke@york.ac.uk) by 12pm on the day specified. See further information regarding what is required on the ‘Writing papers’ and ‘Formatting requirements’ tabs.

The stated deadlines allow the Secretary time to perform a basic check on the papers, then mark up, collate and print them prior to circulation a week in advance of the meeting. It is important that the papers go out promptly in order to allow members sufficient reading time.

Please note: missed deadlines, incorrectly formatted papers and/or incomplete submissions (including those requiring further adjustments or authorisations) cause significant disruption to the Committee’s ability to function effectively. Your co-operation in submitting papers on time and ready for circulation is appreciated.

Date of meeting Deadline for inclusion on agenda Deadline for submission of papers

17 January, 0915 – 1115 H/G15

 20 December 2018  3 January 2019
02 April, 0915 – 1115 H/G17  12 March 2019  19 March 2019
12 July, 0900 – 1100 H/G15  22 June 2019  27 June 2019 
08 October, 0915 – 1115 H/G15  17 September 2019  24 September 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In exceptional circumstances it may be possible to send out papers which have already been accepted on to the agenda in a second, later circulation. This should be agreed with the Secretary in advance of the official deadline for papers. However, this should not be seen as the 'fall back' option. UPEC has explicitly requested that second circulations should be as brief as possible since members are not always able to engage with substantial amounts of information at short notice.

 

The meeting

  1. It is likely that you will be asked to attend the Partnerships, Enterprise and Engagement Committee at an appropriate point in the meeting to speak to your agenda item. The Secretary will be in touch with details and to arrange a time. Please be prepared to present your paper formally as well as answering questions in the course of discussion. You are not expected to talk through the detail of the paper: assume that the members have read the paper in advance of the meeting. However, it is useful to focus the discussion by briefly pulling out key points and reiterating what the Committee is being asked to do. Please note that the average slot for an item is around 10 minutes.

  2. Once the minutes of the meeting have been signed off by the Chair, the Secretary will send you a copy of the relevant minute for information. You are expected to keep this for reference as part of your own records.
  3. Further action, including any wider communication of the outcome which might be required, and/or implementation of what the Committee has agreed, is your responsibility as project lead.