Ian Jacobs reports a lower deficit than planned for

Professor Jacobs tells staff COVID-19 occurred in a year when the university had planned for a deficit as part of the 2025 growth strategy. “We had long standing plans prepared to address a fall in student enrolments for whatever reason and these were quickly actioned,” he says.

This allowed UNSW to balance a $196m drop in income with “proportionate reductions, primarily in non-people expenditure.” However there were voluntary redundancies and 256 FTE forced departures were announced in September (CMM September 16 2020).

The result is a $19m deficit against the $32m loss originally planned.

Savings, plus a $100m in additional research funding from the Commonwealth place UNSW in a sound position.

Professor Jacobs tells staff “we can be confident of financial stability during the remainder of this year,” and that the university is able to “maintain the trajectory of Strategy 2025 despite the pandemic.”

Standard and Poor’s report UNSW raised $250m last year to “shore up its liquidity” (scroll down).