ACU Measures

ACU Measures, our annual online benchmarking service, was re-launched in March 2022 and the first survey, the Supporting Research Survey, is now open. Over 140 universities have already signed up.

What is ACU Measures?

This is a service that benchmarks a university’s performance in key areas of management in a confidential, non-competitive, and non-ranking way.

It supports member organisations to compare practices and policies with their peers, providing insights to support senior university management and convene ACU members around common issues, shared challenges, and the exchange of expertise and good practice.

The service has been redesigned with our members to create a more responsive and informative annual service. New features now include bespoke reports using aggregated and analysed data collected from the completed surveys in the Spring and will be shared with universities from September.

What are the benefits?

ACU Measures supports senior managers by:

• Informing institutional planning and decision making based on unique comparisons with other ACU member universities
• Identifying trends and opportunities via reports highlighting key data points and changes over time
• Promoting internal collaboration through the collation of information from multiple departments and breaking down departmental silos
• Promoting learning between members through the exchange of expertise and good practice
• Increasing awareness of member needs to inform the development of future ACU activities and programmes

Based on recent feedback, bespoke reports will now also:

• highlight key trends at pan-membership and regional levels
• support institutions to track changes in policies, practices, and resource allocation over time

How to get involved

The first survey, the Supporting Research Survey is now open and is focused on the research community. The link has been sent to primary contacts at member universities who are responsible for coordinating the completion of the survey on behalf of their institution.

If your university has not received details on how to access the survey, then please fill out the Primary Contact Form. 

As the survey collects institutional rather than departmental/faculty data or individual views, we suggest ownership of the survey resides with a senior contact responsible for research and research support activities at your university. Typically, this would be the Pro Vice Chancellor, Vice Provost/President or Director of Research.

Closing date for completion of the Supporting Research Survey: Friday 26 August 2022

Any questions?

If you have any queries about ACU Measures or the Supporting Research Survey, please contact: measures@acu.ac.uk