What our priorities are and how we are doing

This page highlights our strategies and plans, performance indicators, audits, inspections, and reviews.

University vision and strategy

Liverpool 2031 is our strategic framework. It explains our ambitions and the main priorities we will deliver on to reach our goals. Download the Liverpool 2031 Strategic Framework (PDF, 593KB). Our Estates Strategy is linked closely to our Liverpool 2031 strategy, designed to help the University achieve its long-term goals and reinforce our presence in the Knowledge Quarter, Liverpool City Region and beyond.

Plans to support our vision and strategy

Liverpool 2031 establishes four pillars and two cross-cutting themes. Together, these six areas are our main strategic focus.

The pillars are:

The two overarching themes are important in everything we do, both within and beyond the priorities aligned to each pillar.

Annual review of our progress

The President of Council and the Vice-Chancellor provide a review of the University’s activities at the end of each financial year in the University Financial Statement. Financial statements are published annually, usually in December. 

We publish a report about our Economic and Wider Impacts on the local area, our surrounding region and the wider UK.   We publish information about our rankings and reputation.

Academic quality and standards

We publish information about academic quality and standards on our website. This includes information about academic policies and procedures, assessment, and programme specifications. See the Academic Quality and Standards Division website.

You can find information about academic quality via DiscoverUni. DiscoverUni is the official website for comparing UK higher education course data for prospective students.

External and internal audit information

The University Framework for Quality and Standards (PDF, 248 KB) specifies the responsibilities and processes by which the standards of the academic programmes and the quality of the student learning experience are managed, assured, and enhanced.

Audit Committee advise and assist senior University leaders in respect of the entire assurance and control environment of the institution.

The University Financial Statement include a report from the external auditors. The auditors have a statutory duty to examine and give an opinion on the University's annual financial statement and assess the overall use of public resources. We publish financial statements annually, usually in December.

Links with employers and sponsors in both the public and private sectors

Research, Partnerships and Innovation work with organisations that would like to collaborate or develop a partnership with us. We work with external partners to develop new research initiatives or partnerships, to access consultancy, facilities, and funding and to develop commercial licensing and spin-out opportunties.

Careers & Employability work in partnership with local, national, and global recruiters to access the talent of our students and graduates.

Government and regulatory reports

This section relates to accreditation and monitoring reports by professional, statutory or regulatory bodies and information that the University is legally obliged to make available to its funding and/or monitoring bodies.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the regulator and competent authority for Higher Education in the United Kingdom. OfS requires the University to make the following documents available.

All UK universities are required to make several statutory data returns as part of their registration with the OfS Students. These cover finance, staff, student and estates data. Reports are made to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This information is published on the HESA website.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the peer review system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education. We publish full REF results.

The University joined the Higher Education sector’s gender equality charter Athena Swan Charter in 2009 and was recognised with an institutional Silver award in 2016 and again in 2022. We hold departmental Athena Swan awards in all 12 of our academic Schools. Visit our Athena Swan pages for links to institutional, faculty and school/institute projects and action plans where available.

Compliance with duties under the Equality Act 2010

We publish the University's approach to inclusion, equality priorities, equality information, schemes, reports, and policies on the Diversity & Equality  section of our website. We publish a Statutory Gender Pay Gap Report as required by the Equality Act 2010. The report also includes the Ethnicity Pay Gap, People of Colour Pay Gap, Disability Pay Gap, and Sexual Orientation Pay Gap using the same calculation methodology and data sample.

Page updated: 13 February 2025

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