President's weekly update
29 October 2020
As planned we reviewed the current mix of our online and in-person teaching on 23 October. The review took place against the backdrop of a marked fall in infection rates amongst our students, while still seeing low rates of infection amongst staff, and our experience of online and blended learning. We also had to consider the very recent increase in national alert level for Greater Manchester and the latest advice from public health officials in Manchester. Our decision is that we will continue to operate with the current mix of online and face-to-face teaching and will review our position again on 11 November. We hope to be able to increase in-person teaching at the earliest opportunity. Staff have been delivering fantastic online learning but we know that students also value in-person teaching.
The cycle for registration of students (both new and returning) is nearly complete and to date registrations for both home/EU and international undergraduate students are slightly above target at 106% (a target which was higher than last year), while for home/EU postgraduate taught students we are just over our target (105%) and for international at 90% of target. This position is very much better than we, and many others had feared, though we are allowing for significantly higher drop-out rates than usual, and some international students who have registered have not yet arrived in the UK and may be unable or unwilling to join us. Nationally, only one third of students from China are in the UK currently, while two thirds of Indian students have arrived. We now need to determine the financial implications of student recruitment. Our Board Finance committee will review revised budgets next month, and I will be able to indicate our likely financial position, albeit with significant risks and uncertainties related not only to COVID, but also to Brexit and pension costs.
I opened a session for new Chinese students with the Chinese Consul General hosted by the Chinese Scholars and Students Association (CSSA) to welcome them to Manchester. The Consulate and the CSSA do a great deal to support Chinese students and we all recognised that such support from them as well as from the University will be more important than ever this year.
Over the summer Professor Nalin Thakkar, Vice-President for Social Responsibility, has been leading a Rapid Response Group, comprising staff and students, to look at race inequality in the University, and what we can do to address this. This report, containing a substantial number of actions, has now been published, and I would urge you to read it. Staff and students can also attend an open meeting on 2 November where this will be discussed.
At our External Relations Strategy Group, we considered measures of our global reputation, particularly in the Far East and North America, civic engagement and promoting the University during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also reviewed evaluation data relating to staff and student communications. This shows that our engagement rates are very much higher than before the pandemic.
I attended the first meeting of the Law Family Commission on Civil Society. This is organised by Pro-Bono Economics and supported by Andrew Law and his family. The purpose of the Commission is to consider and report on how we can recognise and demonstrate the value of ‘civil society’, and identify ways to build on this in the UK, particularly in the aftermath of the global pandemic, its diverse impacts and the likely widening of inequalities in our society.
We began the process of the Annual Performance Reviews (APRs) with discussion of the topics we will discuss for the Professional Services. The APRs this year will be much lighter touch because of the constraints on planning in such uncertain and rapidly changing times.
At a meeting with Amanda Solloway, Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, we discussed how research funding could be more agile and less bureaucratic. We discussed the real concern about the time and effort required in applying for grants, often with low success rates and sometimes for fairly modest sums of money. The Russell Group has argued for further QR (quality research) funding to UK universities since this is determined by a formula based partly on REF and partly on research volume so is more flexible and is stable over a quite a long period of time.
I chaired a meeting of the Russell Group with senior staff from the Wellcome Trust. Wellcome has just published its new strategy for research funding with a focus (though not exclusively) on mental health, infectious disease and the impact of climate heating on health. Discovery research will remain at the heart of their mission and its funding will cover all of science and humanities and social sciences and will include implementation of research and policy.
I joined the funeral of Professor Tony Trinci by webcast. Tony was a very eminent microbiologist whose research led to the development of Quorn. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Biological Sciences and I worked with him very closely when I was Vice-Dean for Research for the Faculty. I, like many others, remember Tony with great respect and fondness.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor