Director's Message
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue11 1–31 December 2020
We have nearly arrived at the end of 2020, a year that I suspect we all will glad to put behind us. The various trials and tribulations of this annus horribilus do not need to be listed again here, but I do want to speak to the response to these challenges by RSAA staff and students. In short, we have come through strongly - and that is quite an achievement! While it has been a struggle at times, and we have all felt great pressure at one point or another, in fact the School has, despite everything thrown at us, not just survived but even thrived.
While we may have felt our productivity has been lower, this is not apparent in the School's publication rates, nor in SSO's delivery of facilities for science (once the lockdown ended), nor in the the AITC's ability to break even on its operations. And we have celebrated some big milestones: RSAA staff continued to publish papers with high-impact results in leading journals; the undergraduate major in astrophysics had a successful first year; the MAVIS team completed an initial design study and are about to sign a contract with ESO to build the instrument; the Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics (CGA) was established and has started hiring new staff; and several people won significant promotions, awards and honours - not least, CGA founding members David McClelland and Susan Scott shared in the Prime Minister's Prize for Science.
Just as importantly, RSAA took a long, hard look at itself and its culture, and decided to launch a significant program of cultural reform to make the School a better, kinder, fairer, and more nurturing environment for work and study. If we follow through with all the planned initiatives, the Culture Action Plan may in fact be the most important and enduring legacy of 2020 for the School.
Of course, while we will be glad in many ways to see the back of 2020, there is no doubt 2021 will have plenty of challenges to offer. The revenue losses suffered by the University due to the events of 2020 have led to a reduced recurrent budget for the School in 2021. Consequently RSAA will be setting out a change management plan in January that will allow us to live within our means while keeping a solid financial and strategic footing in 2021. Due to RSAA's excellent ERA research ranking and strong earnings from every recurrent dollar it receives, the School has been cut significantly less than most of the College of Science. Moreover, we have been working hard, and with some success, to find ways to minimise the impacts of the reduced budget on the School. We therefore expect that the required changes will be modest relative to those in other Schools and that RSAA will be able to maintain its competitive international standing and deliver all aspects of its mission at the highest standard in 2021 and future years.
After such a challenging year as 2020, I sincerely wish everyone at RSAA a safe, relaxing and joyous holiday!
Matthew
