President's weekly update
8 December 2022
Discussions with staff
At an open meeting for staff with my senior colleagues, I gave a general update followed by Carol Prokopyszyn, our Chief Financial Officer, who explained our financial accounts for the last academic year. You can read about this in more detail. We answered questions on improving our estate, artworks in MECD, equality, diversity and inclusion, pay and much more - you can watch the whole session recording on StaffNet.
I hosted an online meeting of our leaders across the University which addressed our financial position, some recent successes, student recruitment and inflation. We then had presentations on innovation and on plans for our bicentenary in 2024. We also talked about ongoing staff shortages, particularly in some areas. This is a national issue, but we have manged to increase recruitment recently, which hopefully will ease pressures. We discussed the Board accountability conference, which had focused on improving student satisfaction, and the very positive responses to our payments to students to try to help them with the high cost of living.
We held an event for over 100 staff who had joined the University recently - though because of the pandemic, many of the attendees had been with us for nearly three years. In response to questions about why they joined us, what is good bout the University and what do we need to improve, they came up with many answers, suggestions and ideas and overall were very positive, saying that our staff and students are brilliant.
Senior appointment
I am delighted that we have appointed Professor Fiona Devine, currently Head of Alliance Manchester Business School, to the position of Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, to succeed Professor Keith Brown when he stands down from this role next summer. It was good to see so many very strong candidates for this role.
Postgraduate research students (PGRs)
I attended an open meeting where I answered many questions from our President’s Doctoral Scholars. We discussed a very wide range of topics including the University’s strategic plan and ambitions, funding and the cost of living, support for PGRs in careers and mental health and payments for teaching.
Innovation
We may hear next week about the outcome of our bids to Innovate UK as one of three UK innovation accelerators which will then be subject to further assessment within GM. It was great to meet one of our very successful former students, Vivek Koncherry, who leads a growing company on applications of graphene for more sustainable materials.
Russell Group meeting
In addition to our ‘normal business’, we hosted two external attendees. Susan Lapworth is the Chief Executive of the Office for Students (OfS). We stressed the very high and increasing levels of work required to meet the demands of OfS, and often not directly related to risk. We agreed to work more closely with OfS on reducing the regulatory burden and developing a more risk-based approach. We also urged OfS to put pressure on the Department for Education to increase student maintenance grants as many students are really struggling. Our second external guest, Minister for Science, Research and Innovation George Freeman, was extremely upbeat about the critical role of science and innovation and about ‘levelling up’.
I raised with the Russell Group a proposal from our student union leaders (in which our own Students’ Union affairs officer, Sam Bronheim played a major role) to work more closely with Russell Group Vice-Chancellors to promote the student voice. This was warmly received, and we plan a joint meeting.
Our friends overseas
It was lovely to virtually ‘join’ a dinner of our Hong Kong alumni, many of whom I have known well for a long time and who have been fantastic supporters of the University. Now that travel to Hong Kong is open, I plan to visit early next year.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor