The development of College Values also helps us respond to the shifting external environment and the challenges of new ways of working, as well as increasing concerns about mental health and wellbeing.

The Values incorporate Imperial Expectations, providing a shared framework for the College Community including students and staff. The spirit and intent of the Expectations haven’t been lost, the framework illustrates how our Expectations map into the new framework. The Values therefore build on, refresh and update the Expectations.

We will use and refer to our College Values. Our Values and behaviours incorporates Imperial Expectations. The spirit and intent of the Expectations haven’t been lost, the framework illustrates how our Expectations map into the new framework. The Values therefore build on, refresh and update the Expectations.

Your local Values remain in place and you can continue to build on their success. The College Values will complement your local Values and won't contravene them. If you would like to explore how your local Values may be supported alongside the College Values,  please contact the People and Organisational Development team.

College Values describe the behaviours we would all like to experience in our working environment. This will not happen overnight and it is going to be a development process for us all. Read through our Values Guide and identify whether there are approaches that might help you to respond appropriately. 

There are a number of approaches and policies being developed to allow staff to resolve or escalate problems - you can view progress on embedding the values via this this link. In the first instance, please contact your HR Partner or OD Consultant.

We all contribute to our working and learning environment in how we behave and respond to others. Senior leaders have participated in sessions over the past couple of months to support them to consider the role and impact of leadership in demonstrating our shared values. Senior leaders along with everyone else will need to be open to feedback on what they are doing well as well as what could be improved on. We all have a responsibility to speak up respectfully and appropriately where we see our values being demonstrated, as well as when they are not. 

Our Provost and the Provost’s board have reiterated their lead of and commitment to demonstrating the values and behaviours through their signup to our values and in their ownership for launching and embedding them across our community.

The launch of the College Values was timed to coincide with a wide range of cultural initiatives under the umbrella of the Imperial Together Campaign. College wanted to ensure the learning from the Working Together Task Group was fed into the College Values – to help identify barriers to achieving a positive culture.  We have all been through a period of significant change and challenge and it is critical that we learn and improve as a result.

It is important that we have a shared framework and tools to help us all respond to what we’ve been through, but also strive to make a better and more considerate environment going forward. The commitment to College Values is led by our Provost and the Provost’s board. The embedding of Values will evolve over the coming weeks, months and years. At this stage we are asking College leaders to launch and share the Values in their areas and for all staff to become familiar with them through reading the framework and to have conversations about them with their teams.

We recognise that staff have limited time however improving our culture will benefit us all in how we experience working and studying at Imperial. We will be providing short, accessible development opportunities from now and well into in the new year to help you engage with the Values as efficiently as possible.

Through our work to define the College Values, we’ve heard your stories of the range of experiences you have both working and learning at the College.

The Values and Behaviours framework, and supporting guide, is intended to help both staff and students have constructive conversations about the behaviours we see, explore strategies for managing difficult situations and most importantly describing the standards of behaviour we expect from each other.

The College Values express those behaviours that are important to people and celebrate what we do well already. The framework also explicitly names those behaviours that are unacceptable.

First step is to check our quick reference guide that gives you an over view of our helpful tools and techniques. Depending on your question, you may want to discuss a situation with your line manager.

Strategic HR Partners are available if you need help with a complex issue or you feel you don’t know what to do in a specific situation.