Report of the RGS Heads of Geography Workload Model Working Group

This Working Group met throughout the 2023-2024 academic year in response to concern among Heads of Schools/Departments about rising workloads among staff and associated stress and mental well-being issues. It was felt that Geographers share certain commonalities regarding workload that differentiate us from neighbouring Schools/Departments within our institutional contexts, and therefore there would be value in trying to find principles or best practices that might be shared. The members of the Working Group came from a wide range of Schools/Departments, as became clear early in the discussion, and they faced widely different institutional contexts. While this limited the Group’s ability to spell out specific policies that might apply to all Schools/Departments, we nevertheless were able to explore the elements of the workload crisis that spoke to all of us. The group met four times online (via Zoom) to formulate the contents of this report, and then the report was circulated among the membership for final revision.