Thanks for convening the special committee meeting. Sorry if I lengthened the meeting by going back time and time again to my concerns about the process by which this ICT restructuring is being undertaken. Factoring that out, your notes chime with what I thought we all discussed and our collective concerns.

Concerning point 2 of General Notes (of your report/minutes), concerning the "ICT supports anything & everything. ICT is expected to be ‘jack of all trades’, … ” in §2a on pg 5, I would point out that Academics are expected to be jack of all trades! I am struggling to think of another job description that requires such a wide gamut of technical, education, project management, leadership, pastoral, advisory role, on top of constant innovation and the need for ultra-specialisation. Surely if the team leading ICT restructuring have failed to grasp this, they have just - how do I say this nicely - revealed that they are not ready to undertake such a critical project. Their vision is not aligned with the actual business being restructured. This is my view, which may be a little stronger/harsher than what you expressed in the notes.

It paints a completely negative picture of ICT at Imperial. If I had seen a list of bad and good points, I would personally feel that the rest of the document were more credible. The bottom line is surely that Imperial has maintained its ranking as one of the top universities in the UK and indeed the world for decades. Surely this would not be possible if ICT were as poor as they are purported to be? Is there evidence that we are sliding down the rankings due to ICT provision?
Table 1 is possibly very misleading. Imperial College (London) is a university specialising in Science, Technology and Medicine, all disciplines which arguably require more ICT provision per beneficiary than an institution also covering the arts & humanities, law, etc. Again, have the ICT restructuring team (spectacularly) failed to grasp the business they are trying to turn around?

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Dr Robert J. Kingham

Plasma Physics Group

Imperial College London

rj.kingham@imperial.ac.uk

Professional Web Page

I work flexibly and aspire to a sensible work-life balance. I’m sending this email now because it suits me, but I don’t expect you to read or respond outside of your own working hours.

During the COVID-19 pandemic it may take me longer than usual to reply to emails, due to my care & education responsibilities of my school-age children.

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On 8 Jun 2020, at 20:14, David Colling <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk> wrote:

It has been pointed out to me that as well as several typos I have missed a "not" in point 1 of of general. It should read "...and ICT may or may not be true of the administrative parts of college but is certainly not true of the Physics Department."

I will correct other typos in V2.

Best,
david

On 08/06/2020 19:14, David Colling wrote:

Dear All,
Please find attached my notes from our meeting this morning. My apologies that they have taken longer to write up than I had hoped - I kept on getting interruptions. I was hoping to send them out earlier so that others could comment before sending them to Michele and Paul. Because of the latness of the hour I have decided to cc them on this message so that they have something. I will also take any comments/suggestions and try to provide an updated version by tomorrow. I will also add as an appendix the individual group responses that I have received as these provide supporting evidence for what we are saying.
Best,
david
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