Mission and Vision
University of Chichester Strategic Plan 2025-32
Our mission
Empowering students through transformative education, giving them the confidence and expertise to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Our vision
To be an ambitious university where authenticity and connections underpin excellence in learning, research and knowledge exchange.
Our values - CARE
Courage
Standing up for what matters and being bold
Altruism
Putting others before self
Respect
Treating everybody with dignity
Excellence
Striving to be our best
Key strategic themes
Core strategies
Enterprise strategies
Research strategies
Outreach and recruitment
Access agreements
Key strategic themes
- We will strengthen the distinctiveness of the Chichester student experience as high-quality, personalised, accessible and aspirational.
- We will increase the size and diversity of our student body.
- We will provide an excellent staff experience based on the core values of the University community.
- We will achieve disciplinary and cross-disciplinary excellence in research and innovation.
- We will increase external academic engagement, meeting regional needs and securing national and international recognition.
- We will build on our heritage in teacher education.
- We will contribute to the development of a strong economic ecosystem in West Sussex through imaginative business partnerships, enterprise education and support for graduate start-ups.
- We will develop attractive and environmentally sustainable campuses.
Core strategies
We believe that we have a responsibility to be open and transparent in all of activities, it is our intention, therefore, to make information about the strategies that are core to our mission easily available.
Enterprise strategies
Enterprise and Employer Engagement are key components of the University’s Strategy.
Two key strategic aims are:
- To foster and embed an employer engagement and enterprise culture across the University where undertaking employer engagement and enterprise activities is an aspiration for all staff and a reality for a significant number.
- To make a significant contribution to the sustainable economic, cultural, social and educational regeneration of the communities that the University of Chichester serves, particularly in coastal and rural West Sussex.
As part of its commitment, the University has established the University of Chichester Business School on the Bognor Regis Campus.
Successful bids to both SEEDA and HEFCE have provided an injection of funds to enable the Business School and the University’s Research and Employer Engagement Office (REEO) to occupy an extensively re-furbished listed building, the Dome, on the Campus and to become a lead element in the education-led regeneration of the area.
Research strategies
The University is committed to undertaking and supporting research as an integral part of its provision and for its contribution to our standing as an institution that delivers high quality teaching.
It celebrates the breadth and diversity of research 90% of which has been rated as of international quality with 15% classified as ‘world-leading’ (University results for REF 2014).
The University adopts the widely recognised definition of research as “a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared” and embraces basic, applied, practice and professional based approaches to research.
The Research Strategy will ensure that all staff engaged in learning and teaching achieve a research profile of national or international repute and will support areas of excellence to grow and flourish.
Research that matters
The Research Strategy recognises that research prepares and qualifies academics as deliverers of an outstanding learning experience to their students and is a fundamental and explicit part of the Higher Education offer.
Research expertise and reputation are complementary to formal teaching qualifications and the other skills and expertise required of the modern academic.
In addition, postgraduate research students:
- Will be attracted to study at the University recognizing it as a place where their potential can be realised.
- Will have an excellent experience during their time studying at the University.
- Will feel part of a wider community that values their contribution and listens to their voice.
