Financial Sustainability (including pensions)
Financial sustainability is the golden thread which runs through most institutions’ risk registers, be that threats to funding, inflationary pressures on costs or an increasingly competitive market for student recruitment and research funding. Ultimately this all impacts an institutions’ long term sustainability.
Student Recruitment
The competitiveness of the student recruitment market has never been higher and the risk of under recruiting remains a constant. This year, however, the breadth of the risk is more extensive – with international, postgraduate and undergraduate recruitment all identified as problem areas.
Business Continuity / Cyber Security
Business continuity and cyber security continues to move up our top five. As suggested last year, this is probably because institutions are becoming more aware of the cyber security threat, but it also reflects the increasingly risky world we now live in.
Campus Deterioration / Lack of investment in infrastructure
The potential deterioration of campus facilities and the struggle to invest in infrastructure is a by-product of overarching financial uncertainty. We see this appearing more and more on registers.