President's Weekly Update
4 February 2016
I attended a breakfast meeting chaired by Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council, at which about 40 regional business leaders were present, to discuss the Northern Powerhouse. Howard was clear about the critical role of the University. I talked about our role in research and innovation spanning science, social sciences, health, culture and much more, and our growing success in business engagement and supporting entrepreneurs.
At Senate this week, we updated staff on IT, where we will continue with our transformational plan, and the interim director of ITS, Adrian Ridpath, who will join us shortly. We also reflected on which items should be discussed at Senate and considered the implications of the Green Paper on Higher Education, particularly for degree assessment, and a revised paper on criteria for academic promotions.
You may have seen much in the news about the poor levels of entry of ethnic minorities into university. This is a major priority for us. We are amongst a small number of universities to be awarded the Race Charter Mark for our efforts in this area. Professor James Thompson, Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility, outlined our plans to me in a meeting this week.
I made two visits to Schools this week to talk to senior staff and hold open meetings with students and staff. In the Manchester Pharmacy School, we heard about recent improvements in student satisfaction and accreditation and met a group of extremely positive students who really appreciated their interactions with staff and the responsiveness to all of their feedback.
In the School of Chemistry, the students from across all four undergraduate years praised their teachers and the support they received in the School. With staff we discussed the topical issues including widening participation and ethnic diversity amongst our students the forthcoming refurbishment of the Chemistry Building and IT support.
Since the visit of the President of China we have had significant interest from Chinese companies and universities. So I talked this week with our Ambassador to China, who is based in Beijing, about gaining the Embassy’s input in prioritising and developing collaborations.
I try to visit parts of the University that most of us never see, but which are really important to our everyday functioning. This week I met the staff of the Car Parks Office in the Beyer Building, which deals with car parking and parking permits, and then visited the Booth Street West multi-storey car park. Staff and students hold about 7,000 permits and we have about 3,000 parking spaces which the car parks staff have to manage, along with many visitors to campus and numerous deliveries each day. All those I met were extremely positive about their roles in the University but did mention that they sometimes met ‘difficult people’ wanting to gain access - I’m sure none of these are our staff or students.
Several senior colleagues and I attended the biennial dinner of the Russell Group in London. As usual, this was very helpful in providing an opportunity to talk to many key figures in government departments that oversee higher education and research.
I attended a meeting of the leadership board of Arup, a global firm of consulting engineers with a strong base in Manchester. I spoke mainly about the regional developments and opportunities around Corridor Manchester (of which Arup is a partner), followed by Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, who discussed the Northern Powerhouse. It was very helpful to meet some of Arup’s global leaders, eg from China and Hong Kong.
I met the head of KPMG Manchester, Jon Holt, and his colleague Sandra Cox. KPMG is a very generous supporter of ESOF and recruits significant numbers of our graduates. It is now working closely with our Directorate for the Student Experience to support the Manchester Access Programme, helping students with employment applications and funding a number of student activities.
I often say proudly that we have contact details for almost 300,000 of our alumni. Our latest data (reported in a national summary) indicates that, in fact, the number is well over 350,000 out of a total of over 400,000 we believe are living: a remarkable achievement for our Division of Development and Alumni Relations (DDAR). We also have record levels of donations, but we should recognise that our alumni help us in so many other ways - mentoring and supporting our students, providing business and international contacts, and advising us on a whole range of our activities.
I met with Chris Cox, who recently left us as Director of DDAR, Kate White who will be interim Director, and Dr Rory Brooks, Chairman of our Global Leadership Board (GLB). We discussed the future role of GLB and its global links.
Staff are invited to suggest students to stand in the elections for the next Executive of The University of Manchester Students’ Union. We discussed the elections at the recent meeting with the current Students’ Union Executive, who are hoping for a very large turnout from across the student body. For more information, see this article on StaffNet News:
At a meeting of the Steering Board for Health Innovation Manchester, the arm of Health Devolution that deals with research and innovation, we agreed priorities for developing an enhanced Manchester clinical trials unit, a joint research hub for supporting clinical research across Greater Manchester and a focus on driving the benefits of health informatics and precision medicine into NHS practice.
I met Rowena Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Manchester Science Parks, which owns Alderley Park, City Labs and many other science parks, to discuss the many developments in precision medicine, e-health, anti-microbial resistance and the new Medicine Technology Catapult at Alderley Park.
I met Steve Dauncey, who will become our new Director of Finance on 1 May, to talk about our priorities, opportunities and concerns. Steve will overlap with our current Director of Finance, Steve Mole, by more than a month, so will have time to get to know us.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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