London Metropolitan University launches new six-year strategy focused on student success

Our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Lynn Dobbs, introduces London Met's 2019/20 - 2024/5 Strategy

Date: 1 November 2019

London Metropolitan University adds real social value to students, staff and communities. We give students the skills and opportunities to transform their lives and careers. We meet the needs of the London labour market, and our staff and students collaborate with city-wide partners on high-impact research and knowledge exchange initiatives which keep our city great.

We are also global. The education we provide prepares students to live and work anywhere in the world, from fast-paced cities to remote rural communities. We have valuable partnerships with education organisations worldwide, providing opportunities for students to access our high-quality provision in their own countries. We collaborate with a host of international organisations to support their aims, and our research has global impact.

We believe that every person in this country and across the globe deserves a chance to transform their own life and the lives of others through higher education. Education provides a catalyst for social equality. Students come to London Metropolitan University when they recognise that they are not prepared to settle for the life and opportunities that were determined for them at birth. The education we offer has changed the lives of so many of our students and, in doing so, we are helping to drive real social change and transformation in this country and beyond.

We also believe that our diversity is what makes London Metropolitan University so special. Our students come from over 140 different countries. They have different economic backgrounds, ages, family situations, ethnicities, religions, identities, abilities and disabilities. The richness of conversation and multiple perspectives that this diversity brings has an energy like no other. It delivers a truly cosmopolitan environment. It opens our minds to totally different experiences, cultures and viewpoints, challenging us all to think and to learn in new ways.

Our new strategy builds on our many strengths, but is also designed to take London Metropolitan University on a change journey of its own. Over the six years of our plan we will retain our commitment to social inclusion but we will also build a university that has academic achievement and financial sustainability at its heart. There is no doubt that this will be challenging, not least because we are operating in a highly uncertain external environment fuelled by our changing relationship with the European Union and constant shifts in government policy, regulation and funding. Achieving our goals will require determination and commitment from our whole University community. Every decision we make and every activity that we undertake must support our key priorities and make effective use of our resources. Through a sense of shared purpose, we will achieve success.

One year on from joining London Metropolitan University as its Vice-Chancellor, I feel privileged to lead this great University. We are on a new pathway that has real focus, energy, passion and momentum behind it and I strongly believe that the best is yet to come.

Professor Lynn Dobbs, Vice-Chancellor, London Metropolitan University
1 November 2019

Read London Met's 2019/20 - 2024/25 Strategy

Close-up of the Graduate Centre, Holloway Road