President's weekly update
15 October 2015
This year’s Foundation Day, the eleventh since The University of Manchester was formally established in 2004, was particularly special because we installed our new Chancellor, Lemn Sissay. We thanked our outgoing Chancellor Tom Bloxham for his fantastic contribution to the University over the last seven years and welcomed Lemn, an accomplished poet who is very well known in Manchester, as our new Chancellor.
This year I gave the Foundation Address entitled: ‘The University of Manchester; the spirit of revolution’ which will be included in the first issue of our new University magazine which is due to be published next month. We also conferred an honorary doctorate on Lemn and on Baroness Joan Bakewell, Professor Dame Athene Donald, Sir Nicholas Hytner and Dame Janet Smith. Lemn showed a film with his poem, which you can see at:
We also formally launched our ‘refreshed’ Strategic Vision:
You can watch the whole event at:
If you missed Lemn’s brilliant Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 last Sunday, you can hear it at:
Earlier this week I co-hosted a dinner with Tom Bloxham and Andre Geim at our fabulous John Rylands Library on Deansgate with a number of our current donors and local businessmen and women. I gave a brief background about the University and Andre talked about the need for more entrepreneurs to commercialise our discoveries. We had some fascinating feedback from some who had been, are, or have supported, entrepreneurs and some interesting ideas.
I attended an excellent event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham which was organised by Norman Stoller, one of our very generous supporters. Professor Brian Cox talked about ‘the Universe from Oldham’ to about 1,000 local schoolchildren who clearly appreciated the presentation and gave an incredible welcome to Brian as ‘an Oldham lad’.
I also spoke at a welcome event for new staff, which Brian took part in too. I gave a general overview on the University and answered some questions, then Brian and I led a discussion with staff who commented on the joy of teaching and the challenges of balancing so many demands as an academic member of staff.
I chaired a meeting of the Manchester Corridor Board at which we discussed ‘branding’ and the strategic vision for the Corridor; heard updates from the partners; received a presentation from Professor Jackie Oldham (who leads on the Corridor part of Health Innovation Manchester) on strengths and opportunities in health research and innovation; and held the AGM for the Corridor. I was also filmed by ‘Design Manchester’ about the importance of design in the buildings along Oxford Road.
Professor James Thompson (Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility), Patrick Johnson (Head of Equality and Diversity) and I met Dr Dawn Edge from the School of Psychological Sciences, who has just become the academic lead for equality and diversity within our social responsibility goal. Having recently been awarded the Race Equality Charter Mark, we now have much to do to deliver real outcomes.
Tony Lloyd, the interim Mayor for Greater Manchester met with me and several senior colleagues to talk about the University’s contribution to the City of Manchester and Greater Manchester and what we wanted from GM to help us to achieve our goals.
It was a pleasure to see Hian Seng Tang in Manchester - he is a very active member of our alumni in the Far East who I have met a number of times at events in China and Singapore (he has often travelled several hours to be at the events). Hian Seng is now Chair of the Singapore Alumni Association and is keen to bring a number of the members together for both a ‘trip down memory lane’ visit and to discuss business links between Manchester and Singapore.
Professor Madeleine Atkins, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Council for England (HEFCE), visited our University and talked to me and a number of senior colleagues about forthcoming issues such as the Green Paper on Higher Education which is due to be published today, the Teaching Excellence Framework, likely changes as a result of the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review and the value of international students. Then we had a quick tour of the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, hosted by Jan Wilkinson our University Librarian and Director of The John Rylands Library.
Steve Mole, Director of Finance, and I met with our auditors, close to the final sign off of our accounts for 2014/15. The audit has gone very well, though the final accounts are likely to include a number of ‘one-offs’ that will make them more difficult to interpret.
It was very nice to see Dame Bridget Ogilvie (former Director of the Wellcome Trust) this week - she also attended our Foundation Day, and Rob Grundy, a former PhD student of mine who is now doing very well in industry.
President's weekly update
15 October 2015
This year’s Foundation Day, the eleventh since The University of Manchester was formally established in 2004, was particularly special because we installed our new Chancellor, Lemn Sissay. We thanked our outgoing Chancellor Tom Bloxham for his fantastic contribution to the University over the last seven years and welcomed Lemn, an accomplished poet who is very well known in Manchester, as our new Chancellor.
This year I gave the Foundation Address entitled: ‘The University of Manchester; the spirit of revolution’ which will be included in the first issue of our new University magazine which is due to be published next month. We also conferred an honorary doctorate on Lemn and on Baroness Joan Bakewell, Professor Dame Athene Donald, Sir Nicholas Hytner and Dame Janet Smith. Lemn showed a film with his poem, which you can see at:
We also formally launched our ‘refreshed’ Strategic Vision:
You can watch the whole event at:
If you missed Lemn’s brilliant Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 last Sunday, you can hear it at:
Earlier this week I co-hosted a dinner with Tom Bloxham and Andre Geim at our fabulous John Rylands Library on Deansgate with a number of our current donors and local businessmen and women. I gave a brief background about the University and Andre talked about the need for more entrepreneurs to commercialise our discoveries. We had some fascinating feedback from some who had been, are, or have supported, entrepreneurs and some interesting ideas.
I attended an excellent event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham which was organised by Norman Stoller, one of our very generous supporters. Professor Brian Cox talked about ‘the Universe from Oldham’ to about 1,000 local schoolchildren who clearly appreciated the presentation and gave an incredible welcome to Brian as ‘an Oldham lad’.
I also spoke at a welcome event for new staff, which Brian took part in too. I gave a general overview on the University and answered some questions, then Brian and I led a discussion with staff who commented on the joy of teaching and the challenges of balancing so many demands as an academic member of staff.
I chaired a meeting of the Manchester Corridor Board at which we discussed ‘branding’ and the strategic vision for the Corridor; heard updates from the partners; received a presentation from Professor Jackie Oldham (who leads on the Corridor part of Health Innovation Manchester) on strengths and opportunities in health research and innovation; and held the AGM for the Corridor. I was also filmed by ‘Design Manchester’ about the importance of design in the buildings along Oxford Road.
Professor James Thompson (Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility), Patrick Johnson (Head of Equality and Diversity) and I met Dr Dawn Edge from the School of Psychological Sciences, who has just become the academic lead for equality and diversity within our social responsibility goal. Having recently been awarded the Race Equality Charter Mark, we now have much to do to deliver real outcomes.
Tony Lloyd, the interim Mayor for Greater Manchester met with me and several senior colleagues to talk about the University’s contribution to the City of Manchester and Greater Manchester and what we wanted from GM to help us to achieve our goals.
It was a pleasure to see Hian Seng Tang in Manchester - he is a very active member of our alumni in the Far East who I have met a number of times at events in China and Singapore (he has often travelled several hours to be at the events). Hian Seng is now Chair of the Singapore Alumni Association and is keen to bring a number of the members together for both a ‘trip down memory lane’ visit and to discuss business links between Manchester and Singapore.
Professor Madeleine Atkins, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Council for England (HEFCE), visited our University and talked to me and a number of senior colleagues about forthcoming issues such as the Green Paper on Higher Education which is due to be published today, the Teaching Excellence Framework, likely changes as a result of the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review and the value of international students. Then we had a quick tour of the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, hosted by Jan Wilkinson our University Librarian and Director of The John Rylands Library.
Steve Mole, Director of Finance, and I met with our auditors, close to the final sign off of our accounts for 2014/15. The audit has gone very well, though the final accounts are likely to include a number of ‘one-offs’ that will make them more difficult to interpret.
It was very nice to see Dame Bridget Ogilvie (former Director of the Wellcome Trust) this week - she also attended our Foundation Day, and Rob Grundy, a former PhD student of mine who is now doing very well in industry.