Freedom of Information

2026-3 | Hardship Fund | 29-Jan-2026

Please provide the following data for each academic semester/term since August 2020, broken down semester by semester with the most recent semester first (e.g. Winter 2025/26, then the preceding semesters/terms going back five academic years from the most recent semester you hold).
For each semester/term, please provide:
1.  Number of applications received to the University hardship fund(s)
2.  Number of applications granted (awards made)
3.  Total £ value granted (sum of awards paid)
Please provide the above in two separate tranches:
A) UK students
B) International students
Response: Please see attached document.

2025-196 | Chinese student stats | 29-Jan-2026

1. Annual admission rates by academic discipline or programme for the academic years 2022–2023, 2023–2024, and 2024–2025 (where available).
2. Annual admission rates for Chinese applicants over the same period. If your institution maintains separate or more detailed statistics relating to Chinese student admissions, I would be grateful if these could also be shared.
Response: Please see attached. Please note numbers have been aggregated.

2025-201 | Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support service delivery | 29-Jan-2026

1. AI Use in Operations
1.  Does your organisation currently use any form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) or automated systems in its operations?
Response: This information is not held in this format. There may be small scale usage of AI in individual faculties but this is not college wide. Co-Pilot is on work machines as part of the MicroSoft package for schools.

2. AI for Decision-Making
2.  Does your organisation use AI or algorithmic systems to support or inform decision-making in any area (e.g., resource allocation, risk assessments, case prioritisation)?
Response: No

3. AI Chatbots and Customer Interaction
3.  Does your organisation currently use chatbots or virtual assistants—AI-driven or rules-based—to support public enquiries or internal staff functions?
Response: No

4. Policies and Governance
4.  Does your organisation have any formal policy, strategy, or guidance relating to the use of Artificial Intelligence or automated decision-making?
Response: All Birkbeck policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies  
Specific AI policy is here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/student-policies-2024-25/ai_guidance.pdf

5. Data Protection and Ethics
5.  If AI systems are used, what measures or frameworks does your organisation have in place to ensure:
Response: Please see policies above. All use is camputred in DPIAs and Ethics approvals processes for research.

6. Trials, Pilots, or Future Plans
6.  Has your organisation run any pilots, trials, or exploratory projects involving AI in the last 3 years, or does it plan to do so in the next 12–24 months?
Response: This request is too broad and the information is not held centrally. AI is a current topic and is being covered in different ways in different departments including research, AI summits, and talks from AI providers.

7. Staff Training and Awareness
7.  Does your organisation provide any training, guidance, or internal communications to staff relating to AI, its use, or its implications?
Response: Yes, we have training modules for AI use on Moodle and SharePoint for staff and students.

2025-199 | Meetings between university employees and Chinese state officials | 29-Jan-2026

1.  List of meetings between university employees and Chinese state officials, including the date, location, and the names of the participants.
Response: Two meetings were held with officials from the Chinese Scholarship Council and one meeting with officials from the Chinese Ministry of Education. These were held in Beijing sometime after January 2024. There are no records of meetings prior to January 2024.

2.  All notes, minutes and briefings from meetings between university employees and Chinese state officials.
Response: Birkbeck do not hold these documents. 

2026-2 | Trade Unions and Strike Ballots | 29-Jan-2026

Between the following dates 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2025, please provide a copy of the following:
1.  Each and every notice supplied by the UCU union of an intention to ballot as required by Section 226A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
2.  Each and every notice supplied by the UCU union of a ballot result as required by Section 231A of Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
3.  Each and every notice supplied by the UCU union of intention to induce industrial action as required by Section 234A of Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
4.  Further, please provide, using the attached spreadsheet, details of the number of people who had pay deducted on each day of UCU called strike action.
Response: Please see attached documents.

2025-200 | Call-off contracts | 21-Jan-2026

You asked for information regarding call-off contracts in the public sector.
Response: Please see attached document.

2025-182 | Complaint Handling | 21-Jan-2026

1. Settlement Documentation: a) Under your standard operating procedures, if a financial remedy (e.g., a tuition refund) is offered at the Informal / Early Resolution stage, is it a mandatory requirement to obtain a student's signature on a formal "Settlement Agreement," "Waiver," or "Acceptance Form" before classifying the complaint as "Settled"?  
Response: Yes
b) If a student accepts a refund without signing such a document, would it be your standard conduct to consider them legally or procedurally barred from escalating the complaint to the Formal Stage (Level 2) to seek further redress (e.g., for consequential losses)?
Response: This will never be the case as we will never offer a refund without written confirmation or signed document 
c) Is it accepted practice at your institution to classify a complaint as "Settled" based solely on the fact that a student did not immediately reply to a refund offer (i.e., "Settlement by Conduct"), without obtaining explicit written confirmation that the dispute was concluded? 
Response: No, student needs to respond and confirm

2.Impact of Data Rectification: a) If a student complaint is rejected as "Out of Time," but the university subsequently admits that the student's official record (e.g., withdrawal date or reason) was factually incorrect during that period and issues a formal Rectification, is it the standard expectation that the complaint time limit would be re-opened? 
Response: Yes, complaint would be opened and considered within time, following correction of record
b) Would it be considered consistent with your fairness policies to enforce a 3-month deadline against a student if it is proven that the university’s own administrative records regarding their status were inaccurate at the time the deadline expired?
Response: Yes, 3 months may be too extensive.  Up to 4 weeks.

3.  SLC Declarations & Data Consistency: a) Is it permissible under your standard procedures to submit a "Resumption of Study" confirmation to the Student Loans Company (triggering payment) for a student whose internal record is currently marked as "Withdrawn" or "Left Course"? b) If such a discrepancy were identified (external confirmation vs. internal withdrawal), would this be classified internally as a: i) Standard administrative workaround? ii) Or; A reportable data breach / potential fraud risk?
Response: Under our standard procedures we would not submit a resumption of study for a withdrawn student. We would only ever submit an amended withdrawal date or resumption of study to SLC if the student record was also updated to reflect this change.

4.  Discretion & Burden of Proof: If a student record already contains HESA Code F (Mental Health Condition): a) Before rejecting a complaint as "Out of Time," is it the standard expectation for caseworkers to check the student record for disability markers?
Response: Students are to disclose mitigation and or health conditions should it affect the way they process, submit complaint. If the student can provide supporting information to suggest that mitigation/mental health affected their ability to submit complaint form, this will be reviewed as in time.
b) Would it be standard conduct to demand new medical evidence from the student to prove their vulnerability, or was the existing Code F marker accepted as sufficient "Constructive Knowledge" to trigger Reasonable Adjustments? 
Response: No, student can provide existing evidence.

5.  Issuance of COP Letters: a) Was it standard practice to issue a formal "Completion of Procedures" (COP) letter immediately following an Informal outcome if no formal investigation report had been produced? 
Response: No
b) Specifically, would the issuance of a COP letter be considered procedurally correct if the student had never submitted a formal complaint form? 
Response: No

6.  Representations to the OIA: When responding to an OIA complaint: a) Is it standard practice to represent a case as "Settled" to the OIA if no signed settlement agreement exists? 
Response: No 
b) Please confirm if your institution has a policy or guidance document that defines the evidence required to prove a "Settlement" to the OIA. 
Response: N/A

7.  Data (Last 3 Academic Years): a) Total number of student complaints resolved at the Informal Stage. 
Response: Data not held 
b) Number of COP letters issued solely on the basis of an informal resolution. 
Response: Data not held.
c) Does your central case management system include a specific category or flag for "Settlements without Signed Agreement"? (
Response: No

2025-190 | Formula Student activity | 15-Jan-2026

Please state whether your university participated in the IMechE Formula Student competition in each of these academic years.
If not involved in any year, please simply state “No participation” for that year.
Response: No participation for the years requested.

2025-183 | Admission Statistics | 13-Jan-2026

Under the Freedom of Information act, I would like to know for Bioinformatics (MSc):
- the number of applications
- the number of offers made
- the number of acceptances
for the 2025/26, 2024/25, 2023/24, and 2022/23 admission cycles

Response: Numbers are shown year-on-year to keep the 2025/26 data, which is still in progress, comparable. The figures represent the highest recorded values, even if applications, offers, or acceptances were later withdrawn, cancelled, or changed.
2022/23: Applications 133; Offers 109; Firm acceptances 52
2023/24: Applications 102; Offers 83; Firm acceptances 32
2024/25: Applications 104; Offers 87; Firm acceptances 44
2025/26: Applications 97; Offers 90; Firm acceptances 53

2025-202 | Investments | 12-Jan-2026

Please provide a list of the University’s investments held directly or indirectly (including through pooled funds or external fund managers) as of the most recent reporting date available.
Response: Governors finalised a new investment strategy in 2019/2020 and the approach is explained in our Financial Statements 2021 (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/finance/financial-statements-2021.pdf  p 24). The investment policy is on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy  The investment strategy finalised in 2019/2020 aims to support our core business activities, purchase of capital equipment, infrastructure improvements and our estates strategy. It also includes the University’s approach to Responsible Investment. Independent advice on investment manager selection, which particularly focussed on Environmental, Social and Governance criteria, was provided by Mercer and in the autumn of 2020 and our investment funds are invested through and managed by Ruffer Charitable Assets Trust and Mercer Sustainable Global Equity Fund. Information about our investments can be found in our financial statements here: Financial statements (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements ). Birkbeck’s Investment Policy can be found on the College website. (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy )

2025-192 | International students enrolled on MRes | 12-Jan-2026

Please can you provide the number of international students enrolled on master’s by research (MRes) courses at your university for the previous 4 academic years, including the current one? This includes all master's degrees studied primarily through research. This does not include PhD programmes.
Response: Due to low numbers these have been rounded to the nearest five.
2022/3 – 20 
2023/4 – 10 
2024/5 – 5 
2025/6 – 5 

2025-197 | University-affiliated sports incidents | 08-Jan-2026

All recorded information held by the university  relating to an alleged discriminatory incident, or incidents, that occurred during or immediately following a University-affiliated sports game or games.
Response: Birkbeck does not hold affiliated sports games.

2025-177 | WAN Services | 19-Dec-2025

Contract 1 – Wide Area Network (WAN) Services (Including HSCN)
WAN Provider(s)
Please confirm the main supplier(s) for your WAN services. If this information is not available, please explain why.
Response: Jisc (Janet)

Contract Expiry Date
Please provide the expiry date for each WAN contract (DD/MM/YYYY or MM/YYYY acceptable). If rolling, please state the terms.
Response: The contract is annual and rolls over every August

Contract Description
Please provide a brief summary of the scope of each WAN contract.
Response: Information about JISC can be found on their website here: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/

Number of Sites Covered
Please indicate the number of sites supported by the WAN. An approximation is acceptable.
Response: We have dual multi-gbps WAN connections and these support approximately 18 buildings.

Annual Average Spend
What is the annual average spend for WAN services? Please break this down by provider if more than one.
Response: £10k + VAT

Procurement Route
Please provide details of how each WAN contract was procured. If a framework was used, please include the framework name and reference number. 
Response: Jisc/Janet is a charity that is funded by ALL Higher Education and Research institutions. One of its primary deliverables is secure, high speed  WAN connections. The College's Financial Regulations do not require a “procurement route” for this type of transaction.

Internal Contact
Responsible Contact Person(s)
Please provide the full contact details for the person(s) responsible for each of the above contracts
Response: We are refusing this part of your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection legislation, the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff. To contact departments or staff members please use our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-184 | EV Charging | 19-Dec-2025

Please could you advise as to whether your organisation has introduced and implemented a policy covering the following:
Supporting Staff with the Installation of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure at their home.
Response: The HR department does not have this policy

Making a travel claim or any form of reimbursement for charging electrical vehicles at home (Personal or work provided) for the purpose of work-related travel.
Response: The HR department does not have this policy

2025-178 | China | 19-Dec-2025

2025-185 | Service Charges and Lease-Related Costs | 19-Dec-2025

University as Tenant – responsible for paying rent and other lease related charges
1. Does the university audit landlords’ recharges for service charges, insurance and utilities to identify inefficiencies and unjustified costs?
Response: Yes we do. We receive reconciliation documents and review them to ensure the service charges are accurate and justified. In addition, we conduct regular review to confirm we are getting the most competitive prices for insurance and utilities.

2. Please provide the name and contact details of the appropriate person within the Estates team who would deal with enquiries of this nature?
Response: We are refusing this part of your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection legislation, the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff. To contact departments or staff members please use our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

University as Landlord – charging rent & potentially other lease related expense to tenants
3. Does the university recovery service charges and other lease-related costs from commercial tenants or sub-tenants?
Response: No.

4. Please provide the name and contact details of the appropriate person within the Estates team who would deal with enquiries of this nature?
Response: Not applicable, see 3. 

Both as Tenant & Landlord
5. Are there any contracts in place for the provision of the above services?  If yes, please indicate the current supplier(s), the start date(s) and the duration of the contract(s)?
Response: For utilities, we started using TEC from 01.10.2023.

2025-179 | Modules | 19-Dec-2025

2025-175 | AI Academic Misconduct | 19-Dec-2025

1.  The number of proven cases of academic misconduct broken down by year from 2018-19 to the present.
2018-2019 – Not held
2019-2020 - 13
2020-2021 – 14
2021-2022 - 18
2022-2023 - 22
2023-2024 – 47
2024-2025 – 25

2.  The number of proven cases of academic misconduct related to usage of artificial intelligence broken down by year from 2018-19 to the present.
2018-19 – Not held
2019-2020 – Not held
2020-2021 – Not held
2021-2022 - 0
2022-2023 - 7
2023-2024 - 36
2024-2025 – 18

3.  The number of students enrolled at the university broken down year by year from 2018-19 to the present.
2018-19 – 12895
2019-2020 – 12795
2020-2021 – 13000
2021-2022 - 11600
2022-2023 - 10525
2023-2024 - 9010
2024-2025 – 8285

4.  Policy documents the university has regarding its approach to academic misconduct involving student usage of artificial intelligence.
Student policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/registry-services/student-policies-2024-25
Specific AI policy is here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/student-policies-2024-25/ai_guidance.pdf

2025-180 | Completion of Procedures | 16-Dec-2025

Standard Templates: A copy of the standard template(s) or standard wording used by your institution when issuing a Completion of Procedures (CoP) letter to a student.
Response: We do not have a template or standard wording. Competition of procedures letters are written on an individual basis, and dependant on the case and outcome. The only standard template and wording used, is at the bottom of the completion of procedures letter:

The College Decision

The final decision of the College is therefore to (reject of uphold) your complaint review. This concludes the College’s procedures in relation to your complaint.

Completion of Procedures

Under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 the College subscribes to the independent scheme for the review of student complaints and appeals.  If you are dissatisfied with the outcome you may be able to apply for a review of your complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) providing that the case you take to the OIA is eligible under its Rules.

Should you decide to make a complaint to the OIA, your Scheme Application Form must be received by the OIA within twelve months of the date of this letter, that is, it must be received by the OIA on or before (1 year)

The OIA’s leaflet, An Introduction to the OIA for Students can be downloaded from https://www.oiahe.org.uk/media/2264/intrototheoia-students-jan-2019.pdf and a link to the OIA Complaint Form is available on page 8.  Alternatively, you can telephone or write to the OIA for a form.  You should send a copy of this letter to the OIA with your OIA Complaint Form.

Guidance on submitting a complaint to the OIA and the OIA Complaint Form can also be found on the OIA’s website https://www.oiahe.org.uk/students/can-you-complain-to-us/.   

You may also wish to seek advice from the Students’ Union about taking your complaint to the OIA. The Students’ Union can be contacted by email at advice@bcsu.bbk.ac.uk.

Please note that the OIA will normally only review issues that have been dealt with through the University’s internal procedures.

"Settlement" Clauses: Does your institution’s standard CoP letter template include a clause stating that the outcome is a "full and final settlement" of the complaint?
Response: This would only be if the student is being compensated or given a refund.

Staff Guidance: Please provide any internal guidance notes, policy documents, or staff manuals that instruct caseworkers on how to draft CoP letters, specifically regarding the inclusion of "settlement" or "waiver" terminology.
Response: N/A

2025-176 | Disability | 15-Dec-2025

2025-195 | Master's Programme Query | 15-Dec-2025

We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which states that public authorities are not required to provide information if it is already reasonably accessible to the applicant. This is an absolute exemption and does not require a public interest test. The information you requested is available on our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate 

2025-187 | PhD Programme Info | 15-Dec-2025

Information on PhD programmes.
We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information is available from our website at the following link: MPhil / PhD — Birkbeck, University of London

2025-188 | Scholarship Info | 15-Dec-2025

Information on studying at Birkbeck.
We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information is available from our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/financial-support/international 
 

2025-189 | DSAR Request | 15-Dec-2025

We are refusing your request as the College does not provide personal information via Freedom of Information requests. You will receive a response to your DSAR from the DPO mailbox. 

2025-174 | Protest | 27-Nov-2025

1. The total number of students at your university who you have been informed have been arrested in connection with their pro-Palestinian protest activity on campus since October 2023, broken down by:
A. Date of arrest
B. Suspected offence
C. Outcome, if known, such as: No Further Action; Charged; D. CAD numbers (if known) E. Whether they are (i) on a student visa and, if so, whether (ii) your universities’ visa team as been informed of their arrest and (iii) whether that team has informed the Home Office
Response: None

2. The total number of staff at your university who you have been informed have been arrested in connection with their pro-Palestinian protest activity on campus since October 2023, broken down by:
A. Date of arrest
B. Suspected offence
C. Outcome, if known (eg no further action, any charges brought, other) D. CAD number (if known) E. Whether they are (i) on a student visa and, if so, whether (ii) your universities’ visa team as been informed of their arrest and (iii) whether that team has informed the Home Office
Response: None

3. The total number of students who have been subjected to disciplinary investigations in connection with pro-Palestinian protest activity since October 2023, broken down by:
A. Date investigation was launched
B. Reason for investigation
C. Outcome of investigation, including no further action D. Whether they were suspended E. Whether they are (i) on a student visa and, if so, whether (ii) your universities’ visa team as been informed of their disciplinary and (iii) whether that team has informed the Home Office
Response: None

4. The total number of staff who have been subjected to disciplinary investigations in connection with pro-Palestinian protest activity, broken down by:
A. Date investigation was launched
B. Reason for investigation
C. Outcome of investigation, including no further action D. Whether they were suspended E. Whether they are (i) on a visa and, if so, whether (ii) your universities’ visa team as been informed of their disciplinary and (iii) whether that team has informed the Home Office
Response: Less than five. Due to low numbers, Birkbeck will not release details due to risk of identifying individuals.

5. The number of students who since 1 March 2025 have been reported to your University’s Prevent Lead, or equivalent post, as Prevent concerns on suspicion of showing support for now-proscribed direct action group Palestine Action, broken down by:
A. Date of report
B. Outcome of the report (Prevent referral, no further action)
Response: None

6. The number of staff who since 1 March 2025 have been reported to your University’s Prevent Lead, or equivalent post, as Prevent concerns on suspicion of showing support for now-proscribed direct action group Palestine Action, broken down by:
A. Date of report
B. Outcome of the report (Prevent referral, no further action)
Response: None

2025-181 | Professors | 27-Nov-2025

1.  What is the age of your youngest Professor at the university?
Response: 39

2.  What is the age of your youngest Professor working in the university's learning and teaching department/function (the part of the university that leads the academic staff development), if any?
Response: N/A This is not a role fulfilled by a professor.

2025-169 | Assistive Technology | 27-Nov-2025

1.  The names of the assistive technology currently used within your institution. 
Response: This differs between departments and students, so this information is not held.
2.  The number of users of each assistive tech/or the number of licenses held.  
Response: As above.
3.  How users are trained on this equipment and the time spent on training per user, 
Response: As above.
4.  If available to total annual spend on training of these assistive technologies for the most recent financial year. 
Response: Information not held.
5.  The departments or roles responsible for managing and delivering this support, or the individual who funds or coordinates the training.
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-165 | Representation | 17-Nov-2025

Executive Team 
Total number of members: 
Response: 7
Number of BAME members: 
Response: This is withheld as disclosure may identify individuals.
Number of Black or Black mixed heritage members: 
Response: This is withheld as disclosure may identify individuals.
 
Professional services staff 
Total number of professional services staff below Spine Point 30: 
Response: 312
Number of BAME professional services staff below Spine Point 30: 
Response: 130
Number of Black or Black mixed heritage professional services staff below Spine Point 30: 
Response: 49

Total number of professional services staff on Spine Point 30 and above: 
Response: 387
Number of BAME professional services staff on Spine Point 30 and above: 
Response: 125
Number of Black or Black mixed heritage professional services staff on Spine Point 30 and above: 
Response: 35 
Total number of professional services staff not on the Spine Point Scale (individual contract):  
Response: n/a
Number of BAME professional services staff not on the Spine Point Scale (individual contract): 
Response: n/a
Number of Black or Black mixed heritage professional services staff not on the Spine Point Scale (individual contract): 
Response; n/a
 
General  
What was your mean ethnicity pay gap (%) in the 23/24 Academic year?
Response: Ethnicity mean % not available but published Gender gap mean % is 5.7%
And what was your mean ethnicity pay gap (%) in the 24/25 Academic year?
Response: This information is currently not held but will be published from next year.  
Is there a university-led initiative for decolonisation of the curriculum?  
Response: Yes
Is there a specific university anti-racist strategy?  
Response: Yes

2025-170 | Policies | 17-Nov-2025

1) Current and archived Birkbeck policies/procedures/guidance on research security/Trusted Research/foreign interference due diligence and document verification (2019–present).
Response: Please see attached pdfs. Please note these documents were signed off for 2020 and Birkbeck does not hold any earlier documentation. Guidance is provided for students on internal SharePoint sites (see attached pdf) and based on NPSA Guidance, best practice from leading research intensive universities and the requirement to meet obligations to UKRI. Guidance from NPSA can be found on their website here: https://www.npsa.gov.uk/trusted-research
2) Any internal guidance or SOPs for handling complaints/case records (what is recorded, audit trails, target timelines).
Response: Please see attached pdfs. Policies from 2022/23 to current can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/registry-services 
3) For 2014–2017: any MoUs/agreements or formal correspondence between Birkbeck and the Ostrogorski Centre, and any files for Belarus related events hosted with/at Birkbeck (agendas, briefings, attendee lists). If none, please confirm “no records held.”
Response: None held.

2025-173 | FOI | 11-Nov-2025

1.  The total number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests handled.
Response: Approximately 200 requests a year.
2.  The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) and part-time employees involved in handling FOI requests.
Response: One part-time employee.
3.  The names of any software systems or tools used by the FOI team to manage or track requests.
Response: In-house development.
4.  The total annual cost of those software systems.
Response: N/A
5.  Any statistics or recorded information showing the average, median, and (if available) upper-quartile time spent per FOI request.
Response: This information is not held.
6.  The total salary cost of each employee (or, if easier, the total salary expenditure for all FOI-handling staff).
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Please note salary information for Birkbeck staff can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/salary-increments-and-pensions
7.  Copies of any internal communications, reports, or evaluations discussing the cost or effectiveness of FOI handling.
Response: This information is not held.
8.  Confirmation of whether the system used for FOI handling is also used for Subject Access Requests, complaints, or any other casework.
Response: No.

2025-168 | Contact Information | 11-Nov-2025

We are refusing your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection, the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact departments or staff members please use our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-167 | Estates and Facilities Software Systems | 11-Nov-2025

1) Which CAFM or IWMS systems are currently used within the university?
Response: Invida

2) When procuring or implementing software solutions, what is the typical contract length agreed with suppliers? Are there any upcoming renewals of your current arrangements?
Response: 3 years with no upcoming renewals

3) Approximately what is the typical annual cost associated with these systems?
Response: Up to £50k

4) Does the university use a single integrated solution or multiple systems to cover areas such as maintenance, assets property,  leases, compliance, or project delivery?
Response: Single integrated that covers compliance, asset details, maintenance, permits to work, ticket management

5) Do you integrated existing solutions to other university systems? e.g. finance, HR, GIS 
Response: No

6) Was the implementation part of a wider estates or digital transformation initiative?
Response: N/A

7) Are there any challenges or limitations with your current system/s? Are there plans to enhance or adopt any new technologies? e.g. AI.
Response: None

8) Has the use of these systems supported wider goals? e.g. efficiency, sustainability, data-driven decision making?
Response: Yes

2025-166 | Courses | 06-Nov-2025

Please disclose all of the courses offered by the university over the previous three academic years (2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25) as well as the current academic year (2025-26).
The number of students enrolled on each of the courses on each of the requested academic years
Response: Please see attached pdf

2025-172 | University Rankings | 06-Nov-2025

1)  The details of all your current university-level performance indicators and targets that relate to either national or international university rankings. 
Response: Our only Performance Indicator relates to the QS World Rankings. Our target is for each relevant subject to appear in the Subject Rankings by 2028. In the 2025 rankings 9 out of 14 are ranked.
2)  The details of any products and/or services from University Ranking agencies or ranking consultancies purchased since 1 January 2020 and their cost.
Response: We have not purchased any services from ranking agencies or consultancies since 1 January 2020.

2025-171 | IT | 06-Nov-2025

Which vendor and value added reseller (if applicable) are used for supply of desktops and laptops?  
Response: Following a formal procurement exercise, GeTech Ltd Are you currently in a call off contract with this supplier / value added reseller?  
Response: No
Can you share the value of this call off contract? 
Response: N/A
Which framework do you procure desktops and laptops via?  
Response: Various used. Further information can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/advice-for-suppliers
Which tender portal are new desktops and laptops opportunities advertised via? 
Response: InTend
How many desktops and laptops managed within your estate?  
Response: Approx. 2000 total

2025-161 | Pest Control Expenditure | 27-Oct-2025

1) Total expenditure by your institution on pest control services, including both in-house provision and external/contracted services.
Response: 
20/21  £17,197.32 
21/22  £13,857.86 
22/23  £14,532.32
23/24  £12,991.56
24/25  £13,639.56

2) If any services are contracted out, please provide the supplier name(s) and the contract value(s):
Response: Supplier: EBS until May 2023 when it was taken over by Vergo. Contract value see number 1.

3) The number of call-outs/treatments by species category (e.g. rats, mice, pigeons, gulls, foxes, grey squirrels, wasps, bedbugs, cockroaches—please use your own categories if recorded differently).
Response: Number of call-outs this year  01/01/2025 to date = 31
Species       call -outs      Treatment
Bird clean         1             Cleaning job
Black ants        4              2mg Maxforce Quataum Ant bait
Cockroaches    2              AF Insect Monitoring System 
Mice                 21            Muskil Pasta 15g sachet
Rats                  3              Solontra blocks    

4) For any lethal control commissioned or carried out by your institution, the number of animals killed by species and, where recorded, the method used (e.g. trapping, poisoning, shooting).
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information.

5) A copy of any policy, guidance, or standard operating procedure relating to the university’s pest control service or contractors.
Response: Birkbeck does not have a specific policy regarding pest control. Information for suppliers can be found here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/advice-for-suppliers

2025-162 | Contract for Cleaning Services | 24-Oct-2025

Please focus on contracts awarded aligning these codes 90910000 - Cleaning services and 90911200 - Building-cleaning services.
1.  What is the total value of the contract awarded to the successful bidder?
2.  What is the duration of the contract, include start and end dates and extensions.
3.  If the contract is subject to an extension please specify whether the option to apply the extension has been taken.
4.  Please confirm when the contract will be next put to competitor tender
5.  What are the specific services or products provided under this contract?
6.  What were the criteria used to select the contractor?
7.  How many bids were received for this contract?
8.  Who won the contract
9.  Can you provide a copy of the winning bid proposal?
Response: Birkbeck’s cleaning is in-house, so no contracts have been awarded for services. 

2025-159 | Data Breaches | 24-Oct-2025

1.  The number of reported data breaches involving student and/or staff personal data at your institution from January 2020 to the present.
Response: There have been 72 data breaches reported to the Data Protection Officer since January 2020.
2.  For each breach, if available: 
A brief description of the nature of the breach (e.g., accidental disclosure, cyberattack, loss/theft of device).
The category of individuals affected (students, staff, both).
Whether the breach was reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Any disciplinary or remedial actions taken.
Response: Please see attached pdf.
3.  Any internal policies or procedures your institution follows when handling personal data breaches.
Response: Please see attached pdf. Please note this policy is currently under review. 

2025-164 | Student Support | 20-Oct-2025

1.    The name of your institution
Response: Birkbeck University of London
2.    Does your institution have a specific signposting policy directing students to additional support? (please tick one)
Response: No
3a. Please indicate what approach is used at your university to direct students to additional assistance or advice. Tick all that apply and if you have examples, please forward them to me via email.
Response: Different practices established across the organisation depending on the nature and context of issues, using the staff Connect Site, website, ASK Query resolutions, etc.
3b. What other approaches to signposting does your university take?
Response: As above.
4a. Who is responsible for the creation, administration and evaluation of the signposting programme at your institution? (please tick all that apply)
Response: As there is not a “signposting programme” as such, there is no one person responsible.
4b. Who else is responsible for creating signposting programmes at your university?
Response: See above
5a. Are staff given any training in how to signpost students to support?
Response: Yes
5b. What training is provided for staff for signposting students to support?
Response: This occurs across the organisation according to role, school, service etc.  Most individual services run training that includes signposting to their service and will have information on the staff connect site, alongside role specific training staff are given.
6.    Approximately how many students per year are signposted to support using your policy/pathway?
Response: Not available
7.    If your institution has a signposting policy/pathway, has this been evaluated for impact?
Response: No.
8.    If you have any additional information about how your signposting policy was created and used, please describe it.
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information in this format.
9.    Please attach a copy of said signposting document(s) or a link to where they can be accessed online.
Response: All current policies and procedures can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies

2025-155 | Late payment | 15-Oct-2025

We request under FOIA that you provide  the following information in respect of suppliers which were not paid in within 30 days for the period starting 1 April 2019 to the date of this request:
Supplier Name
Invoice Date
Invoice Received Date
Gross Invoice Value
Payment Date
Late Payment Compensation or Interest Paid (if any)
Response: Please see attached spreadsheet which is the information we can pull from our systems. Please note, we have not had any supplier add a late payment compensation or interest paid charge.  

2025-160 | Maternity Leave Support - Research | 15-Oct-2025

Do you have a returning from maternity leave policy for academic staff returning to their research, distinct from the policy applicable for all staff? 
Response: No
If yes: please provide a link or attachment to this policy 
Response: Policy and information can be found on Birkbeck’s website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources 
The specific policy for family leave can be found here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/family-leave-policy       
If yes: what year is this policy in operation from?
Response: N/A           
If a policy is in operation: does this policy allow the member of staff at least one semester teaching free? 
Response: N/A           
If a policy is in operation: does this policy allow the member of staff to apply for any money to support their research activities? 
Response: N/A           
If money can be applied for under this policy: what is the maximum a member of staff can apply for?
Response: N/A           
Within your allocation of the Enhancing Research Culture Funding (AY 2022/23-2024/25 inclusive) has any funding been allocated to activities, policies, or other initiatives to support academic or research staff returning from maternity leave? 
Response: No
If yes, please indicate the approximate amount (£) of funding allocated to these            
Response: N/A           
If yes, please provide a summary of the activities, policies and/ or initiative(s), to help gather examples of good practice. Please also provide links or attachments where relevant
Response: N/A           
 

2025-163 | Investment | 15-Oct-2025

1. What was the total market value of the university’s investment portfolio(s) on the 31st July 2025? If you are going to provide this information through your Annual Accounts/Financial Statements, please provide the specific page number, section and row that the value can be found on. For example, page 28, section 5 “Investments”, row “total market value.”
Response: Our financial statements can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements Information on investment in the current statement (23/24) can be found on page 70.

2. On the 31st July 2025, was the institution's investment portfolio(s) managed directly by the institution, indirectly by [an] external fund manager(s), or a combination of both?
Response: Managed by Ruffer Charitable Assets Trust and Mercer Sustainable Global Equity Fund.

3. If the university uses external fund manager(s) to manage investment portfolios, please provide the name of each fund manager used, along with the percentage of the total investment funds that they were managing on the 31st July 2025.
Response: As above.

4. Please provide the list of companies (by way of all investment portfolios held) that the university invests in - whether the university manages the investments themselves or the investments are made on their behalf by an external fund manager. Please include the full names of each company invested in, and the market value invested in each company on the 31st July 2025. Please provide this information at a company level in a spreadsheet and/or the format that this information is provided to you by your fund manager(s).
Response: As these fund are held by Ruffer and Mercer this information is not held by the College.

5. Does the institution have an ethical investment policy, or similar? If so, please state if it is publicly-available, and provide a web link.
Governors finalised a new investment strategy in 2019/2020 and the approach is explained in our Financial Statements 2021 (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/finance/financial-statements-2021.pdf  p 24). The investment policy is on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy 
The investment strategy finalised n 2019/2020 aims to support our core business activities, purchase of capital equipment, infrastructure improvements and our estates strategy. It also includes the University’s approach to Responsible Investment. Independent advice on investment manager selection, which particularly focussed on Environmental, Social and Governance criteria, was provided by Mercer and in the autumn of 2020 and our investment funds are invested through and managed by Ruffer Charitable Assets Trust and Mercer Sustainable Global Equity Fund. Information about our investments can be found in our financial statements here: Financial statements (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements ). Birkbeck’s Investment Policy can be found on the College website. (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy )

2025-156 | International Student Recruiment | 15-Oct-2025

A list of the international recruitment agency firms that the university has paid to help recruit overseas students. 
Response: Birkbeck works with a network of international representatives who support our overseas student recruitment efforts. These representatives, commonly referred to as agents, are appointed by the university and operate in various countries. They receive a commission based on a percentage of tuition fees for each student who successfully enrols. A list of our current representatives, which is under review, can be found on our country pages (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/international/country-region-information).

Please provide a breakdown of the amount of money paid to these firms, broken down annually since 2019/20. 
Response: Total is the approximate paid to agencies that recruited students per year, across September and January intakes from 2020.
2019     £160,400.00
2020     £283,000.00
2021     £ 172,000.00
2022     £ 535,000.00
2023     £ 270,000.00
2024     £133,000.00

The commission rate the university pays these firms. (If there is no data available on this, please provide information regarding the university's general policy on this matter.)
Response: Commission rates vary between 5% and 15%.

Any policies the university may have to ensure quality provided by the agency partnership and to safeguard prospective students. 
Response: Before appointing agents, the university collects references from other UK Higher Education institutions that have worked with the same agent. We also review British Council certification information and maintain regular communication and training with our partners. Prospective students have access to our list of appointed agents and may choose not to work with a particular agent at any time. Birkbeck is a signatory of the Agent Quality Framework.

Any policies the university may have to ensure international student recruitment stays in line with immigration laws.
Response: International students who require a Student visa to study in the UK must meet both academic and minimum English language requirements specific to their chosen programme in order to be accepted to study at Birkbeck. Once an applicant receives an unconditional offer and pays a deposit of £5,000 (which is later deducted from their tuition fees), they become eligible for a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS). At the CAS processing stage, students must also provide evidence that they can cover their tuition fees and demonstrate sufficient funds to support themselves during their studies in the UK, in line with UKVI requirements. In some cases, applicants may be invited to attend a credibility interview before the CAS is issued. Further information about visa requirements and the CAS process is available on our Visa and Immigration webpages. You can also refer to our admissions policy and terms and conditions of study here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/registry-services/student-policies-2025-26

2025-149 | Call-off Contracts | 02-Oct-2025

Information on call-out contract.
Response: Please see attached.

2025-154 | Infrastructure Improvements | 29-Sep-2025

1.  A list of all the infrastructure improvement/capital expenditure plans which your university had put together over the last ten years, but has since cancelled due to budget cuts. This should include:
a.  Details of the plans (ie the scale, the name of the building eg, the value)
b.  When each plan was put together, and when each plan was abandoned.
2.  NOTE: this should include plans for refurbishment as well as new build/demolition jobs.
Response: Please see attached document. Please note, this information is reported in Birkbeck’s Financial Statements which can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements The year and page numbers below refer to the statement in which the project was reported.

2025-148 | PostCodes | 29-Sep-2025

A list of the outward codes from the home postcodes of Birkbeck, University of London staff, including the number of staff living in each outward code (for example, X number of staff living in E2).
Response: Please see attached. Please note any numbers below 5 have been listed as 'Less than 5' to ensure anonymity. 

2025-158 | Content Warnings | 29-Sep-2025

Please could you provide a list of books and texts used by the university's Department of philosophy, Department of theology and religion, and Department of Classics, which have been flagged as requiring recommendations or suggestions of content warnings to alert students to potentially distressing content, on reading lists or in lectures and seminars/tutorials.
Response: No books and texts used in Classics or Philosophy have been flagged by the School as requiring recommendations or suggestions of content warnings, nor any reading lists or lectures/seminars. Birkbeck does not have a Theology & Religion department.

2025-157 | Animal Research | 29-Sep-2025

1.  Please advise me how many animals, and of which species, were subject to scientific research, covered by ASPA for 2024 and 2025 (to date if available).
Response: None

2.  Please advise me of the specific purposes for which the procedures were conducted?
Response: N/A

3.  Please advise me of the severity classifications for the above procedures.
Response: N/A

4.  Please provide me with the AWERB (Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body) minutes and reports from 2024 and 2025 (if available).
Response: N/A

2025-145 | Defence Companies | 23-Sep-2025

Please provide copies of any correspondence (emails, letters, notes of meetings, with any attachments) sent to or from:
a) your campus security team (or equivalent)
b) your careers and employability service (or equivalent) and representatives of each of the below listed organisations, between 1 October 
023 and the date of this request. The list of organisations is as follows:
(i) ADS Group
(ii) Airbus (@airbus.com)
(iii) Babcock
(iv) BAE Systems
(v) Boeing (@boeing.com)
(vi) Caterpillar (@cat.com)
(vii) Cobham Limited
(viii) Elbit Systems
(ix) General Dynamics
(x) GE Aerospace
(xi) GKN PLC
(xii) Leonardo
(xiii) Lockheed Martin
(xiv) MBDA
(xv) Meggitt
xvi) Qinetiq
(xvii) Royal Air Force
(xviii) Raytheon / Raytheon UK
(xix) Rolls Royce
(xx) Thales
Response: 
a) None
b) None

Please provide copies of any correspondence (emails, letters, notes, with attachments) sent to or from:
a) your campus security team (or equivalent)
b) the Vice-Chancellor/Principal
c) your Prevent lead (or equivalent)
between 1 June 2025 and the date of this request, which contain any of the following phrases:
(i) “Palestine Action”
(ii) “Proscribe”
(iii) “Proscribed”
(iii) “Proscription”
Response: 
a) None
b) None
c) None

2025-152 | Pay Scales | 18-Sep-2025

If your university is part of the national bargaining arrangements, please confirm this. In addition, could you specify any local variations to pay and conditions that differ from the national agreement? For example, differences in the grade structure or additional conditions offered to staff, if you are a living wage institution.
Response: Birkbeck is part of the JNCHES national pay bargaining and has signed up for the London Living Wage. Information about salary, increments, and pension schemes can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/salary-increments-and-pensions

2025-133 | Computer Recycling | 18-Sep-2025

1.  The number of laptops and desktop computers decommissioned, disposed of, or recycled by your school between January 2022 and December 2024.
Response: This information is not held.

2.  Whether your school has any policies or partnerships in place that prioritise the reuse of IT equipment before recycling.
Response: Equipment is disposed of as the need arises, so there is no contract. Birkbeck uses a charity which is Security and WEEE compliant for any equipment that is suitable.

3.  If applicable, please provide a copy or summary of your IT disposal policy.
Response: Birkbeck policies can be found on the website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies

2025-139 | Academic Pay | 18-Sep-2025

2025-153 | MSc Data Science Modules | 18-Sep-2025

The module statistics (results/grades) for the following modules (MSc Data Science). This includes the mean, minimum, maximum, 25th and 75th percentile and the number of students for the 2022/2023, 2023/2024, 2024/2025 academic years.
• Analytical Foundations of Data Science 
• Data Analytics Using R 
• Data and Knowledge Management 
• Data Science Techniques and Applications 
• Principles of Programming 
• Advanced Cloud Computing 
• Advances in Data Management 
• Applied Machine Learning 
• Big Data Analytics 
• Financial Modelling and Data Science 
• Information and Network Security 
• Natural Language Processing 
• Neural Networks and Deep Learning 
• Statistical Learning 
• MSc Data Science Project

Response: Please see attached pdf. Please note these are rounded to the nearest 5; mean, min and max values are only given for rows with 7 or more results; 25th and 75th percentiles are only given for rows with 14 or more results. This is to keep individual results anonymous.

2025-144 | HEI | 16-Sep-2025

Please can you detail the total number of hours (at Levels 4, 5 and 6/1st, 2nd, 3rd (and 4th year if appropriate)) of practical activity, i.e. activity in wet laboratories, computer laboratories, or fieldwork, that undergraduate students at your institution are offered during their studies (from enrolment to graduation) on the following degrees (BSc): Biomedical Science; Biological Science; Biochemistry; Pharmacology; Biology.
Response: Birkbeck do not offer any degrees with those specific titles. 

2025-150 | Contact Information | 16-Sep-2025

Can you please advise the name and contact details for  the following (list of staff).
We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you request is available on our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us. 

2025-147 | Criminal Convictions | 16-Sep-2025

The number of known criminal convictions, recorded by or reported to your institution, of transgender people arising specifically from incidents related to the sharing of single-sex spaces on university premises, since 1 January 2010.
Response: None. 

2025-146 | Estates and Facilities | 16-Sep-2025

1. The name, job title, and direct contact details (including mobile number if held) for the individual responsible for Estates and Facilities at your institution.
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the Estates and Facilities team please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/estates/contact-us
2. A current organisational structure chart for the Estates and Facilities department, including names, job titles, and reporting lines.
Response: Please see attached pdf.
3. If responsibilities are divided across sub-teams (e.g. Capital Projects, Compliance, Sustainability), please include relevant contacts.
Response: To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-151 | PhD Viva Examinations | 16-Sep-2025

Does Birkbeck, University of London hold the information of viva examinations for Birkbeck, University of London PhD students who graduated in the 1990s and the 1980s?
Response: No. This information may be held by the University of London.

2025-130 | Harmful Practices Disclosure | 16-Sep-2025

1. Disclosure Recording 
a. Does your university formally record disclosures or reports related to forced marriage, honour-based abuse, or FGM?   
Response: this would be recorded within Birkbeck’s safeguarding data returns.
b. Are these types of disclosures recorded separately if not recorded using a centralised reporting tool? 
Response: Birkbeck has a centralised Safer Community Report, Response, Resources reporting tool.
c. Are specific categories or flags used in your reporting systems to record these harmful practices if they are not specifically named as forced marriage, honour based abuse and female genital mutilation? 
Response: Yes

2. Volume of Disclosures
For each academic year from 2019–20 to 2023–24, please provide the number of disclosures or reports received relating to:   
   - Forced marriage   
   - Honour-based abuse or violence   
   - Female genital mutilation (FGM) 
Response: There would be fewer than five for all of these.

3. Response Process   
a. Does your university use a risk assessment tool when these disclosures are made? If so, please name the tool or describe the process.   
Response: No
b. Is there a formal internal process or procedure in place for managing such disclosures? 
Response: Yes

4. Training    
a. Do staff receive any training specifically related to forced marriage, honour-based abuse, or FGM?   
Response: Key staff, such as safeguarding officer, counsellors, and mental health advisors, do receive this training. It is also referred to in the mandatory Safeguarding Training given to all staff.
b. If so, is the training mandatory? What is the frequency and delivery method (e.g. online module, in-person workshop)?   
Response: As above
c. Are any staff trained specifically to support other staff or students in relation to these issues? 
Response: No

5. Awareness-Raising   
a. Does the university engage in awareness-raising activities around these harmful practices (e.g. events, campaigns, training)?   
Response: No
b. Are these standalone initiatives or tied to national awareness campaigns (e.g. UK FGM Awareness Day, National Safeguarding Week)? 
Response: No

6. Support for Students and Staff   
a. What type of support is offered to students and staff who disclose experiences related to forced marriage, honour-based abuse, or FGM (e.g. counselling, safeguarding 
referrals, academic support, discretionary funding, work-related support, on-campus accommodation)?   
Response: Counselling and safeguarding referrals.   
b. If yes, are students and staff aware such of such provisions, including those staff members who are supporting the student/staff member making the disclosure? 
Response: Yes  
c. Are there dedicated support staff or services for this purpose? 
Response: Thee are dedicated safeguarding officers, who would work closely with the counselling team

7. Policies and Procedures   
If available, please provide copies of any relevant internal policies, procedures, staff guidance, or training materials related to the handling of forced marriage, honour-based abuse, or FGM disclosures.
Response: All Birkbeck policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies

2025-137 | Defence Companies | 11-Sep-2025

This request relates to 16 defence companies:
Lockheed Martin
BAE Systems
RTX (formerly known as "Raytheon")
General Dynamics
Northrop Grumman 
Rolls-Royce
Leonardo
Thales
QinetiQ
Elbit Systems
Boeing
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (sometimes known simply as "Rafael")
Pearson Engineering (sometimes known simply as "Pearson")
RUK Advanced Systems
Collins Aerospace
Instro Precision

1. How much money did the university receive in donations, grants and sponsorships from each of these companies, between October 2023 and July 2025? Please state the amount that has been received from each company and also provide a brief description of the funding.
Response: None

2. Did any representatives of these companies sit on any advisory boards within the university (EG advisory boards for specific academic programmes) during the 2024/25 academic year? If so, please state which companies had representatives on which advisory boards - and whether they are still on the board.
Response: None.

2025-138 | Communications about Gaza | 11-Sep-2025

Copies of any and all communications received by your university and/or your Students’ Union in the date range of 1 July 2025 to the date of this request, from:
1.  The National Union of Students (NUS), and/or
2.  The Union of Jewish Students (UJS), and/or
3.  Any Jewish Society (JSOC) affiliated with the university, and/or
4.  UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI)
5.  Representatives acting on behalf of the above organisations,
that reference or relate to the open letter to the National Union of Students dated 11 July 2025 regarding Gaza (signed by sabbatical officers and student groups, as well as academic and legal bodies).
Response: No communications have been received by the College regarding this. In regard to the Student Union, Birkbeck does not hold this information as Birkbeck’s Student Union is a separate legal entity from the university and holds its own records. It is a private company limited by guarantee and, therefore, is not defined as a Public Body under the Freedom of Information Acts and is not bound by statute to respond to Freedom of Information Requests.

2025-141 | Offers and Incentives | 04-Sep-2025

1.)  Broken down by academic year, the number of unconditional offers the university made to British students.
Please can the information be provided by academic years 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25.
Response:
2021/2 - 3898
2020/1 - 5116
2024/5 - 3382
2023/4 - 3166
2022/3 - 3522

2.) For the academic year 2024/25 only - Details of any type of incentives or inducements that have been offered to prospective students. These would include offers of cash money, discounts on tuition fees, offers of student equipment (laptops, iPads etc) or discounts on university rental accommodation, for accepting offers from the university or achieving certain grades.
Response: This information can be found on our website. 
UG Support - https://web.archive.org/web/20240624164847/https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/financial-support/undergraduate-financial-support
PG Support - https://web.archive.org/web/20240519012804/https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/financial-support/pg-funding
PhD Support - https://web.archive.org/web/20240621213810/https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/financial-support/phd-funding

2025-140 | Scholarships | 04-Sep-2025

1.  The number of international students enrolled on a full scholarship (i.e. where fees and costs are covered by the university, government, or an external body).
Response: Please note this is rounded to nearest 5.
2023/24 – 50
2024/25 – 45
2025/26 – no data available

2.  A breakdown of these students by nationality.
Response: As number are low, a full list of nationalities cannot be provided as this may identify individuals. The top three countries for 2023/24 and 2024/25 are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

2025-95 | Staff Severance and Redundancy | 28-Aug-2025

Aggregate data relating to staff departures from your university under severance or redundancy schemes over the academic years 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, and 2024/25 (to date).
I would appreciate the following information for each year:
1.  Total number of staff who left the university under:
o  Voluntary severance (including voluntary redundancy schemes)
o  Compulsory severance (including compulsory redundancy)
o  Other staff exits related to restructuring, if recorded separately

2.  A breakdown of these figures by:
o  Staff category (e.g. academic, professional services, technical, senior leadership)
o  Age range (e.g. under 30, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60+)
o  Contract type (e.g. permanent, fixed-term)
Response: Please see attached pdf.

3.  Any associated documentation outlining the criteria or rationale used to determine eligibility for these schemes.
Response: Information on HR policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources

2025-116 | Postdoc Researchers | 28-Aug-2025

The following information for your university for the most recently completed academic year (e.g., 2023/2024 academic year, or the latest available full year):
Please provide the total number of individuals employed by the university in roles formally designated as "Postdoctoral Researcher," "Research Associate," "Postdoctoral Research Fellow," or similar titles that typically require a doctoral qualification.
The number of individuals who were employed in these roles without having completed their PhD.
The number of individuals who earn their PhD through the "PhD by publication" route each year (if that is available at your institution).
Response:
Postdoctoral Researcher: 43
Postdoctoral Fellow: 2
Postdoctoral Research Associate: 2
Postdoctoral Research Fellow: 2
Senior Postdoctoral Researcher: 2
Postdoctoral Research Assistant: 1

2025-143 | Course Audit | 26-Aug-2025

1.  The auditing policy (or policies) for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for the academic year 2025/2026.
Response: Please see attached.

2.  The number of students that have made requests to audit classes due to having an exemption under this policy.
Response: This information is not held but it is thought to be around ten.

3.  The number of students that have been granted exemptions under this policy.
Response: 1

2025-142 | Learning Technologies | 26-Aug-2025

1. Current Learning Management System (LMS/VLE)  a. What Learning Management System(s) (LMS/VLE) or e-learning platform(s) are currently in use?
Response: Moodle
b. If Moodle or Totara is in use, which version is implemented?
Response: 4.5.6
c. What are the primary use cases for your LMS/VLE (e.g. undergraduate teaching, apprenticeships, compliance, CPD)?
Response: Undergraduate, Postgraduate teaching 
d. Approximately how many active users (students and staff combined) accessed the LMS/VLE in the most recent academic year?
Response: 380K

2. LMS/VLE Hosting and Deployment
a. Is your LMS/VLE hosted on-premise, in a private cloud, or delivered via a SaaS model?
Response: SaaS model
b. Is the platform supported internally, or do you use an external support/implementation partner? If external, please name the provider.
Response: External - Catalyst IT

3. Procurement and Governance
a. What are the current contractual arrangements for the LMS/VLE (e.g. contract start and end dates, and any optional extension periods)?
Response: Annual renewal
b. Through which procurement framework or method was the LMS/VLE acquired (e.g. G-Cloud, open tender, direct award)?
Response: G-Cloud
c. Which department or team holds responsibility for the LMS/VLE and digital learning strategy?
Response: Digital Education within Information Services

4. Planned Reviews or Changes
a. Are there any scheduled or upcoming reviews, tenders, or procurement activities related to learning platforms or digital learning systems within the next 24 months?
Response: No

5. Integrations and Strategic Objectives a. Is your LMS/VLE currently integrated with other systems (e.g. HR systems, CRM, student records)? If so, please list these.
Response: Student and staff records and timetabling via custom middleware 
b. Is the LMS/VLE linked to any institutional strategies relating to learner engagement, digital transformation, compliance reporting, or skills development?
Response: Key part of Engagement strategically; HyFlex teaching; Teaching strategy more generally

2025-135 | Consultancy | 26-Aug-2025

1.  For each of the last three full financial years for which the university’s accounts are available (e.g., 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24), kindly share whether Birkbeck, University of London has hired, retained, contracted or otherwise engaged any consulting firms in the following domains:

•  Strategy

•  Marketing

•  Education

•  Architecture

Response: In 23/24 Birkbeck used Cormack consultancy group which is mentioned in the annual accounts for 23/24 on page 11. https://www.bbk.ac.uk/documents/financial-statements-2024.pdf

2.  The amounts paid to the consulting firms in each of the above domains.

Response:  We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.

3.  The names of the firms hired, engaged, retained or contracted in each domain

Response: As above in question one.

2025-136 | Procurement | 21-Aug-2025

Contract Register; The contract register lists only 43 contracts. Could you kindly confirm if this represents the total number of contracts held by the organisation?
Response: The information provided is correct.

Procurement Strategy;  Please confirm the expected publication date or approximate timeframe for release.
Response: There is no approximate timeframe or publication date at this time. For further information on Birkbeck’s procurement process please see our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/advice-for-suppliers#

Contact details; Please provide the contact details of the mentioned officers. I am unable to find the required contact details from the given link.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection, the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff. To contact departments or staff members please use our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us and click ‘Ask us a question’. This will go to the appropriate person.

2025-131 | Partnerships | 21-Aug-2025

‘Academic partnerships’ refers to arms company involvement (funder or partner) in any of the following:
•  Apprenticeships and graduate schemes
•  Job advertisements and career fair appearances 
•  Sponsorships (events, workshops, trainings) 
•  Studentships, sponsored PhDs, scholarships and professorships 
•  Department funding and relationships (e.g. knowledge transfer relationships) 
•  Consultancy and executive roles
Can the university please provide any relevant information or evidence of arms companies' involvement in any of the capacities mentioned above over the past eight years?
Response: None, other than two research projects as disclosed in an earlier FOI.
1. Birkbeck Business School. AID HumanE: Distributed AI and the Effective Human
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
Start date 10/02/2020 End Date 30/04/2020
£6830
Queen Mary University of London

2.  Birkbeck Business School. #SharedStories: Giving Defence and Society a Way to See their Shared Futures
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
Start date 10/02/2020 End Date 31/05/2020
£12055
Bath Spa University, Lancaster University, University of Liverpool

2025-120 | Misconduct | 14-Aug-2025

Number of staff within your organisation who were formally disciplined for misconduct over the last three years (broken down by calendar year).
Response: Total of 6
2023: Less than five
2024: Less than five
2025: Less than five

The outcomes of the disciplinary action.
Response:
One dismissal
One oral warning
Four written warnings

2025-121 | AI Training | 14-Aug-2025

Number of staff within your organisation who have received formal training in Artificial Intelligence over the last three years, broken down by year.
•  Number of staff trained 
•  Courses attended
•  Estimated cost of training
Response: Training tracked is done in-house and information is not held by year. External training is not tracked. Birkbeck provide training on aspects of academic integrity and on use of the AI indicator tool in TurnItIn. As this is in-house there is no external training costs. Approximately just over 200 staff have attended training.

2025-134 | Pro-Palestine Protest Costs | 14-Aug-2025

1.  The total cost incurred by the university on security measures related to pro-Palestine protests and encampments since October 2023, broken down by spending item and dates.
Response: Birkbeck have not experienced protests or encampments on site.

2.  The total cost incurred by the university on clean-up measures related to pro-Palestine protests and encampments since October 2023, broken down by spending item and dates.
Response: Birkbeck have not experienced protests or encampments on site.

3.  The total number of students who have faced disciplinary action related to pro-Palestine protests and encampments since October 2023, broken down by outcomes (e.g., cautions, suspensions, expulsion, etc.) and dates.
Response: None

2025-129 | Procurement | 07-Aug-2025

1. Procurement Pipeline
•  Schedule of major procurement exercises planned for the next 12–18 months
•  Estimated contract values and procurement timelines
•  Categories of services and goods to be procured
Response: Birkbeck’s non-pay expenditure does not exceed £100m and therefore is exempt from publishing a pipeline.

2. Contract Management Information
•  List of significant contracts (over £50,000 annual value) due for renewal in the next 24 months
•  Contract end dates and review schedules
•  Current framework agreements utilised by the university
Response: Birkbeck publish contract awards following a procurement process on Contracts Finder. Please see attachment for most recent and previous entries.

3. Consortium and Partnership Procurement
•  Participation in higher education procurement consortiums (e.g., LUPC, NEUPC, SUPC)
•  Joint procurement activities with other institutions
Response: Birkbeck is a member of the LUPC and also accessible to the majority of UKUPC consortium framework agreements.

2025-128 | AI Detection Tools | 04-Aug-2025

1. Please name the AI-based detection tool(s) the university uses to identify potential use of generative AI in student submissions, e.g. TurnItIn.
Response: TurnItIn

2. How many academic misconduct cases were initiated where AI detection tools were used as part of the evidence in the academic years 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25?
Response:
2022-2023 - 7
2023-2024 - 36
2024-2025 – Not yet available

3. What was the status of these students - UK or international - and what was the outcome (no action, penalty or successful appeal)?
Response: We do not hold information on the status of the students for academic misconduct. 
2022-23 Total 7 – Outcome 1: 0; Outcome 2: 3; Outcome 3: 4; Outcome 4: 0
2023-24 Total 36 - Outcome 1: 9; Outcome 2: 12; Outcome 3: 13; Outcome 4: 2
2024-25 Not yet available 

Outcome 1: Formal warning
Outcome 2: Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible.  The reassessment element mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 3:  Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible. The module mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 4: Award a mark of zero for the module in question, the student must retake the same module and the module result will be capped at a bare pass 

2025-132 | Marketing | 04-Aug-2025

1.  The university’s total annual expenditure on marketing and advertising aimed at student recruitment.
Response:
2020/21: £1.3m
2021/22: £1.3m
2022/23: £1.3m
2023/24: £1.4m
2024/25: £1.4m

2.  A breakdown of that spend across the following categories (if available):  Social media advertising (e.g. ads on Meta, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat); Search engine advertising (e.g. Google Ads, Bing); Influencer marketing (sponsoring the content of influencers); Podcast advertising or sponsorships (third-party or in-house branded); Other digital advertising (e.g. display, YouTube pre-roll, programmatic); Traditional advertising (e.g. print, radio, out-of-home); Events or on-campus promotions for prospective students.
Response: Birkbeck does not held this information; however, influencer marketing, podcast or sponsorship marketing is not used.

3.  Whether the university expects student marketing spend to increase, decrease, or remain the same in the 2025–26 financial year.
Response: The expenditure for 2025/26 is expected to remain the same.

2025-112 | Student Statistics | 04-Aug-2025

1) How many students for the last three academic years (2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25) were on a supplementary year of study? Please break this down by year and by whether students were paying fees for this supplementary year or not.
Response: 
2022/3:  980 of which 925 paid a fee
2023/4:  705 of which 680 paid a fee
2024/5:  615 of which 575 paid a fee

2) For the last three academic years, what was the total amount of tuition fees charged to students on supplementary years of study? Please break this down by academic year.
Response: 
2022/3:  £ 3,837,635 
2023/4:  £ 2,789,495 
2024/5:  £ 2,549,960

3) How many undergraduate students have paid for more than one supplementary year in the past three academic years?
Response: 185 have multiple supplementary years between 2022/3 and 2024/5

2025-125 | International Student Fees | 31-Jul-2025

The amount collected in student fees from international students in the academic years 2023/23 and 2024/25.
Response:
2023/24   £18.9m
2024/25   £18.1m

The number of overseas/ international students who were delayed, or failed, to make a tuition fee instalment for the academic years 2023/2024.
Response: This information is not held in this format.

The number of overseas students on 'remote study' options at your university for the academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25, broken down by faculty.
Response: Information supplied by pdf

Postgraduate overseas students broken down faculty.
Response: Information supplied by pdf

2025-126 | Sexual Misconduct | 31-Jul-2025

1.  How many reports were made in the academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25 concerning sexual assault or sexual harassment (this may be recorded as sexual misconduct) of students by fellow students?
Response: Less than five.

2.  How many reports were made in the academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25 concerning sexual assault or sexual harassment (this may be recorded as sexual misconduct) of students by university staff?
Response: Less than five.

3.  Of these reports, how many investigations have concluded, and how many have resulted in disciplinary action?
Response: Less than five.

4.  Does your institution have a policy that prohibits intimate relationships between staff and students? If so, could you please confirm the date this policy was implemented?
Response: Our policy can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/code-of-conduct-for-managing-conflicts-of-interest

2025-122 | Survey | 22-Jul-2025

1.  Does your institution have dedicated professional services positions for research impact support? (e.g. stimulating research impact generation, supporting REF preparation?) 
Response: Yes

2.  At what level are the research impact professionals based?
Response: Central (University Level)

3.  How many permanent FTE professional services positions dedicated to research impact support does your institution currently have at all of the above levels (as of date)? 
Response: 3.2 FTE

4.  Which of the following professional services positions in the area of impact does your institution have? 
Response:  Impact Manager

5.  What is the name of the unit managing research impact at your university?
Response: Research Office

6.  Is your institution currently recruiting professional service staff to manage research impact? 
Response: No

7.  Does your institution usually hire short term contract staff to support the REF impact submission preparation? 
Response: No

8.  How many short term contract staff positions does your institution usually open in the run-up to the REF? 
Response: 0

9.  What period before REF does your institution usually hire short term contract staff to support the impact submission? 
Response: N/A

10.  Does your institution hire external consultants to support REF preparation? 
Response: No

11.  Does your institution have dedicated academic positions for research impact support (e.g. impact champion at department/school/faculty etc. level)? 
Response: No 

12.  At what level are the dedicated academic positions based?
Response: N/A

13.  What are the names for dedicated academic positions for supporting the area of research impact and at what institutional level are they employed? (e.g. Impact Champion at the department level, Director for Impact and Engagement at the faculty level, Impact Lead).
Response: N/A

14.  Do departments / faculties at your institution usually have a Director or Dean of REF? 
Response: No

15.  Does your institution have a university level REF Manager? 
Response: Yes 

16.  Does your institution offer dedicated training on engagement, enterprise, and/or impact for academic staff? 
Response: Yes

17.  What kind of training on impact does your institution offer to academics (e.g. what is the target level of seniority of participants)?
Response: any, general workshop focused on REF, focussed on specific case studies, internal

18.  Are academics given workload points / time allocated to impact in their workload allocation/scheduling?  
Response: Information not held

19.  Does your institution have a dedicated fund for supporting impact generation and impactful projects (e.g. ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, University level grant)? 
Response: Yes 

20.  Where do the funds to support impact generation come from? 
Response: University

21.  Is impact included as part of academic probation/promotions processes? 
Response: Yes 

22.  Does your institution have a dedicated prize for academics successful in generating impact? 
Response: No

23.  What type of prize is dedicated to academics who successfully generate impact (name of prize, type of prize - symbolic, financial)?
Response: N/A

24.  Do you have any comments regarding the organisation of support for impact at your institution (issues not covered in questions above)?
Response: This information is not held

2025-114 | Student Disability Data | 22-Jul-2025

1.  The percentage of students enrolled registered as having a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD).
Response: 3

2.  The percentage of students enrolled registered as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Response: 115

3.  The percentage of students enrolled registered as having ADHD.
Response: 0

4.  The percentage of students enrolled registered as having any one or more of the above conditions (SpLD, ASD, ADHD).
Response: Approximately 1.5% (total students 8099)

5.  The undergraduate degree course with the highest percentage of enrolled students registered as having: 
a.  A Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD).
b.  an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
c.  ADHD.
d.  all of the above.
Response: As numbers are so low that there is a risk of identifying specific students, this information is withheld.

6.  The postgraduate degree course with the highest percentage of enrolled students registered as having: 
a.  A Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD).
b.  an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
c.  ADHD.
d.  all of the above.
Response: As numbers are so low that there is a risk of identifying specific students, this information is withheld.

7.  The percentage of enrolled undergraduate students registered as having a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD), ASD, or ADHD who are enrolled on degree programmes that include the terms "enterprise," "entrepreneurship," "innovation," or closely related terms in the programme title.
Response: As numbers are so low that there is a risk of identifying specific students, this information is withheld.

8.  The percentage of enrolled postgraduate students (taught and/or research-based) registered as having a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD), ASD, or ADHD who are enrolled on degree programmes that include the terms "enterprise," "entrepreneurship," "innovation," or closely related terms in the programme title.
Response: As numbers are so low that there is a risk of identifying specific students, this information is withheld.

2025-127 | Donations | 22-Jul-2025

1)  I would like to find out the number of financial donations received during the past 10 financial years please – 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025. 
2)  I would like to find out the amount of money donated during the past 10 financial years please - 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025. 
3)  I would like to find out the amount of money donated, per case, during the past 10 financial years please - 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025. 
4)  I would like to find out the number of gifts received during the past 10 financial years please - 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025.
5)  I would like to find out the a description of each gift received, per case, during the past 10 financial years please - 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025.
Response: Please see attached pdf. 

2025-124 | Student Accommodation | 17-Jul-2025

1.  The total number of noise complaints or reports filed—either by members of the public, faculty or other students—relating to student accommodation (including private student rental properties if held).
Response: Nil. Birkbeck do not manage any student accommodation.

2.  The number of noise complaints which led to disciplinary action against students at the university.
Response: N/A

2025-118 | Graduate Employment | 17-Jul-2025

1.  The total number of students who graduated each year, for the past five academic years (e.g., 2018/19 to 2022/23).
2.  The number of those graduates who secured employment (either part-time or full-time, excluding those solely in further study) within 6 months and/or 12 months of graduating, as captured by any graduate outcome surveys or tracking, for each of the same years.
3.  If available, a breakdown of employment outcomes by degree subject or department. 
4.  The average or median salary of graduates per subject area (or overall), if available.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you have requested is available from HESA (http://www.hesa.ac.uk/) as it is part of published statutory returns.

2025-119 | Supplier Expenditure | 17-Jul-2025

I would therefore be grateful if you could provide a list of payments made by the university to external suppliers between 1st April 2024 and 31st March 2025, where the individual payment exceeded £25,000.
Response: Please see our financial statements here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements and attached spreadsheet containing contracts awarded. These are also published on Contracts Finder and publicly available. For the complete list of payments, we are refusing your request under Section 12 of the Act, as we have assessed that retrieving this information and obtaining the appropriate agreements with suppliers would exceed the appropriate cost limit identified in the FOI Act, i.e. £450 which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time. 

2025-117 | Supplier Spend Data | 17-Jul-2025

Suppliers payment/spend data from 2018 to the most recent months.
Response: Please see our financial statements here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements and attached spreadsheet containing contracts awarded. These are also published on Contracts Finder and publicly available.

Payments to suppliers over £500 or over £25,000, depending on your publication thresholds.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 12 of the Act, as we have assessed that retrieving this information and obtaining the appropriate agreements with suppliers would exceed the appropriate cost limit identified in the FOI Act, i.e. £450 which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time. 

2025-106 | Academic Misconduct | 17-Jul-2025

Student demographics
1). In the academic year 2022-23 how many students studied at your institution (across all courses and levels of study)? 
Response: 10,493

Of that total number please provide a breakdown by the following demographics:
Nationality
Ethnicity
The number that were required to complete an English language test prior to commencing study with you (such as IELTS)
Disability, as a total figure and where possible a breakdown of type, for example in the following format: A  No disability B  Social/communication impairment such as Asperger's syndrome/other autistic spectrum disorder C  Blind or have a serious visual impairment uncorrected by glasses D  Deaf or have a serious hearing impairment   E   Long standing illness or health condition such as cancer, HIV, diabetes, chronic heart disease, or epilepsy F   Mental health condition, such as depression, schizophrenia or anxiety disorder G   Specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or AD(H)D H   Physical impairment or mobility issues, such as difficulty using your arms or using a wheelchair or crutches I   Disability, impairment or medical condition that is not listed above J   Two or more impairments and/or disabling medical conditions
Response: Please see attached. Please note that Birkbeck do not record the exact test or qualification used for English Language proficiency in a format that can be reported. Requirements for English Language proficiency can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/admissions/english-language-qualifications-and-tests

Subsequent offences – academic misconduct referral 
2). In the academic year 2022-23, how many referrals for academic misconduct were subsequent offences (i.e. a student had previous substantiated academic misconduct offences).
Response: In 2022-23, there were 22 individual students referred to the stage three procedures of the Assessment Offences Policy (now the Academic Integrity and Misconduct Policy). Information on referrals made under stage 1 and stage 2 of the policy is not held centrally, as these are considered at School/Faculty level.

Of that total number please provide a breakdown by the following demographics:
Nationality
Ethnicity
The number that were required to complete an English language test prior to commencing study with you (such as IELTS)
Disability, as a total figure and where possible a breakdown of type, for example in the following format: A  No disability B  Social/communication impairment such as Asperger's syndrome/other autistic spectrum disorder C  Blind or have a serious visual impairment uncorrected by glasses  D  Deaf or have a serious hearing impairment  E   Long standing illness or health condition such as cancer, HIV, diabetes, chronic heart disease, or epilepsy F   Mental health condition, such as depression, schizophrenia or anxiety disorder G   Specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or AD(H)D H   Physical impairment or mobility issues, such as difficulty using your arms or using a wheelchair or crutches I   Disability, impairment or medical condition that is not listed above J   Two or more impairments and/or disabling medical conditions
Response: This information is not held.

Subsequent offences – academic misconduct cases substantiated 
3). In the academic year 2022-23, how many substantiated cases of academic misconduct were subsequent offences?
Of that total number please provide a breakdown by the following demographics:
Nationality
Ethnicity
The number that were required to complete an English language test prior to commencing study with you (such as IELTS)
Disability, as a total figure and where possible a breakdown of type, for example in the following format: A  No disability B  Social/communication impairment such as Asperger's syndrome/other autistic spectrum disorder C  Blind or have a serious visual impairment uncorrected by glasses  D  Deaf or have  a serious hearing impairment   E   Long standing illness or health condition such as cancer, HIV, diabetes, chronic heart disease, or epilepsy F   Mental health condition, such as depression, schizophrenia or anxiety disorder G   Specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or AD(H)D H   Physical impairment or mobility issues, such as difficulty using your arms or using a wheelchair or crutches I   Disability, impairment or medical condition that is not listed above J   Two or more impairments and/or disabling medical conditions
Response: 3. Due to the low number further breakdown cannot be provided as this may identify individuals. 

2025-111 | Sentencing Review documents | 10-Jul-2025

A copy of the consultation responses and any accompanying or associated correspondence with the Sentencing Review conducted by David Gauke for HM Government.
Response: The submission was published on our website here: https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/icpr_sentencing_review7.1.25.pdf

2025-113 | Racism | 10-Jul-2025

1.  The total number of reported incidents of racism involving students and/or staff the academic year 2024–2025.
Response: None

2.  The total number of reported incidents of antisemitism involving students and/or staff the academic year 2024–2025.
Response: None

3.  The total number of reported incidents of Islamophobia involving students and/or staff the academic year 2024–2025.
Response: None

2025-107 | Contract Register | 03-Jul-2025

1. Contract Register
Please provide a complete and current extract of your organisation’s contract register or equivalent database. We are not asking you to compile new information or manually populate missing fields – we simply request the register in its existing form, preferably in Excel or CSV format.
Response: Please see attached.

2. Total Number of Active Contracts
Please confirm the total number of contracts currently listed as active.
Response: Please see attached.

3. Procurement Strategy (2025/2026)
Please provide your organisation’s Procurement Strategy for 2025/2026.
Response: Response: Please note all strategic documents are published on our website and can be found there (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/governance) If a policy or strategy document is not included, the college does hold that particular document.

4. Contact Information
If possible, please provide the name, job title, phone number, and email address for the following roles:
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection, the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff. To contact departments or staff members please use our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

5. Additional Notes
If your contract register is available via an online portal, please ensure all records are accessible (as some portals may only show summary data).
Response: N/A
If your organisation uses a contract management system or CRM, please confirm whether it allows for data exports.
Response: Birkbeck do not use a CRM system.
If you intend to withhold spend figures, please note that we are requesting an overall total or indicative spend only – not a line-by-line financial breakdown.
Response: N/A

2025-105 | Student Statistics | 03-Jul-2025

1. How many students with criminal convictions did your organisation enrol for the period of January 1st 2020 - December 31st 2024? Please provide a breakdown by year.
2. Of those who were enrolled, what criminal offences were disclosed?
3. How many students with criminal convictions did your organisation reject for the period of January 1st 2020 - December 31st 2024? Please provide a breakdown by year.
4. Of those who were rejected, what criminal offences were disclosed?
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 12 of the Act, as we have assessed that retrieving this information from our files would exceed the appropriate cost limit identified in the FOI Act, i.e. £450 which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time. This data is not held in an easily searchable form and would require manual searching of records to extract.

2025-102 | Staff Statistics | 01-Jul-2025

1. How many people with criminal convictions did your organisation hire for the period of January 1st 2020 - December 31st 2024? Please provide a breakdown by year.
2. Of those who were hired, what criminal offences were disclosed?
3. How many people with criminal convictions did your organisation reject for employment for the period of January 1st 2020 - December 31st 2024? Please provide a breakdown by year.
4. Of those who were rejected, what criminal offences were disclosed?
Response: Birkbeck do not hold this information in this format. For those roles requiring a DBS check, no candidate was not taken through employment by anything revealed by these checks.

2025-98 | Non-Disclosure Agreements | 30-Jun-2025

Please state the number of non-disclosure agreements your organisation holds with current or former staff which involve or relate to sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape or other sexual offences, for the academic years 2009/10 to 2024/25, inclusive. For each of these, please state the number and financial value of each of the settlements.
Response: 0

2025-83 | Student Support | 30-Jun-2025

1.  Does your institution provide free period products to students?

Response: Yes

2.  Does your institution provide free period products to staff?

Response: Not specifically but these are available in all public toilets 

3.  How much does your institution spend per year on providing free period products?

Response: Between £5k and £10k per annum

4.  Do you measure the update/impact of this scheme? If so, what have been your results? 

Response: This is a new scheme so no review has taken place

5.  Can you tell us anything further about your work to provide free period products on campus?

Response: This information is not held

2025-109 | Survey on XR Use | 30-Jun-2025

Query: Survey sent as a link to an office document.
Response: We are refusing your request as we do not hold information in this format and we have assessed that retrieving this information from our files would exceed the appropriate cost limit identified in the FOI Act, i.e. £450 which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time. For survey responses, please contact the relevant area by using our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-110 | Training Contracts | 30-Jun-2025

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding your organisation’s training contracts for the following areas: First Aid, Fire Marshal, Evacuation Chair, Mental Health First Aid
Response: See attached. Please note the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-96 | IT Contracts | 30-Jun-2025

Standard Firewall (Network)
1.  Who is the existing supplier for this contract?                   
Response: Softcat
2.  What is the annual spend for each contract?                      
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.
3.  What is the description of the services provided?              
Response: Firewall subscription
4.  Primary brand (where applicable)                                          
Response: Fortinet
5.  What is the start date of the contract?                                 
Response: 12th September
6.  What is the expiry date of the contract?                              
Response: 12th September
7.  What is the total duration of the contract?                         
Response:  12 months
8.  Who is the responsible contract officer?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us
9.  How many licences or users are included (where applicable)?      
Response: 2 licenses covering all staff and students

Anti-virus Software Application
1.  Who is the existing supplier for this contract?                    
Response: Phoenix Software
2.  What is the annual spend for each contract?
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.
3.  What is the description of the services provided?              
Response: Microsoft Defender and A5 Security for Education
4.  Primary brand (where applicable)                                          
Response: Microsoft
5.  What is the start date of the contract?                                 
Response: 1st September
6.  What is the expiry date of the contract?                              
Response: 31st August
7.  What is the total duration of the contract?
Response: 12 months (part of a 3 year contract)
8.  Who is the responsible contract officer?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us
9.  How many licences or users are included (where applicable)? 
Response: Covers all staff and student use

Microsoft Enterprise Agreement
1.  Who is the existing supplier for this contract? 
Response: Phoenix Software
2.  What is the annual spend for each contract?                      
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.
3.  What is the description of the services provided?              
Response: Microsoft EES contract covering Office, Windows, servers etc
4.  Primary brand (where applicable)                                       
Response: Microsoft
5.  What is the start date of the contract?                                
Response: 1st September
6.  What is the expiry date of the contract?
Response: 31st August
7.  What is the total duration of the contract?
Response: 12 months (part of a 3 year contract)
8.  Who is the responsible contract officer?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us
9.  How many licences or users are included (where applicable)? 
Response: Covers all staff and student use

Microsoft Power BI
1.  Who is the existing supplier for this contract?                    
Response: The Information Lab
2.  What is the annual spend for each contract?
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.
3.  What is the description of the services provided?              
Response: Tableau Creator License (6 Products) / Tableau Viewer License (600 products)
4.  Primary brand (where applicable)                                          
Response: Tableau
5.  What is the start date of the contract?
Response: 30th March
6.  What is the expiry date of the contract?
Response: 29th March
7.  What is the total duration of the contract?                        
Response: 12 months (commitment to 2027)
8.  Who is the responsible contract officer?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us
9.  How many licences or users are included (where applicable)?       
Response: 6 x creator + 600 x Viewer

2025-93 | Print/Mailroom | 30-Jun-2025

Print Room
1.  Do you have a print room equipped with one/more high-speed production device/s to handle large volume printing?
Response: No
2.  Is this run by your own staff or outsourced to a third-party provider?
Response: N/A
3.  If run internally, how many full-time equivalent (FTE) run this facility?
Response: N/A
4.  Number of devices & model type/s?
Response: N/A
5.  Name of incumbent supplier?
Response: N/A
6.  Contract start / end date and length of any option to extend?
Response: N/A
7.  If outsourced, please advise contract start / end date and length of any option to extend?
Response: N/A
8.  Was this contract awarded through a framework? If yes, which one used?
Response: N/A
9.  Annual spend (ex VAT) covering equipment and staff costs or total outlay if this service outsourced 
Response: N/A

External print 
1.  Do you outsource any print requirement to an external supplier/s (for example booklets, prospectuses, leaflets, manuals, posters, banners, forms, etc)?
Response: Yes
2.  Name of incumbent supplier/s?
Response: Birkbeck do not have an incumbent supplier
3.  If this arrangement provided under contract, please advise start / end date and length of any option to extend?
Response: This service is not provided on contract
4.  Was this contract awarded through a framework? If yes, which one used?
Response: N/A
5.  Alternatively was this awarded through a DPS arrangement?
Response: N/A, it is handled on a quote by quote basis as needed
6.  Annual spend (ex VAT) for this service over the past 12 months?
Response: Approximately £20k per annum overall

Mail Room (Inbound and/or Outbound)
1.  Do you have your own in-house Mail Room operation?
Response: Yes
2.  If yes, how is the service run - physical or digital mail distribution?
Response: Physical
3.  Is this run by your own staff or outsourced to a third-party provider?
Response: Own staff
4.  If run by your own staff, how many full-time equivalent (FTE) staff run this facility?
Response: 2 FTE
5.  If outsourced, please advise name of current provider, contract start / end date and length of any option to extend?
Response: N/A
6.  Was this contract awarded through a framework? If yes, which one used?
Response: N/A
7.  Annual spend (ex VAT) covering running and staff costs or total outlay if this service outsourced 
Response: Approximately £100k

Finally, who handles these arrangements on behalf of the University?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-104 | Course Information | 24-Jun-2025

Request for information concerning the Foundations of Data Science I (2024_25) assignment 2 at the School of Computer Science (BSc Data Science and Computing).
•  How many students were invited to attend a viva following the submission of this assignment?
Response: 7 

•  How many students passed the viva?
Response: There is no formal idea of passing/failing a viva as it is not an assessment. While some students are referred to an AIM panel, this is not considered a ‘fail’. 

•  How many failed the viva? 
Response: As above. 

•  How many were referred or are being referred to a panel hearing following a viva? 
Response: Less than 5.

•  How many assignments were submitted in total? 
Response: 41

•  How many of the submitted assignments included references?
•  How many assignments included no references?
•  How many assignments included no citations?
•  How many assignments included no citations and no references?
Response: This depends on what is counted as citations and references. The following was used as definition: 
•  Any CW that references an external source, such as a webpage URL, is counted as a citation;
•  Any CW that contains a semi-formal bibliography, so a simple collection of links was not counted while one with additional bibliographic information was counted as reference; 
•  Any CW that falls in the second category also falls in the first category.
Using that criteria there are 20 CWs with citations and 5 containing references out of 41 submissions.

2025-108 | Care Leavers | 24-Jun-2025

How many care leavers are currently studying at an undergraduate level at Birkbeck, full-time and part-time.
Response: The information held by Birkbeck is self-reported by students so may not reflect the full number. The number of students who responded ‘yes’ to the question ‘Have you ever been in care’ when they applied is 90. Due to the numbers Birkbeck are unable to further disaggregate this figure, which covers part- and full-time undergraduate students that applied via UCAS and have attended since 2021 and are still currently enrolled.

2025-92 | Drugs Harm Reduction | 24-Jun-2025

1. Is your institution adopting a harm reduction approach to student drug use?
Response: Yes
All student policies can be found on the website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/registry-services/student-policies-2024-25

2. Is your institution providing/providing access to drugs awareness education to help students understand risks and make informed decisions?
Response: No

3. Is your institution providing/providing access to drug testing/checking?
Response: No

4. Is your institution providing/providing access to confidential advice and support services for students who use drugs?
Response: Yes

5. Has your institution reviewed your disciplinary policies to avoid automatic sanctions for drug possession, focusing instead on student safety and wellbeing? 
Response: N/A

6. Has your institution enhanced data Collection & monitoring to improve tracking of drug-related incidents, to better understand trends and risks and to tailor harm reduction strategies effectively?
Response: No

2025-103 | Food Allergic Reactions | 19-Jun-2025

In the past five years, how many reported incidents of severe food allergic reactions on campus involved a student requiring medical assistance (e.g. from university staff or emergency services)?
Response: None.

2025-101 | Complaints regarding Demonstrations | 19-Jun-2025

Please provide the following information relating to any activity at your university between 1 April 2022 and the date of this request concerning Gaza or Palestine:
•   Protests, demonstrations, encampments, or events held on campus or organised by university-affiliated individuals or groups
•   Social media posts made by university staff, students, academic departments, or student societies that relate to Gaza or Palestine.  

1. Complaints received
Has the university received any complaints (written, emailed, verbal or otherwise formally recorded) in relation to Palestine or Gaza-related protests or associated student/staff activity (including social media)?
Response: No

2.  Complaints made on behalf of organisations
Were any complaints submitted on behalf of external organisations (e.g. charities, think tanks, advocacy organisations, embassies, or government bodies)?
Response: N/A

3.  University response
Where possible, please provide the complaints themselves in redacted form, ensuring that no personal data is included. 
Response: N/A

2025-99 | Events | 19-Jun-2025

1.  Event cancellations
Have any events, talks, panels, or other public activities related to Gaza and/or Palestine been cancelled?
Response: No

2.  Event mitigations or conditions
Have any events relating to Gaza and/or Palestine been subject to additional conditions or mitigations (e.g. vetting of speakers, security presence, changes to venue or format)?
Response: No

3.  Prevent Duty considerations
In any of the cases mentioned above, were mitigations or cancellations linked to the university’s implementation of the Prevent duty?
Response: No

2025-100 | External Communication | 19-Jun-2025

External guidance and communications
Has your university received any guidance, advice, recommendations, or formal communications from any of the following external bodies in relation to:
•  Palestine or Gaza-related protests, demonstrations, or encampments on campus
•  Events or speakers relating to Gaza or Palestine
•  Student or staff activism concerning Gaza or Palestine
Response: General guidance and information was received via newsletters or standard mailings from:
Research Professional 
APPUG
CARA (Council for At-Risk Academics) 
HEPI (Higher Education Policy Institute)
UUK  (Universities UK) 
OfS (Office for Students) 
Secretary state for Education 
Advance HE  
UCEA (Universities and Colleges Employers Association)  
CIS Intel Hub
Global Situational Awareness
Police Liaison Officer

2025-94 | Content Warnings | 19-Jun-2025

Please could you provide a list of books and texts used by the university's Department of English, Department of History and Department of Politics (and International Relations) which have been flagged as requiring recommendations or suggestions of content warnings to alert students to potentially distressing content, on reading lists or in lectures and seminars/tutorials.
Response: None

Please could you also include the reason why there is a content warning on each book/text.
Response: N/A

2025-76 | AI | 12-Jun-2025

1.  How many recorded cases of student misconduct related to AI-generated work (e.g., ChatGPT or similar tools) have there been in the last three academic years? Please provide a breakdown by year.
Response:
2021-22  Total 0
2022-23 Total 7 – Outcome 1: 0; Outcome 2: 3; Outcome 3: 4; Outcome 4: 0
2023-24 Total 36 - Outcome 1: 9; Outcome 2: 12; Outcome 3: 13; Outcome 4: 2

Outcome 1: Formal warning
Outcome 2: Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible.  The reassessment element mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 3:  Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible. The module mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 4: Award a mark of zero for the module in question, the student must retake the same module and the module result will be capped at a bare pass  

2.  Of those cases, how many led to disciplinary action, and what specific penalties were imposed (e.g., warnings, grade reductions, suspensions, expulsions)? How many were not proven?
Response: As above.

3.  Has the university noticed a particular spike in cases since 2022/2023, when AI tools like ChatGPT became more advanced and their use more widespread?
Response: As above.

4.  What methods or tools does the university use to detect AI-generated work in student submissions (e.g., Turnitin AI detection, GPTZero)?
Response: Turnitin AI Detection Tool. The College is in the process of adopting a broad three-tiered categorisation scheme, which sets out where AI use is permissible. The use of the Turnitin AI Detection Tool will, in future, be determined by which category each individual assessment is designated, either category 1, AI cannot be used; category 2, AI is permitted in an assistive role; or category 3, AI has an integral role. Only those assessments which fall under category 1 will be submitted to the Turnitin AI Detection Tool, for checking. The College is also undertaking review of assessment design and developing an assessment framework over academic year 2024-25. 
In the context of academic integrity and misconduct, reports produced by the tool function as one source of information only. The Turnitin Detection Tool functions as a mechanism for alerting mark markers to potentially high levels of AI generated content but is not a substitute for academic judgement and AI detection reports alone are not used to penalise students.

5.  Does the university have a formal policy on student use of AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly, Copilot)? If so, please provide a copy or a link to the document.
Response:
Student policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/registry-services/student-policies-2024-25
Specific AI policy is here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/student-policies-2024-25/ai_guidance.pdf

6.  What guidance or training is provided to academic staff on identifying and addressing AI-related cheating?
Response: Birkbeck offers a workshop once per semester to support academic staff with using, understanding and interpreting the Turnitin AI Indicator. Birkbeck is also shortly launching a module in its Digital Skills Explorer course for staff on ‘Generative AI’ more broadly. Birkbeck’s staff intranet includes a page on AI that provides resources and tools and offers guidance for academic staff on assessing AI risk in assessments to enable staff to mitigate risks and encourage best practice in this area.

2025-91 | International Students on Foundation Courses | 10-Jun-2025

1.  The number of international students enrolled in Foundation programmes delivered through your partnership with ONCAMPUS, or any other Foundation provider.
Response: Birkbeck did not offer any foundation programmes in partnership with ONCAMPUS or other foundation provider in any of the last three academic years (2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24).

2.  A breakdown of these students by country or region of origin (e.g. Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Middle East, etc.).
Response: N/A

3.  The number of international students enrolled in Foundation programmes outside the provider relationship (i.e. directly recruited or through other channels), also broken down by region of origin and progression outcomes.
Response: A small number of students with international or EU status have been enrolled onto the Foundation degree, due to the small numbers we cannot provide any further breakdown as this may identify individuals. Please note the Foundation degree has been discontinued and there have been no new enrolments since 2022/23.
2021/22 – 15 
2022/23 – 6 
2023/24 – 2 

2025-88 | Undergraduate applications | 10-Jun-2025

Request for the following information for ALL applicants for ALL undergraduate courses (including integrated Master's courses) for the 2023/2024 admissions cycle:
1. Degree title
2. GCSE grades & subjects (or iGCSE grades & subjects, or equivalent qualifications) 
3. Predicted/achieved A Level grades & subjects (or IB grades & subjects, or UCAS Tariff points & subjects if applying with another qualification) 
4. Nationality — whether they're a Home or International student 
5. Contextual factors — were there contextual factors?
6. Accepted or rejected?
7. If accepted, was it via Clearing? 
8. If accepted, what was the offer requirement? E.g. A*AA with A* in A Level Mathematics 
9. Did they enrol? (I.e. did they begin the course?)

Response: We are refusing your request under Section 12 of the Act, as we have assessed that retrieving this information from our files would exceed the appropriate cost limit identified in the FOI Act, i.e. £450 which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time. This request is too broad, requiring data which is not held in an easily searchable form and would require manual searching of records to extract. Birkbeck also do not hold all this information, for example GCSE results. 

2025-97 | Death | 10-Jun-2025

a) Number of deaths of employees in each calendar year of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 2022, 2023, 2024, and the first quarter of 2025, with separate figures for each year;
Response: We do not hold this information prior to 2016. 
2016: 1 
2017: 1
2018: 2 
2019: 2 
2020: 2 
2021: 0
2022: 4
2023: 1
2024: 4
2025: 4

b) Of these, the number of deaths of employees recorded as suicide by a coroner in each calendar year of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 2022, 2023, 2024, and the first quarter of 2025, with separate figures for each year;
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information.

c) For each death recorded as suicide by a coroner, the date of the death;
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information. 

d) For each death recorded as suicide by a coroner, the campus or college, and faculty, directorate or similar, at which the employee had been working.
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information.

2025-90 | Mailing List | 04-Jun-2025

Query: Inquire about the activities and opportunities related to the AWM mailing list. I’m interested in learning more about upcoming events, possible ways to get involved, and any relevant updates shared through this channel.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. Information about our events can be found on our website: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/  To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-84 | Academic Misconduct | 04-Jun-2025

Please could I have, for each of the academic years 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25 (to date);
a.  The number of confirmed cases of academic misconduct among students.
2019-2020 - 13
2020-2021 – 14
2021-2022 - 18
2022-2023 - 22
2023-2024 – 47
2024-25 – Not Yet Available 

b.  The number of confirmed cases of plagiarism among students.
Response: This question is unclear, is it student to student plagiarism or flagged plagiarism from online sources etc?  
2019-2020 - 11
2020-2021 – 13
2021-2022 - 17
2022-2023 - 19
2023-2024 – 37
2024-25 – Not Yet Available

c.  The number of confirmed cases of academic misconduct among students relating to the misuse of Artificial Intelligence / Generative AI / Large Language Model (e.g. Chat GPT or Google’s gemini) tools. 
2019-2020 – Not held
2020-2021 – Not held
2021-2022 - 0
2022-2023 - 7
2023-2024 - 36
2024-2025 – Not yet available

2025-85 | AI | 04-Jun-2025

•  What is your university policy on the use of AI for coursework or graded submissions/exams?
Response: Birkbeck policies can be found on our website.
Student policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/registry-services/student-policies-2024-25
Specific AI policy is here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/student-policies-2024-25/ai_guidance.pdf

•  Do you have guidance for students on referencing AI if used in coursework or graded submissions/exams?
Response: Please see the AI policy above.

•  Do you have software that can detect the use of AI in coursework/graded submissions – similar to ones used to check for plagiarism? 
Response: Yes.

•  If you do use AI detection software, what software do you use?
Response: Turnitin AI Detection Tool

•  What are the penalties if AI is not referenced or recorded correctly in coursework or graded submissions/exams?
Response:
Outcome 1: Formal warning
Outcome 2: Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible.  The reassessment element mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 3:  Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible. The module mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 4: Award a mark of zero for the module in question, the student must retake the same module and the module result will be capped at a bare pass              

•  How many students recorded/referenced the use of AI in coursework/graded submissions/exams in 2022, 2023 and 2024 [stats for each calendar year]?
Response: This information is not held.

•  How many students were deemed by the university to have misused AI in coursework or graded submissions/exams in 2022, 2023 and 2024 [stats for each calendar year]? 
Response: This information is held by academic year.
2021-22: 0
2022-23:  7
2023-24: 36

•  How many students were suspended from the university for misuse of AI in 2022, 2023 and 2024 [stats for each calendar year]?
Response: None

•  How many students were expelled from the university for misuse of AI in 2022, 2023 and 2024 [stats for each calendar year]?
Response: None

2025-89 | Visceroptosis | 29-May-2025

Please provide copies of all guidance, research papers, internal memos, documents, reports, correspondence, meeting minutes, or any other materials held by the university that reference or relate to Visceroptosis (also known as Ptosis).
Response: Birkbeck has no research or policies that specifically mention Visceroptosis. 

2025-86 | Arms Research Partnerships | 29-May-2025

In the below request, the phrase ‘arms trade companies' relates to any company on the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing companies and Defence News Top 100 lists.

Please may you provide information on any funding for ‘research projects’ from ‘arms companies’ from 1 January 2017 to 5 April 2025, broken down by:
1.  The title and descriptions of the project or centre and academic department(s) involved
2.  The project partners and source of funding (to be included the source of funding does not have to be an arms trade company)
3.  Academic years, including the start and end date (DD-MM-YY) of the funding or project.
4.  Total amount in GBP provided for each project or centre (e.g. centre for doctoral training)
5.  Other participating UK universities

Response: 

1. Birkbeck Business School. AID HumanE: Distributed AI and the Effective Human
2. Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
3. Start date 10/02/2020 End Date 30/04/2020
4. 6830
5. Queen Mary University of London

1. Birkbeck Business School. #SharedStories: Giving Defence and Society a Way to See their Shared Futures
2. Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
3. Start date 10/02/2020 End Date 31/05/2020
4. 12055
5. Bath Spa University, Lancaster University, University of Liverpool

2025-80 | Ehlers Danlos Syndrome | 29-May-2025

Please provide copies of all guidance, research papers, internal memos, documents, reports, correspondence, meeting minutes, or any other materials held by the university that reference or relate to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS).
Response: Birkbeck has no research or policies that specifically mention Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. There are two papers which have a passing reference to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, both from the perspective of an example where the need to understand chronic is important rather than as a specific study into the condition itself. These examples are:
‘I Have Had to Stop Singing Because I Can't Take the Pain’: Experiences of Voice, Ability, and Loss in Singers With Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders - Journal of Voice (https://www.jvoice.org/article/S0892-1997(21)00407-0/abstract)
Development of a facile method to compute collagen network pathological anisotropy using AFM imaging | Scientific Reports (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47350-y)

2025-82 | International Travel Policies | 29-May-2025

1.  A copy of any policies, guidance, or information from the institution which specifically addresses international travel by LGBTQ+ staff members or students. 
Response: No specific guidance is given for international travel by LGBTQ+ staff or students. Travel guidance is on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/foreign-travel-information  Staff and students who are travelling are expected to complete a risk assessment using the information on the FCO website which would provide specific information for LGBTQ+ travellers. 

2.  A copy of any specific policies which address international travel by transgender staff members or students, in recognition of the particular legal issues that transgender travellers might face when travelling internationally. 
Response: No specific guidance is given for international travel by transgender staff or students. Travel guidance is on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/foreign-travel-information  Staff and students who are travelling are expected to complete a risk assessment using the information on the FCO website which would provide specific information for transgender travellers.

3.  Information on any risk assessment procedures related to LGBTQ+ staff or students travelling to countries where homosexuality or gender non-conformity is criminalised or otherwise restricted.
Response: As above.        

4.  Information about any specific support mechanisms, resources, or guidance provided to LGBTQ+ staff members or students before, during, and after international travel.
Response: As above. 

5.  Copies of any equality impact assessments conducted in relation to international travel policies as they affect LGBTQ+ staff or students.
Response: As above.

2025-81 | IT | 22-May-2025

Q1. Can you please list the number of devices deployed by your organisation for the following?
Desktop PCs   +/- 1,000
Laptops  +/- 1,200
Mobile Phones  +/- 70
Printers  +/- 80
Multi Functional Devices (MFDs)  +/- 20
Tablets  +/- 150
Physical Servers  +/- 150
Storage Devices (for example: NAS, SAN)  +/- 12
Networking Infrastructure (for example: Switches, Routers, Interfaces, Wireless Access Points)  +/- 600 
Security Infrastructure (for example: Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Virus Monitoring Tools)  +/- 12 

Q2. Is your organisation planning to invest in the following systems or any similar systems. If yes, how much is the planned expenditure for 2025/26 and future years?
Learning Management System 
Response: No                                                                                                                                     
Learning and Assessment Management Software
Response: No                                                                                                                                     
AI-driven Student Engagement Software
Response: No
Classroom Management Software
Response: No                                                                                                                                     
Student Applications and Admission Management System
Response: No
Cloud- based Higher Education & School Management Software
Response: No
Education ERP with Student Information System 
Response: No                                                                                                                                     

Q3.  Does your organisation have any plans to invest in the below technologies or any similar technologies. If yes, could you mention the estimated costs for the financial years planned?
AI-enable remote self-learning technology
Response: N/A
Smart Learning Technology 
Response: N/A                                                                                                                                     
Virtual Learning Technology
Response: Expenditure:  £500,000 in 25/26  
Streamlining through Automation Technology
Response: N/A

2025-75 | EDRM | 22-May-2025

What electronic document management system your institution use?
Response: Birkbeck uses SharePoint as our EDRM platform.

How long do you use this system?
Response: For approximately six years.

Is it possible to estimate how much it costs to maintain the system on an annual basis?
Response: SharePoint is bundled into the Microsoft subscription and it is not possible to separate out that spend.

2025-78 | Security | 22-May-2025

1.  Total Contract Value:
Response: Varies, as provides ad-hoc labour cover

2.  Expiry Date of the Awarded Contract:
Response: This is a rolling contract,  1st July 2025 is award date for a further year.

3.  Approximate date that the tender will be reissued towards the end of the current contract period.
Response: Early part of 2026

4.  Name & Contact Details of the person responsible for the tender:
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection, the College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact departments or staff members please use our contact page here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-87 | Carbon Emissions | 22-May-2025

Please supply me, where available, with the following information: the greenhouse gas emissions of Birkbeck College in tonnes of equivalent CO2 emissions (tCO2e) from 2005 to present. Please present these in a table broken down by academic year and emissions scope (scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 separately).
Response: Details of Birkbeck’s carbon footprint are available on our sustainability webpages here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/sustainability-at-birkbeck/carbon-footprint/  This shows the past three years fully broken down by scope. Earlier information is not held in this format, but there is information on the HESA website: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/estates/table-3

2025-74 | Digital Media Contracts | 22-May-2025

1. The term and end date of any current contract(s), including extensions, related to digital media buying.
2. The name of the current incumbent(s) providing these services.
3. The total annual spend on these contract(s) for the 2 most recent financial years.
Response: Birkbeck uses a media buying agency, thus we cannot separate out digital spend as this is included in a package which covers all media.

2025-59 | Skill Development | 22-May-2025

Requesting information regarding the technical skills and software covered in your Computer Science degree course, as well as your approach to incorporating labour market needs into the curriculum. To help with this request, I have attached a template and I would ask you to enter key technical skills (e.g programming languages, software tools, frameworks) and supporting metric information into. This includes
1)  Skill /software name
Response: As below.
2)  Proficiency level expected to be developed by the end of the course (e.g., basic, intermediate, advanced)
Response: All skills are targeted at junior developer level.
3)  Number of core modules where the skill is developed
Response: As below
4)  Approximate average percentage of time, per Core module, spent developing this skill
Response: As below
5)  Number of Optional modules where the skill is developed
Response: As below
6)  Approximate average percentage of time, per Optional module, spent developing this skill
Response: As below
7)  Has the skill / software been selected to be included due to its relevance in the current jobs market
Response: All skill selection decisions are informed by the following quote from the Programme Specification:
“Modern computing and information systems skills often become obsolete as new technology is developed. Therefore, the programme strikes a balance between learning current skills, which are important in the marketplace, and emphasising the underlying theories, which last longer and which provide a sound basis for developing new skills, techniques and technologies, and even new theories. The social and organisational impacts of information technology are also included.”
https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/programme-specifications-2024-25/computing-and-mathematical-sciences/bsc-computing-incl-with-foundation-year.pdf
8)  Any additional comments or context you feel is relevant to the skill developed or software used
Response: This information is not held in this format.

BSc Computing Final Year modules skills including approximate percentages of time devoted to them:
Compulsory modules      
1.  Project 30 credits.  Students design their own project. The project requires an implementation and can involve learning a new skill. Checking all student projects for the tools used and determine whether additional learning was required is beyond the scope of this FOI due to the time this would take.
There are four 15 credit modules:
1. MySQL, SQL  100%
2.  None of these topics
3.  None of these topics
4.  Java 90%
  Git 5%
  Unit testing 5%

Optional Modules
There are five 15 credit modules (students are required to select 2):     
1. Programming Languages  40% (Python 10%, Javascript 90%)
     Database Technologies 20% (MongoDB 90%,MySQL 10%)
     Software Development Frameworks 20%(Node.js )
     Development tools and practices  20%(Github 20%,Docker 40%, Kubernetes 30%, Unit testing frameworks 10%)

2.  Agile project management framework    80%
  Business Analysis Techniques          20%

3.  Data Science and Machine Learning Tools- R 20%

4. Data Science and Machine Learning Tools- Matlab 20%

5. MySQL = 1-2%
  Github = 5%
  Unit testing framework = 5%
  Java variant Kotlin 85%

In addition to this, please can you answer the following questions
1)  Has your institution considered current job market trends and skills demand when developing the Computer Science curriculum? If so, please briefly describe how these factors were incorporated into the course design.
Response: The School typically employs a panel of employer representatives to gain feedback on the curriculum.
2)  Is the Computer Science program accredited by any professional bodies (e.g., BCS)? 
Response: Not presently.
3)  Are industry professionals or employers involved in the design and delivery of the course content (e.g., advisory boards, guest lectures)?
Response: People with industry experience have been involved in some module creation and delivery.
4)  Does your university track the employment outcomes of Computer Science graduates (e.g., employment rates, types of roles) that go into IT based careers? If so, how is this data used to inform course development?
Response: This information is not held. 
5)  Does the university collect feedback from students or employers on the relevance and effectiveness of the technical skills taught in the curriculum? If so, how is this feedback incorporated into course updates?
Response: Birkbeck typically employs a panel of employer representatives to gain feedback.  In addition, we regularly obtain feedback from students on their views of the content of our degrees and their delivery. This is reviewed and informs subsequent changes to our modules.

2025-64 | Pension Schemes | 19-May-2025

1) Which pension scheme do you may into for most of your academic staff (TPS, USS, or other). If you pay into more than one scheme, can you provide a short explanation of why that is.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. This information can be found in our financial accounts  on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements

2) What is the total amount you spent on pension contributions to your members' schemes.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. This information can be found in our financial accounts.

3) What is the average amount you spent on employer pension contributions per member of academic staff.
Response: The figures below are based on all staff paying into pension.
2021 Total spend £5,970,760  No. of staff 903  Avg spend per staff £6612.14
2022 Total spend £5,997,259  No. of staff 1010  Avg spend per staff £5937.88
2023 Total spend £5,152,969  No. of staff 1021  Avg spend per staff £5046.98
2024 Total spend £3,596,605  No. of staff 939  Avg spend per staff £3830.25

4) What proportion of your overall staff remuneration budget goes on to staff pension contributions.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. This information can be found in our financial accounts.

2025-77 | Governance | 19-May-2025

The precise number of council (or board) meetings.
Response:
2016     3
2017     3
2018     3
2019     4
2020     3
2021     3
2022     5
2023     6

The number of members of each committee (if applicable) for: the Nominations Committee and any committee related to environmental sustainability.
Response:  Nomination Committee Members:
2016     9
2017     6
2018     7
2019     8
2020     8
2021     8
2022     9
2023     9

If there is a sustainability committee, please let me know when it was established.
Response: There is not a sustainability committee. Issues around sustainability are considered by all committees.

2025-67 | Email Request | 15-May-2025

1. Copies of any and all emails (stored within the above-mentioned inboxes) sent or received by your staff since 1 October 2023 which contain ANY of the following words:
A. Palestine
B. Palestinian
C. Gaza
D. Encampment
E. Protest
Response: Please see attached.

2. For all emails disclosed in relation to Question 1, where the email containing the above-listed keyword(s) forms part of a longer email chain, please disclose a copy of the entire email chain. Please also provide any:
A. Documents/images attached to those emails
B. A working version of any hyperlinks exchanged in those emails
Response: Please see attached. Please note we have not included standard newsletters from various organisations as this would exceed the cost limit and the amount that can emailed as attachments. We have included samples. Newsletters and forum posts are received from:
To senior management/VC:
Research Professional –numerous emails - links within their newsletters to other news stories (for example attached the newsletter for 31/03/25) APPUG (All-Party Parliamentary University Group – 10/05/24, 31/01/25 CARA (Council for At-Risk Academics) 3/10/24, 04/11/24 HEPI (Higher Education Policy Institute)- 28/01/25 London Higher 3/06/24 UUK  (Universities UK) 25/04/24, 10/05/24, 30/08/24, 04/10/24, 28/01/25 OfS (Office for Students) 10/05/24, 16/05/24/, 17/05/24, Secretary state for Education 05/05/24 Advance HE  14/05/24 UCEA (Universities and Colleges Employers Association)  - numerous emails - links within their newsletters to other news stories mentioning the above key words BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) 12/12/24

For security:
CIS Intel Hub; Global Situational Awareness; Police Liaison Officer (events that are happening in the area); AUCSO forum and newsletters; TINYg; Wonke; AUDE Newsletters

Emails were also exchanged with security regarding events held on campus for the following:
Judith Butler on 14th March 2025
IJCJP - International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine: event didn’t go ahead at the end US Ambassador Lipstadt public lecture - 21 February 2024
PALESTINE, IMPERIALISM & THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM event at BIRKBECK on 04/02/2024 
These are not included as they contain security information.

3. Copies of all notes taken by any and all members of your staff who attended the “Encampments and Protests on Campus” webinar on 29th October 2024 run by the AULP. Please include any documents circulated in connection with the webinar, including resources downloaded from the AULP website.
Response: No circulars were received and no notes taken

4. A list of all meetings/workshops/webinars attended by your staff which were run by AUCSO and/or IACLEA since 1 June 2024. Please provide copies of any documents circulated to attendees in connection with those meetings/workshops/webinars.
Response: One member of staff has attended the AUDE Webinar: Encampment and Protests on campus (attached information)

2025-79 | Marketing Graduates | 06-May-2025

Please could you provide the following data regarding marketing graduates from your institution:
1. The percentage of marketing graduates who secured full-time employment within 15 months of graduating, for each graduating year from 2020 to the most recent year for which data is available.
2020/21  70.30%
2021/22 87.50%

2. The average (mean) salary of marketing graduates in full-time employment within 15 months of graduating, for each of the same years.
2020/21  £33,000
2021/22  £37,233

Information is taken from the Graduate Outcomes Survey.
This information consists of all courses that include marketing in the title, consisting of:
BSc Business and Marketing
BSc Marketing
MSc International Marketing
MSc Management with Marketing
MSc Marketing
MSc Marketing Communciations
MSc Sport Management and Marketing

2025-71 | Finance | 01-May-2025

You asked for information regarding call-off contracts in the public sector.
Response: Please see attached spreadsheet.

2025-72 | Asbestos | 01-May-2025

1.  Is the university aware of the presence of asbestos in any land or property which is owned and/or managed by the university? NB: this should include all asbestos including asbestos which is appropriately managed and not regarded as a danger.  
Response: Yes. 

2.  If answer to above is 'yes': How many student bedrooms are known or suspected to have asbestos in them (or in the surrounding walls, ceiling, etc)? NB: "Student bedrooms" shoudl be defined as any bedroom currently occupied by either undergraduate or graduate student(s) which is in land or property owned and/or managed by the university. As above, this should include asbestos which is not regarded as a danger.
Response: Birkbeck do not have any student accommodation. 

3.  In the last three years, how many times has the University been made aware of accidental potential damage or disturbance of asbestos within property owned and/or managed by the university?
Response: No occasions (0).

2025-66 | Course Admission | 01-May-2025

For Environment and Sustainability (MSc, PGCert, PGDip) for the 2023/24, 2022/23 and 2021/22 admission cycles:
- the number of applications,
- the number of offers made,
- the number of acceptances.

Response:
2021/2  Applications: 185; All Offers: 155; Acceptances: 65
2022/3  Applications: 370; All Offers: 270; Acceptances: 120
2023/4   Applications: 400; All Offers: 245; Acceptances: 105

2025-73 | AI Tools | 01-May-2025

1.  Which AI products do your faculty have access to of those offered by Google, OpenAI and Anthropic?
Response: AI is not blocked so all publicly available platforms are available. Birkbeck do have policy guidelines for use of AI which can be found on our website.

2.  Which AI products do your students have access to of those offered by Google, OpenAI and Anthropic?
Response: As above.

3.  How much was paid for services from any of these suppliers you partnered with between January 2023 and April 2025.
a.  Please provide this information broken down into 2023, 2024 and 2025 spending
Response: £0; there are no formal arrangements with AI suppliers.

4.  What are the terms of your agreements with such suppliers?
Response: As above.

5.  Written correspondence between a) OpenAI b) Anthropic c) Google regarding educational partnerships or licenses to use AI products.
Response: As no agreements are held with these companies, Birkbeck does not hold this information.

2025-56 | Complaints | 28-Apr-2025

The number of formal student complaints or academic appeals that resulted in a financial payout—whether due to the complaint being upheld or as part of a financial settlement.
Response:
2019/20 - 5
2020/21 - 3
2021/22 - 8
2022/23 - 21
2023/24 - 5

The total value of such financial payouts in each year.
Response:
2019/20 - £2517
2020/21 - £1450
2021/22 - £5250
2022/23 - £32,404
2023/24 - £15,183.33

2025-54 | Disciplinary | 24-Apr-2025

1.  The number of students facing or who have been subject to disciplinary investigations in connection with protest activity from 1 October 2023 to date (25 March 2025).
Response: None

2.  The number of staff facing or who have been subject to disciplinary investigations in connection with their protest activity from 1 October 2023 to date (25 March 2025). Please break these figures down by:
Response: Less than five
a.  The protest cause in as much detail as possible (for example Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)
Response: Activity on social media in respect of the conflict between Israel and Gaza
b.  The date disciplinary investigation was launched
Response: October 2023
c.  Reason for disciplinary investigation
Response: Activity on social media in respect of the conflict between Israel and Gaza that was alleged to be in breach of the College’s Principles of Dignity at Work and Study
d.  The outcome/disciplinary action taken, including no further action
Response: Details not appropriate as may identify individuals due to low numbers.      

3.  The number of students who have been reported to your University’s Prevent Lead, or equivalent post, as Prevent concerns since 1 October 2023.
Response: None

4.  The number of staff who have been reported to your University’s Prevent Lead, or equivalent post, as Prevent concerns since 1 October 2023.
Response: None

5.  The number of students involved in protest activity whose personal data has since 1 October 2023 been:
a.  Requested by the police in connection with their protest activity, broken down by the type of cause (eg Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)
b.  Shared with the police in connection with their protest activity, broken down by the type of cause (eg Pro-Palestinian, Environmental, Animal Rights)
Response: None

2025-68 | Investment | 24-Apr-2025

Query regarding investment.
Response: Governors finalised a new investment strategy in 2019/2020 and the approach is explained in our Financial Statements 2021 (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/finance/financial-statements-2021.pdf  p 24). The investment policy is on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy 

The investment strategy finalised n 2019/2020 aims to support our core business activities, purchase of capital equipment, infrastructure improvements and our estates strategy. It also includes the University’s approach to Responsible Investment. Independent advice on investment manager selection, which particularly focussed on Environmental, Social and Governance criteria, was provided by Mercer and in the autumn of 2020 and our investment funds are invested through and managed by Ruffer Charitable Assets Trust and Mercer Sustainable Global Equity Fund. Information about our investments can be found in our financial statements here: Financial statements (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements ). Birkbeck’s Investment Policy can be found on the College website. (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy )

2025-61 | Sexual Misconduct | 24-Apr-2025

1.  The number of reports made by students of sexual assault or harassment each academic year from 2018/19 to 2024/25. My question relates to reports of sexual misconduct by students against fellow students
Response: Less than five in the period, due to low numbers no breakdown can be given as it may identify individuals.

2.  The number of reports of students forming misogynistic groups (either on campus or online) each academic year from 2018/19 to 2024/25
Response: None. Birkbeck would not hold information on informal groups.

3.  What is your most relevant policy for dealing with sexual misconduct?
Response: All Birkbeck policies can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies

2025-69 | Disciplinary Action | 24-Apr-2025

1. The total number of students at the university who have faced or are facing disciplinary action after/due to them taking part in Pro-Palestine protest/action on campus during the period: 07/10/23-31/03/25
Response: None

2.  The total number of students at the university who have been suspended after/due to them taking part in Pro-Palestine protest/action on campus during the period: 07/10/23-31/03/25
Response: None

2025-58 | Contextual Admissions | 24-Apr-2025

Please provide the following, for 2023-24 application cycle (i.e. entry in September 2024, or deferred entry to 2025), for undergraduate Home-UK fee status applicants:

1.  Offer making:
a.  How many applicants received a contextual offer from your institution?
b.  What percentage of applicants received a contextual offer?
Response: Birkbeck do not offer contextual offers.        

2.  Applicant response:
a. How many applicants that received a contextual offer made your institution a ‘firm choice’?
b. What percentage of applicants that made your institution a ‘firm choice’ received a contextual offer?
Response: N/A              

3.  Confirmation:
a. How many applicants with a ‘firm acceptance’ and a contextual offer were successful at confirmation?
b. How many applicants with a ‘firm acceptance’ and a contextual offer were unsuccessful at confirmation? (e.g. if fail to make offer grades)
c. What percentage of applicants with a ‘firm acceptance’ were successful at confirmation?
d. What percentage of applicants with a 'firm acceptance’ were unsuccessful at confirmation? (e.g. if fail to make offer grades)
Response: N/A

4.  Does your contextual admissions policy apply to applicants with International fee status?
Response: N/A              

5.  Does your contextual admissions policy apply to applicants that currently attend an independent school?
Response: N/A

6.  Impact of contextual admissions on widening participation:
Response: N/A

7.  Please share any relevant policies that outline the use of contextual admissions at your institution.
Response: Birkbeck’s entry requirements are available on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/admissions/entry-requirements

2025-65 | Funding | 24-Apr-2025

Disclose whether or not you have received any funding from Iranian sources. If so, please can you provide full details. I.e. year the donation was made, source of the donation, and the amount given.

Response: Birkbeck has no record of donations where the donor was based in Iran nor where there is any obvious link between an organisational donor and Iran. There are three low value donations from Iranian nationals based in the UK as follows:
2024/25 - £10
2022/23 - £25
2017/18 - £20 

2025-62 | Governance | 15-Apr-2025

•  The frequency of council (or board) meetings.
These are held at least one a term.

•  The number of members of each committee (if applicable): the governance committees (or governance and nomination committee), and sustainability committees (related to environmental sustainability).
This information is held on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/governance

•  If there is a sustainability committee, please let me know when it was established.
This information is held on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/governance  Sustainability is covered in several of our committees and does not have a separate committee.

2025-60 | Prevent Referrals | 10-Apr-2025

1.  In the total of the last three academic years (21/22),(22/23) and (23/24) on how many occasions has the university made an official approach to refer a student to the authorities as part of the government’s Prevent strategy.
Response: None

2.  If known please state in how many of these cases the student was assessed officially on the Prevent Referral programme. (What I mean by this question is there may be a difference between Q.1 and Q.2 in that in Q.1 you may have made an approach to refer a student onto the Prevent programme but for whatever reason they may NOT have been accepted on to this first rung of the Prevent programme).
Response: N/A

3.  If your answer is ZERO in that you have not referred any students to the programme please provide me with a copy of any policy or guidance you have which states your institution’s policy about how and why you might, or might not, refer a student to the programme.
Response: This information can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/prevent

2025-48 | Policies | 08-Apr-2025

1.  The total number of policies currently held by your organisation (if available/known).
Response: This information is not held. Policies are set by various departments throughout the College. All public facing policies can be found on our website: www.bbk.ac.uk  

2.  The number of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines, broken down by category.
Response: Information not held.

3.  The percentage of policies that are currently in date.
Response: Information not held.

4.  The percentage of processes / SOPs / Guidelines that are currently in date.
Response: Information not held.

5.  The system or platform used to store, manage and access policies, SOPs and guidelines.
Response: This will be different in different areas of the College.

6.  Whether your organisation has a method in place to track the usage and access of policies, SOPs and guidelines.
Response: This will be different in different areas of the College.

2025-55 | Health Research Strategy | 08-Apr-2025

1. Does your University have an executive board where health research strategy is set (i.e the type of research submitted to REF UoA 1-4)?
Response: Yes

2. If yes, is there a PPIE (patient public involvement engagement) representative on this board with the specific remit to provide insights into research agenda setting from the perspective of a patient with lived experience of health issues or as a member of the public/community? [I am not referring to the presence of a lay chair].
Response:  No

3. Is there a PPIE advisory structure (e.g. board, committee, panel) which provides PPIE insights to inform the work of the executive board? (not within individual study groups- I refer to high level feedback into your research strategy meetings).
Response:  No

4. Is there a PPIE representative on any lower-level boards?
Response:  No

5. If yes to question 2, 3 or 4, please provide the most recent minutes/agenda with a list of members with designated roles/remits (not names).
Response:  N/A

6. Are PPIE representatives remunerated?
Response:  N/A

7. Do you require PPIE representatives to do any training? If yes, please specify If yes, please specify e.g NIHR training or in house-training.
Response:  N/A

8. I realise that some of this information may already be available. However, I was unable to locate it. So, if it is, please provide me with a link to the data.
Response:  N/A

2025-33 | Data Centres | 08-Apr-2025

We are unable to fully respond to your request as some data is not available. We can answer:
1.  Contract Title:  Virtualisation
2.  Type of Contracts (ABOVE): Includes virtualisation, servers and SAN
3.  Existing/Current Supplier:  DTP Ltd
4.  Brand:  HPE
5.  Operating System / Software (Platform): vSphere host running Windows Server, Linux client VM’s
6.  Annual Average Spend: £61,780 (HPE Hardware) + VAT
7.  Contract Duration: 1 year, rolling
8.  Contract Expiry Date: 30th April 2025
9.  Contract Review Date: March 2026
10.  Purchase of Servers: 2018
11.  Number of Physical Server: 8
12.  Number of Virtual Servers: +/-100
13.  Brief Contract Description: Includes hardware and firmware support and application of updates as well as VMWare software support and annual renewal
14.  Contract Owner: IT Infrastructure Group

2025-51 | Student Enrollment Trends | 03-Apr-2025

1.  Student permanent addresses
•  A list of where each current student comes from, specifying which town and city.
2.  Number of enrolments and dropouts
•  The current number of enrolments at your university.
•  A list of each course that’s offered and how many students enrolled on each one.
•  The number of students that have dropped out of each course in the last two years.  
Response: Please see attached spreadsheet. Please note any data below 5 has been suppressed and above have been rounded to the nearest five for anonymity.

2025-57 | Utility-Scale Assets | 03-Apr-2025

1) Do you own or operate utility-scale electricity generation assets which export to the grid?
Response: No.

2) If so, what technologies? And are they ‘co-located’? E.g., a solar farm with a battery.
Response: N/A

3) How much electricity (in kWh) would you expect to be exported, from each asset, per year? And how much revenue would you expect to earn from the export in FY25/26?
Response: N/A

4) When was each asset commissioned?
Response: N/A

5) What is the current contractual arrangement to sell the power, to whom is it sold and what is the contract end date?
Response: N/A

6) Do you partake in any government subsidy scheme in relation to the electrical output from the asset? E.g. Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROC) or Contracts for Difference (CfD).
Response: N/A

7) Does your Universities have any plans in place to acquire, build or invest in electricity generation assets in the future?
Response: No

2025-52 | Due Diligence for Donations | 03-Apr-2025

I am requesting information regarding the due diligence process for donations the university receives. As stated in the ‘Philanthropic gift acceptance policy’ all donations over £100k and £1m are subject to a due diligence report. Can you please provide the following information:
•  How many reports were carries out in the years 2022-23, 2023-24.
•  How much the donations were for.
•  Whether the university accepted the donation/ total number of donations accepted
•  Any minutes for the committee meetings regarding said reports.
•  Please provide the names of any external providers doing due diligence reports on behalf of the university.

Response: Due diligence reports are carried out prior to the solicitation of a gift or pledge of value over £100,000 (or prior to accepting an unsolicited gift or pledge).  The gift acceptance committee considers whether it is appropriate for the University to accept the proposed gift.  The donor is then approached and may decide to donate or not (so not all gift acceptance committee approvals result in a gift being received or pledged). Where a due diligence report has been carried out and the gift acceptance committee approved the solicitation or gift, further gifts may be received until the scheduled review of the due diligence report three years after the initial decision by the gift acceptance committee.

In 2022-23, 13 due diligence reports were carried out, 12 were approved by the committee.  There were 7 resulting gifts or pledges.
In 2023-24, 10 due diligence reports were carried out, all of which were approved by the committee.  There were 6 resulting gifts or pledges.

No external providers were engaged to carried out the due diligence reports.  Gift Acceptance Committee minutes are not publicly available as these are commercially sensitive. 

2025-37 | Volunteer Funding | 03-Apr-2025

I am writing to request a full list of the companies involved with the flagship volunteering programmes included in the ‘Mentoring Pathways’ scheme including the names of the companies which 351 volunteers represent. Additionally, I am writing to request information on the whether the university partners with any of the following companies in the volunteering programme:
1.  Microsoft
2.  Dell
3.  KPMG
4.  Santander
5.  Google
6.  JP Morgan
7.  Goldman Sachs
8.  Legal and General
9.  Hays
10. BAE Systems

Response: 1085 volunteers participated as mentors on the Mentoring Pathways programme between 2020-2024. Volunteers participated in the programme on an individual basis and not as company representatives. Students participating as mentees studied across a range of Birkbeck departments. Based on the list of the 10 companies listed in your email, we can confirm that for the purpose of Mentoring Pathways delivery, over the time-period indicated, we informally partnered with the following companies: Goldman Sachs, Google, Legal and General.

Goldman Sachs  26 (2020-1) 30 (2022-3) 13 (2023-4)
Google  1 (2021)
Legal & General  4 (2023-4)

Each volunteer contributes 20 hours of volunteering time per academic year. The number of student participants per programme equalled the number of volunteers; this is due to the fact that students and volunteers are matched on a one-to-one basis.

2025-49 | External Investigation Companies | 01-Apr-2025

(1)From 1 July 2023 to date (11 March 2025) has your university used any external company to provide any of the following services:
A. Private investigations into individuals or groups (eg misconduct investigations, research on speakers)
B. Intelligence gathering, eg social media monitoring
C. Overt/covert surveillance, eg physical monitoring of people
D. Facial recognition
Response: No

(2) If you answered yes in relation to any parts to Q1, please provide:
A. The name of the external company(s)
B. The university’s total expenditure on the services provided by that company for the last three financial years
Response: N/A

(3) For each company listed in response to Q2A, please state:
A. Why its services were used (eg misconduct investigations)
B. Whether the use was in relation to individuals or groups who were of interest on account of political activism or protest activity and, if so, what cause their activity was in relation to (eg pro-Palestinian, environmental, animal rights)
C. Whether students or staff were the subject of the services provided.
Response: N/A

(4) Copies of any and all Data Protection Impact Assessment screening checklists and Data Protection Impact Assessments conducted in relation to:
A. Facial recognition
B. Private investigations into individuals or groups (eg misconduct investigations, research on speakers)
C. Intelligence gathering, eg social media monitoring
D. Overt/covert surveillance, eg physical monitoring of people
Response: N/A

(5) Are members of the university's security team equipped with either:
A. facial recognition cameras, or
B. cameras capable of carrying out a facial recognition function if this functionality were to be switched on in the future
Response: No.

(6) Have university security staff used live or retrospective facial recognition technology to date? If yes, please specify whether this was live, retrospective, or both.
Response: No.

2025-35 | Fitness to Practice | 27-Mar-2025

1.  What are the courses in your universities that have fitness to practice procedures as part of regulatory and/or professional body requirements? Please list these:
Response: Of the accredited courses Birkbeck offers, none of these have fitness to practice procedures as part of regulatory and/or professional body requirements. Response for all other questions is N/A.

2025-46 | Graduate Schemes | 25-Mar-2025

Please detail whether the following companies have participated in any Birkbeck University graduate schemes, apprenticeships, or careers fair appearances: 
1.Boeing
2.Caterpillar 
3. Maersk 
4. Northrop Grumman 
5. Thyssenkrupp
6. Honeywell 

Response: Birkbeck does not currently hold careers fairs, nor participates in grad schemes, nor participated in any apprenticeship programs with any of the businesses listed.

2025-50 | Email platform | 25-Mar-2025

Question 1 - What technology platform do you use for your email solution?
Response: Microsoft

2025-47 | Accommodation | 25-Mar-2025

Has any UK University listed as recipient of this email evicted any student from  University accommodation?
Response: Birkbeck does not have any student accommodation.

How many UK University students were evicted by UK University from UK University owned accommodation or other accommodation controlled by a UK University?
Response: This information would not be held by Birkbeck. The response for Birkbeck would be none.

How many of evictions was because of rent arrears?
Response: N/A

2025-32 | Consultancy | 20-Mar-2025

I would like to know how much the University spends on consultancy services. Using the Cabinet Office definition for each live or current contract can you please provide the following:  
- name of supplier
- type of service (eg. IT consultancy, legal advice)
- value of contract (including extensions)
- current spend under contract
- start date of contract
- end date of contract
- whether the contract was competed

Response: We are refusing your request under Section 12 of the Act, as we have assessed that retrieving this information from our files would exceed the appropriate cost limit identified in the FOI Act, i.e. £450 which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time. This data is not held in an easily searchable form and would require manual searching of records to extract.

2025-34 | Academic Misconduct | 20-Mar-2025

1)  How many cases of academic misconduct related to AI were identified at Birkbeck, University of London in the academic years 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, and 2024-2025 to date?
2020-2021 – Not held
2021-2022 - 0
2022-2023 - 7
2023-2024 - 36
2024-2025 – Not yet available

2) For each academic year, how many cases of academic misconduct related to AI:
a)  were dismissed?
b)  resulted in penalties or other disciplinary consequences less severe than expulsion or the revocation of a degree?
c)  resulted in expulsion or the revocation of a degree?
4a)
 2022-2023 - 0
2023-2024 - 36
4b)
2022-2023 - 7
2023-2024 - 36
4c)
2022-23 – 0
2023-24 – 0 

3)  How many cases of academic misconduct overall were identified at Birkbeck, University of London in the academic years 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, and 2024-2025 to date?
2020-2021 - 14
2021-2022 - 17
2022-2023 - 22
2023-2024 - 45
2024-2025 – 19

4)  For each academic year, how many cases of academic misconduct overall:
a)  were dismissed?
b)  resulted in penalties or other disciplinary consequences less severe than expulsion or the revocation of a degree?
c)  resulted in expulsion or the revocation of a degree?
4a)
 2020-2021 - 8
2021-2022 -13
2022-2023 - 8
2023-2024 - 38
2024-2025 - 9
4b)
2020-2021 - 6
2021-2022 - 4
2022-2023 - 14
2023-2024 - 7
2024-2025 – 10
4c)
2022-23 – less than five

2025-44 | Sexual Assaults | 20-Mar-2025

1. (a) For the combined total of the last three academic years (21/22) (22/23) and (23/24) how many cases have been reported to the university authorities of incidents when female students have claimed to have been the victim of a sexual assault or rape attack?  
Response: 0

(b) How many of these were alleged to have been committed by a male student?  
Response: 0

2. Over the same time period please state what, if any, university disciplinary sanctions, were imposed on male students in connection with carrying out these alleged sexual assaults on female students? Please state the exact number of each sanction on these offending students. Please be specific in what these sanctions were – for example; banned from campus accommodation, expelled from the university, made to attend a consent course, write a letter of apology etc.
Response: 0

3. How many of the offending students referenced in your answer to Question 1(b) were allowed to continue with their studies at the university?
Response: N/A

4. For the combined total of the last three academic years (21/22) (22/23) and (23/24)how many cases have been reported to the university authorities of incidents when female students have claimed to have been the victim of any kind of sexual abuse or harassment from male students at the university? If derogatory or abusive language was part of the complaint, either verbally or online, then for each case give the exact words that were alleged to have been used against the woman.
Response: 0

2025-38 | Graduate Schemes | 18-Mar-2025

Please detail whether the following companies have participated in any Birkbeck University graduate schemes, apprenticeships, or careers fair appearances:  
1. Microsoft
2. Dell
3. KPMG
4. Santander
5. Google
6. JP Morgan
7. Goldman Sachs
8. Legal and General
9. Hays
10. BAE Systems
Response: Birkbeck currently do not hold career fairs, nor participate in apprenticeships or graduate schemes with any of the businesses listed.

2025-30 | Student Support | 18-Mar-2025

1.  Does your institution have a policy or guidance on supporting people who menstruate?
Response: For students, Birkbeck does not have a specific student policy addressing gynaecological conditions; however, students affected by such ailments are supported through existing mechanisms, such as the mitigating circumstances policy. Those experiencing long-term symptoms can also receive assistance through Birkbeck’s disability disclosure process for students (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/disability-service/accessing-support) and also the mitigating circumstances policy (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/student-policies-2024-25/mitigating-circumstances-policy.pdf)
For staff, guidance will be general and under the health and safety as well as the wellbeing section on our website: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/

2.  Does this relate to staff, students or both?
Response: As above.

3.  Are pre-menstrual symptoms, period pain or similar included in the reasons students can request an assessment extension?
Response: At Birkbeck, students can request assessment deferrals through the mitigating circumstances process for gynaecological conditions, such as pre-menstrual symptoms. However, these requests are considered on a case-by-case basis. For students with long-term gynaecological conditions, support is available from Birkbeck’s Disability service via study support plans and they may be provided with a student support plan that includes appropriate assessment adjustments. These adjustments may include extended deadlines during flare-ups, and other necessary accommodations. (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/disability-service)

4.  Are pre-menstrual symptoms, period pain or similar included in the reasons students can request consideration related to poor exam performance?
Response: At Birkbeck, students can request reassessment or deferral or an assessment task through the mitigating circumstances policy and process for gynaecological conditions, such as pre-menstrual symptoms. However, these requests are considered on a case-by-case basis. Individual assessment marks are not adjusted as a consequence of any upheld mitigating circumstances. For students with long-term gynaecological conditions, support is available through study support plans, which includes appropriate assessment adjustments. These adjustments may include extended examination times, breaks during examinations, and other necessary accommodations.

2025-29 | Hardship Funding | 13-Mar-2025

1.  The total number of hardship fund applications received each year.
2022/23 – 220
2023/24 – 161
2024/25 – 55 (to date)

2.  The total number of applications approved each year.
2022/23 – 159
2023/24 – 104
2024/25 – 30 (to date)

3.  The total amount of money distributed through the fund each year.
2022/23 – £39,7942.64
2023/24 –  £22,4257.80
2024/25 –  £34,057.55 (to date)

4.  The number of applications citing inability to afford hygiene products or laundry costs in their application.
Birkbeck does not hold this information.

2025-42 | Contractors | 13-Mar-2025

The names of all contractors currently on your payroll who are engaged in providing advice related to the property sector.
Response: Please see attached pdf. Further information is refused under section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, which exempts institutions form the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.

2025-31 | Academic Misconduct | 11-Mar-2025

1.  How many formal academic misconduct investigations into suspected cheating on essays/assignments have taken place at the university over the past three academic years? If possible, please break this down by year, and include type of misconduct, such as “suspected use of essay mills” / “suspected use of AI”
2021-2022 Total 0
2022-2023 Total 7; Outcome 1: 0; Outcome 2: 3; Outcome 3: 4; Outcome 4: 0
2023-2024 Total 36; Outcome 1: 9; Outcome 2: 12; Outcome 3: 9; Outcome 4: 6

Outcome 1: Formal warning
Outcome 2: Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible.  The reassessment element mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 3:  Award a mark of zero for the element of assessment in question, with reassessment right where possible. The module mark will be capped at a bare pass
Outcome 4: Award a mark of zero for the module in question, the student must retake the same module and the module result will be capped at a bare pass           

2.  How many of the above involved international students?
Less than five.

3.  On how many occasions were students penalised?  Please break this down by year and by what type of misconduct where possible, such as “suspected use of essay mills” / “suspected use of AI”
On table above. Information on misconduct is not available due to low numbers.

4.  Please name which course had the most students penalised across the three-year timeframe.
Faculty of Business and Law

2025-24 | Temporary Policies | 10-Mar-2025

Regarding temporary university policies introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes known as ‘no-detriment,’ ‘safety net’ or ‘force majeure’ policies.
Response: Please see attached pdf.

2025-41 | Property Guardian Companies | 10-Mar-2025

What is the process and criteria used by your organisation to select property guardian companies for managing vacant properties?
Response: Birkbeck do not have vacant properties.

Which property guardian companies are currently contracted or engaged by your organisation?
Response: N/A

When is the next tendering or procurement process scheduled for property guardian services?
Response: N/A

Whom are the people/peoples responsible for selecting guardian companies.
Response: N/A

2025-40 | Vacant Property | 10-Mar-2025

How many vacant or empty sites does your organisation currently own or manage?
Response: None

How many sites do you predict will remain vacant or empty for a period of one month or longer?
Response: N/A

How much does your organisation spend per year on managing vacant or empty sites.
Response: N/A

Please provide a copy of your organisation’s policy or guidelines regarding the management, use, or disposal of vacant or void properties.
Response: N/A

2025-43 | Car Parking management | 10-Mar-2025

Request regarding car parking facilities.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 14(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that where a public body has previously complied a request for information, it is not obliged to comply with a subsequent identical or substantially similar request from that person. Your request was responded to on 30 January 2025 under Case Ref 2025-014 and stated Birkbeck does not own car parking facilities. 

2025-39 | Donations | 06-Mar-2025

Please provide a full breakdown of the donations received in the year 2022-23 ending July 31st as stated in the Birkbeck Financial Statements, including donations with restrictions, unrestricted donations, and endowments including the exact amount received from each company/ individual/ body.   
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to raise funds. 

2025-36 | Research Grants | 06-Mar-2025

I am writing to request information on the research grants and contracts valued as £9,474,000 on page 59 of the Birkbeck Financial Statements 2023, to ascertain the financial relationships the university holds to the following companies:  
BAE systems
Babcock
QinetiQ
Rolls-Royce
Serco
Cobham
Raytheon
Airbus
General Dynamics
Leonardo MW
Lockheed Martin
Microsoft
Dell 
KPMG
Santander
Google
JP Morgan
Goldman Sachs 
Legal and General 
Hays 
Response: None

Additionally, I am writing to request information on the contracts the university holds with the Ministry of Defence and equivalent bodies and armed forces of other countries.
Response: None

2025-28 | Facilities and Estates | 06-Mar-2025

1. What are the biggest challenges your organisation currently faces in surveying and geospatial activity?
Response: Not applicable/None

2. Are you confident in your full knowledge of the condition and knowledge of your impact on our local environment?
Response: Yes

3. What are your organisation’s key strategic objectives for the next 12-24 months, and how does surveying and geospatial fit into these?
Response: Birkbeck’s Corporate Strategy can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/policies/birkbeck-vision-strategy.pdf

4. Please detail any planned development of sites or assets.
Response: None.

5. Do you have a supplier for drainage mapping and surveying?
Response: No

6. If so, please can you supply details of the contractual arrangements in place including date of award, details of any Framework used or link to the advertisement, contract value and duration
Response: N/A

7. If not, please can you indicate what evaluation of the requirement for surveying and geospatial works have been undertaken?
Response: N/A

8. Please share your planned procurement pipeline for surveying and geospatial works for the next 12 months.
Response: This is not on our pipeline.

9. How do you engage with potential new suppliers—through open tenders, direct engagement, or supplier days?
Response: Information for suppliers is found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/advice-for-suppliers

10. Please can you confirm the individual responsible for managing your surveying and geospatial contracts or wider development contracts and provide their contact details and role title?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

11. Please provide a list of frameworks that you procure related services through
Response: Please see information on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/advice-for-suppliers#0
The College is a member of the London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC), allowing us access to existing regional or national contracts/frameworks for a range of goods and services developed by the LUPC or a partner consortium. (http://www.lupc.ac.uk/)
The College can also use any other contracts/frameworks accessible to the higher education sector.

12. Do you plan to repurpose any sites for renewable energy or solar farms?
Response: No.

13. Do you have any issues with subsidence in your properties? If so, where?
Response: No.

14. When developing/purchasing/selling a site, how do you verify that the boundaries are correct?
Response: Not currently applicable.When applicable, appoint professional surveying firm.

2025-16 | EDI | 20-Feb-2025

1.  EDI Policies and Procedures: All policies and procedures related to EDI, with particular emphasis on how they address systemic racism and promote equity.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information is available from our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/

2.  EDI Committees/Networks: A comprehensive list of EDI committees and networks, including: Date of creation, Composition (e.g., senior executive team, academic, professional services), Number of meetings held, Their role and impact within the university structure
Response: Birkbeck has had a committee by name Equality Diversity and Inclusion Committee. All available information is on the minutes provided in your earlier FOI, which can also provide information on the number of meetings held in the period in question. Composition is made up of representations of senior management, academic staff as well as students, trade unions and professional services. In terms of role and impact within the university structure, the following link, also shown as above, provides information: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/

3.  Race Equality Action Plan: Detailed records pertaining to the Race Equality Action Plan, including: Objectives, Specific actions taken, Measures and milestones, Assigned responsibilities, Timeframes for implementation, Current status updates
Response: Birkbeck is in the process of working on its application to Advance HE for the Race Equality Chartermark and is in the processing of generating an Action Plan.

4.  Hate Crime/Incident Reporting Mechanisms: A summary of hate crime and incident reporting mechanisms currently in use, alongside key trends and insights that have emerged.
Response: The Incident reporting mechanism implies that anyone experiencing Hate Crime or other incident should report to their line manager who will follow due process according to the Dignity at Work and Study Principles and Guidance, which can also be seen in the link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/

5.  Best Practices and Achievements: Documentation of best practices and achievements related to the EDI agenda, particularly those that have effectively advanced anti-racism initiatives during the specified period.
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information is available from our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources/

2025-26 | Injunctions against Protesters | 20-Feb-2025

1  In the time period 1 January 2022 to 12 February 2025, has your university applied for an injunction against a protest or protest camp taking place within your university grounds? Please provide a yes/no answer. By “injunction” I mean a court order with the intention to ban a protest or evict a protest camp.
Response: No.

2  If the answer to Q1 is “yes”, please can you provide the number of injunctions you applied for, and provide a copy of the court order.
Response: N/A

3  In the time period 1 January 2022 to 12 February 2025, has your university applied for a summary possession order against a protest or protest camp taking place within your university grounds? Please provide a yes/no answer.
Response: No

4  If the answer to Q1 is “yes”, please can you provide the number of summary possession orders you applied for, and provide a copy of the order.
Response: N/A

2025-27 | IT | 20-Feb-2025

1. Total number of desktops in your estate (ie. PCs, laptops & tablets)
Response: In excess of 2,000 devices

2. Who currently supplies the above (name of the incumbent)
Response: Getech Ltd

3. Do you take out any form of warranty other than that provided by the manufacturer within the initial cost?
Response: Yes – 5 years

4. Does your supplier include additional services beyond Q3 above such as technical support, maintenance, asset registration, imaging and disposal of existing device?
Response: Yes

5. Who is your preferred manufacturer?
Response: Lenovo

6. What is your current buying / refresh cycle?
Response: Beyond 5 years 

7. Is this supplied under contract? If yes, when does the contract end?
Response: No

8. How do you procure these devices through a framework? if yes, which one used (ie. CCS / NDNA / CPC / SBS)
Response: Yes – various used

9. What steps have you taken to tackle security risks in advance of 14th Oct 2025 when updates will no longer be available on Windows 10?
Response: Incompatible devices have been replaced with machines running Windows 11 

10. How do you access your applications  (Citrix, VMWare, Microsoft 365, Cloud or Fat Client environment)?
Response: All of the above

11. Are you looking to move from On-Premises to Cloud?
Response: We have a hybrid strategy – a number of services are running in various cloud/SaaS services and a number are running on prem

12. Name of person responsible for purchasing IT equipment?
Response: The College will not provide contact details or names of members of staff through FOI. To contact a member of the college please use https://www.bbk.ac.uk/contact-us

2025-25 | Facilities | 20-Feb-2025

The response to your query is the same as last year with the only change being the contract for the lift service and maintenance is a rolling contract. Please note, our response is unlikely to change over the next five years.

2025-18 | Suppliers | 20-Feb-2025

Please can you provide a breakdown of the items included in this contract? https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/7d6681ca-a7e2-4523-be01-88900a8f954d  Procurement Notice ID: 7d6681ca-a7e2-4523-be01-88900a8f954d_award
Response: Please see attached spreadsheet.

2025-6 | Finance | 13-Feb-2025

You asked for information regarding call-off contracts in the public sector.
Information provided in spreadsheet.

2025-17 | Student Admissions | 13-Feb-2025

Undergraduate admissions for starting their first year of a course in each year between 2019 and 2024 inclusive:

1.  The number of undergraduate students admitted to their first year
2019/0 Undergraduate 2111  
2020/1 Undergraduate 2165    
2021/2 Undergraduate 1453  
2022/3 Undergraduate 1399  
2023/4 Undergraduate 1229
2024/5  Undergraduate 1380     

2.  The number of (1) admitted through the clearing process
2019/0 Through Clearing 565  
2020/1 Through Clearing 617   
2021/2 Through Clearing 317  
2022/3 Through Clearing 424  
2023/4 Through Clearing 360   
2024/5  Through Clearing  441

3.  The number of (1) admitted who are international students (i.e. not qualifying for home fee status)
2019/0 International 122          
2020/1 International 99            
2021/2 International 130          
2022/3 International 167          
2023/4 International 89  
2024/5 International 87          

4.  The number of (1) who are international students admitted through the clearing process
2019/0 International through Clearing 37
2020/1 International through Clearing 27
2021/2 International through Clearing 25
2022/3 International through Clearing 32
2023/4 International through Clearing 15
2024/5 International through Clearing 10

2025-20 | Training | 13-Feb-2025

1.  Do you provide any induction/ training/ handbooks specifically for international academics (teaching, research or otherwise)?
Response: No; however, all academics are offered a wide range of training opportunities.

2.  What is the title(s) of the induction/training/handbooks provided?
Response: N/A

DORA Principles
3.  Is your university a signatory of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) principles?
Response: Yes

4.  When did you sign the DORA principle?
Response: 2017

5.  Are staff required to undertake any training prior to taking part in an academic recruitment/promotion panel?
Response: Yes

6.  What is the title(s) of the training required?
Response: Academic Panel Training

7.  Does this training have any explicit component that relates to the DORA principles?
Response: No

2025-11 | Students Over 60 | 13-Feb-2025

How many students over the age of 60 have started a course at the university in the last five years.
2020/1 – 198    
2021/2 – 261    
2022/3 – 185    
2023/4 – 170    
2024/5 – 136    

How many students over the age of 70 have started a course at the university in the last five years.
2020/1 – 33
2021/2 – 49
2022/3 – 29
2023/4 – 49
2024/5 – 30

How many students over the age of 80 have started a course at the university in the last five years.
2020/1 – 5
2021/2 – 2
2022/3 – 4
2023/4 – 2
2024/5 – 1

Which courses have had the highest proportion of students over the age of 60 on them in the last five years (the top three would be good, please) and how many students over the age of 60 are on each course for each of the top three subjects.
Please see attached pdf. Please note, courses where there was 5 or less enrolees in total are excluded and numbers include new and continuing students.

2025-22 | MSC Archaeology | 13-Feb-2025

1.  Have you ever run MSc courses in archaeology?
Response: MA courses in Archaeology and Archaeological Practice were run in 2012 and our MSC Archaeological Practice (Economic and Social Research) launched in 2017.

2.  Was it possible to obtain an MSc in archaeology in 2012 from you.
Response: As above our MSc was launched in 2017.

3.  Did [REDACTED] obtain an MSc in archaeology from you in 2012?
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 40 of the Act, which states public bodies do not have to comply with requests for personal information. Due to data protection legislation, the College will not provide information on members of staff or students. Graduating students are issued with transcripts and confirmation of award letters; students and former students can order copies here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/student-status/transcripts

2025-8 | Events | 13-Feb-2025

Please include the following information for the following academic years: 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24
A list of all external speakers or events that have been cancelled, postponed, or otherwise prevented from taking place at the university for the years stated above.
Response: Birkbeck does not keep a record of these, except under Prevent. Under Prevent in this period four events were questioned. Two continued successfully and two were cancelled by the organisers. Details of the events and reasons for the cancellation were not recorded.

Complaints About Speakers or Events:
The total number of complaints received about external speakers or events in the same period.
Response: As above. There are no records of complaints about external speakers or events in this period.

2025-23 | Student Accommodation | 13-Feb-2025

Requested information on the Student Accommodation Software used.
Response: Birkbeck does not have or manage student accommodation. 

2025-19 | Student Accommodation | 13-Feb-2025

1.  Do you currently undertake inspections of student accommodation rooms? If so, is this a standard practice across all your student accommodations?
2.  How frequently are student accommodation room inspections conducted (e.g., monthly, per semester, ad hoc, annually)?
3.  What are the documented primary purposes for conducting room inspections in student accommodations (e.g., health and safety compliance, maintenance checks, ensuring tenant behavior guidelines are followed)?
4.  What software or system is currently used by your institution to manage student accommodation room inspections?
5.  What is your annual spend on room inspection software?
6.  Are there any plans, proposals, or discussions within your institution about reviewing or changing the current room inspection processes or software systems within the next 12-24 months?
Response: Birkbeck do not provide or maintain any student accommodation.

2025-4 | Chinese Collaboration | 13-Feb-2025

1.  Cooperation type (please choose one or multiple options; if you have had multiple collaborations with one entity during the period, please document all collaborations): 
Response: Please see attached pdf

2.  All contractual documents on which the cooperation is based (agreements, memoranda, declarations etc.)
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.

3.  Academic areas of cooperation (i.e. fields of study)
Response: Please see attached pdf.

4.  Amount of financial income provided by this entity in the period.
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.

5.  List of non-financial income provided by this entity in the period.
Response: We are refusing your request as it is commercially sensitive. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act exempts institutions from the requirement to disclose information which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Birkbeck or anyone else. Our view is that disclosure could undermine Birkbeck’s ability to negotiate successful commercial and business contracts.

Additionally, can you provide information on:
1.  Does any Chinese partner participate in deciding the research focus of your university or has any capacity to influence decision-making regarding curricula, research grants, student grants, or internships?
Response: No

2.  Which persons (positions) or bodies of your university are responsible for initiating cooperation with Chinese institutions?
Response: There is no one individual responsible and cooperation can be initiated by several members of staff. There is a robust process of approval in place.

3.  Is there any procedure in place to evaluate the potential risks of cooperation with the said entities from China? If yes, are there specific criteria used in the evaluation process?
Response: We abide by our internal due diligence procedures and have structures and processes in place to consider and evaluate all aspects, such as financial, legal, reputational and quality, before any cooperation decision/approval is made, relating to academic, research and other partnership arrangements.

4.  Is there any kind of training for the outgoing faculties, administrators, and students from your university who are visiting China regarding the challenges they may face there, given the policies of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party authorities?
Response: Our activity in China is currently limited. Guidance on ‘Working with Partners’, ‘Trusted Research’, ‘Personal Security Abroad’ and Birkbeck’s research ‘Due Diligence process’ and the approval of partnering bodies and new funders, is provided to Birkbeck staff on our intranet site.

2025-13 | Research Agreements | 11-Feb-2025

Request for information on activities between British Universities and universities from Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil.
Response: Birkbeck do not have record of any externally funded research partners with Brazilian partners in the Rio de Janeiro state.

2025-12 | Student Information | 11-Feb-2025

The number of university students you have in total
Response: We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you have requested is available from HESA: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/where-study

The number of students which live locally within your campuses (per campus) 
Response: Birkbeck does not provide on campus accommodation.

The number of students who have registered locally with a GP practice
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information.

2025-14 | Car Parking | 30-Jan-2025

Request: Information about car parking and contracts.
Response: Birkbeck does not own a car park. 

2024-179 | IT | 27-Jan-2025

The software systems currently used by your university in the following areas:
1.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Response: Not yet deployed but will be Wagtail

2.  Project Management
Response: Trello

3.  Financial Management
Response:  Unit4 BusinessWorld

4.  Web Analytics
Response:  Google Analytics and Hotjar

5.  Human Resources (HR) Analytics
Response: Unit4 BusinessWorld and Hireserve

6.  General-Purpose Productivity Tools
Response: These are not centrally managed

7.  Learning Management Systems (LMS)
Response: These are not centrally managed

8.  Library Management Systems
Response:  Horizon provided by SirsiDynix

9.  Research Data Management Tools
Response: Birkbeck does not use a CRIS-type system. Birkbeck’s research data repository is an Eprints repository provided by CoSector

2024-176 | HR and Payroll | 27-Jan-2025

I would like to have (anonymised) data for the  individual salaries of the professoriate within your institution by gender, disaggregated by a broad level of structural division, ordinarily this would be at faculty level (within which there would be various Schools, Departments or Divisions).
Response: Please see attached pdf. Please note classification by gender for the professoriate salaries was not provided by the data department because this can easily identify individuals even though anonymised.

Please also supply a copy of your most recent gender pay gap report.
Finally, please provide me with a copy of any policy or procedure you have for setting professoriate pay.
Response: This information can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/human-resources

2025-5 | Campus Parking | 23-Jan-2025

Request: Information about car parking and charges.
Response: Birkbeck do not own any car parking facilities.

2025-9 | PG Admissions | 23-Jan-2025

Information regarding the admission rates for all PG's programs at Birkbeck College:  
1. The total number of PG's applications received during the academic years 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24.
Response: 
2021/2  11210
2022/3  14665
2023/4  15590

2. The total number of offers made for all PG's programs combined during the same period.  
Response: 
2021/2  7210
2022/3  9385
2023/4  8895

3. The total number of students who enrolled in all PG's programs combined during the same period.  
Response:
2021/2  4020
2022/3  3650
2023/4  3115

2025-10 | Law Course | 23-Jan-2025

1.  The specification documentation(s) for the main LLB Law degree delivered by your institution in the academic year 2024-2025, this may be  termed a course specification, programme specification or similar;
We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information is available from our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/registry/programme-specifications-2024-25/law/llb-law-incl-with-foundation-year.pdf (please note this is a pdf)

2.  The specification documentation(s) for any modules delivered as part of your main LLB Law degree in the academic year 2024-2025 or in any other way mentioned in the first document requested, above.
We are refusing your request under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information is available from our website at the following link: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/law/
1.  Click on this hyperlink
https://www.bbk.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/law/
2.  For the module descriptions firstly click the down arrow headed:  LAW LLB - 3 years full-time on campus. Starting October
Then select VIEW COURSE STRUCTURE AND MODULES
3.  CLICK on the hyperlinks for each module

For further information you can contact the Faculty of Business and Law here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/faculty/business-and-law/contact-us

2025-7 | Widening Access | 23-Jan-2025

1.  The amount spent by the university on widening access and participation (including staff salary of those whose role is related to widening access and participation) in the academic years of 2015-16, 2019-20, and 2023-24 respectively. 
Response: We are not able to provide the information for 2015/16, as separate reporting on Access and Participation spend was only introduced by the Office for Students in 2018. 
Spend on Access and Participation activity for 2019/20 can be found in Section 9a (pages 72-74) of our financial statements here:  https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/finance/financial-statements-2020.pdf
Spend on Access and Participation activity for 2023/24 can be found in Section 9a (page 66) of our financial statements here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/downloads/finance/financial-statements-2024.pdf

2.  How many staff members (FTE) were employed specifically in roles related to widening access and participation in the academic years of 2015-16, 2019-20, and 2023-24 respectively. 
Response: We are not able to provide this information for 2015/16.
For 2019/20 and 2023/24 we have records of proportions of staff FTEs that we reported to the OfS as being involved in delivery of the Access and Participation Plan.
2019/20 = 29.27 FTE
2023/24 = 32.35 FTE

3.  The number and percentage of full-time first degree entrants from a Low Participation Neighbourhood (Q1 POLAR4) and the number and percentage of full-time first degree entrants from IMD Q1 (if measured by the institution) for the academic years of 2015-16, 2019-20, and 2023-24 respectively. The percentages should be the percentage that group represents out of all full-time first degree entrants for that academic year.
Response: This is available on the Office for Students Access and Participation data dashboard: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/access-and-participation-data-dashboard/data-dashboard/

POLAR4 Quintile 1 students
We are not able to provide this information for 2015/16
For 2019/20 POLAR4 Q1 entrants were 30 (6.8% of all entrants). This percentage is of Home UG entrants, as POLAR data is not available for other categories of entrants.
2023/24 numbers have not yet been released by the OfS - this should happen within the next few months. 

IMD Quintile 1 students
We are not able to provide this information for 2015/16
For 2019/20 IMD Q1 entrants were 240 (21.9% of all entrants) This percentage is of Home UG entrants, as IMD data is not available for other categories of entrants.
2023/24 numbers have not yet been released by the OfS - this should happen within the next few months.

2025-1 | Data Science Results | 20-Jan-2025

Request: Module statistics (results/grades) for modules in MSc Data Science, including the mean, minimum, maximum, 25th and 75th percentile and the number of students for the 2021/2022, 2022/2023, 2023/2024 academic years.

Response: Provided as a pdf

2024-175 | Catering | 20-Jan-2025

Request: Do you offer catering services for your staff and students, either for delivery or collection?
Response: We don’t currently offer click and collect or delivery but our outlets are open to both.

Request: Are catering services available for external customers as well, either for delivery or collection?
Response: Yes.

Request: If you do offer these services, what software do you currently use to manage the deliveries or collections?
Response: N/A

Request: How much do you typically spend each year on software for catering management?
Response: £7,000

Request: When does your current catering management software contract end, or when is the earliest you can make changes?
Response: Rolling renewal annually in August.

Request: How much revenue do you earn from catering services for both your internal community and external customers?
Response: 23/24 financial year was £819,000

2024-178 | Student Accommodation | 20-Jan-2025

Please provide this data for the last 5 academic years: 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25.

1) The number of undergraduate students living at home with their family, caregiver or parental guardian
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information. We hold very limited information about student accommodation which is primarily tied to internal funding applications and represents only a small proportion of undergraduates. While contact information is held for students, this does not indicate living arrangements.

2) The number of undergraduate students living in university owned student accommodation (halls).
Response: Birkbeck  does not provide student accommodation.

3) The number of undergraduate students living in privately rented house shares
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information. 

4) The number of undergraduate students living in purpose built student accommodation.
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information. 

5) The number of undergraduate students living in other accommodation (please specify what the other type of accommodation is when presenting the figure(s)).
Response: Birkbeck does not hold this information. 

2024-171 | Investment | 20-Jan-2025

Request: Information about College Investments.
Response: Our Financial Statements 2021 explain our approach: (p 24) Governors finalised a new investment strategy in 2019/20 which aims to support our core business activities, purchase of capital equipment, infrastructure improvements and our estates strategy. It also includes the University’s approach to Responsible Investment. Independent advice on investment manager selection, which particularly focussed on Environmental, Social and Governance criteria, was provided by Mercer and in the autumn of 2020 and our investment funds are invested through and managed by Ruffer Charitable Assets Trust and Mercer Sustainable Global Equity Fund. Information about our investments can be found in our financial statements here: Financial statements — Birkbeck, University of London (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements). Birkbeck’s Investment Policy can be found on the College website (https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/policies/birkbeck-investment-policy).

2024-172 | Accommodation | 20-Jan-2025

Request: Information about the College’s accommodation services.
Response: Birkbeck do not provide student accommodation. 

2024-169 | Facilities | 20-Jan-2025

Request: Please can I request a copy of the organisational structure chart for the Estates and Facilities department, including names and job titles where possible?
Response: Please see attached pdf.

2025-2 | Module Statistics | 20-Jan-2025

Request: Module statistics (results/grades) for modules in MSc Quantitative Finance with Data Science including the mean, minimum, maximum, 25th and 75th percentile and the number of students for the 2021/2022, 2022/2023, 2023/2024 academic years.

Response: Provided in a pdf

2025-3 | Research on crustaceans | 16-Jan-2025

Has your institution used any decapod crustaceans in scientific, experimental or educational purposes, at any life stage in a) 2023 or b) 2024? 
Response: There is no use of crustaceans or other living arthropods for teaching or research. There are some modern, preserved, arthropods (including decapods) used for teaching and these were from old collections. There are also fossil arthropods used for teaching.

2024-174 | Sexual Misconduct | 09-Jan-2025

The total number of sexual misconduct cases reported to the University , where both the victim and perpetrator were students at the time of the alleged offence, for the calendar years 2020,2021,2022 and 2023 and 2024 to date.
Response: There have been no sexual misconduct cases reported to the University where both the victim and perpetrator were students at the time of the alleged offence in that time period.

2024-168 | Spend Transparency | 09-Jan-2025

I am looking for some guidance with reference to the Government’s Transparency Agenda, which requires public sector bodies like yours to publish details of spend value.
Response: We understand this is a central government and local authority requirement, not Higher Education Institutes. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-publish-central-government-transparency-data

Required financial reporting for Birkbeck can be found in the annual reports on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/finance/financial-statements

2024-177 | Computer Science Exam Papers | 09-Jan-2025

Request all computer science past exam papers and solutions from the previous two academic years.
Response: All available past papers can be found on our website here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/library/exam-papers/computer-science