President's weekly update
2 March 2023
Search for my successor
You may have seen the announcement that I will retire as President and Vice-Chancellor on 31 July 2024 after what will then be 14 years in the post.
While the search for my successor will begin soon, with almost 18 months before I stand down, now is not the time to reflect on all the successes and causes for celebration over this period - as well as the challenges we have faced. I will certainly not be slowing down as there’s so much more to achieve. I also look forward to leading on the first half of our bicentenary year with many events planned.
Engaging with staff and students
At a regular meeting with officers of our Students’ Union, we discussed further cost of living payments to students who are most in need. Our payments to date have been the most generous in the sector but we know that our students are still struggling because of inflation. We have a further fund that any student can apply to for support, and continue to make available a wider support package. I reported on my many meetings with ministers to try to increase the maintenance loan for students, which this year has risen by only 2.8% for students from England. We also discussed student residences and reported that we will be spending nearly £25m on improvements this summer.
At an open staff meeting with my senior colleagues, I updated on general news, then we heard from Claire Brown, Director of Communications, Marketing and Student Recruitment, about proposals for the bicentenary and she invited comments as part of the ongoing consultation process. There were quite a number of questions including on the bicentenary, progress on our Student Experience Programme, student occupations, pay awards, and my trip to Hong Kong.
Pay award
UCEA, which oversees pay for the whole university sector, has now advised all institutions to implement the pay award for the current year from the March salary payment and will be backdated to 1 February. You can see more details of this on StaffNet. While the pay negotiations have concluded, UCEA is still in discussions with the relevant trade unions about non-pay issues and we have so far initiated discussions with our local UCU branch on non-pay issues such as the use of fixed term contracts and working conditions.
UCU has notified all universities that there will be a further strike day on 15 March. We do hope the disputes will be resolved and we will of course continue to take all possible steps to ensure our students progress and graduate as they deserve.
Pankhurst building
I had a tour of this amazing new building on Oxford Road which is a renovation and extension of the old NatWest bank. The aim of activities that will be housed there are to bring our strengths in engineering and physical sciences to health benefit. It will be occupied by staff from all three faculties and they are due to start moving in next week.
Growing partnerships
I met Professor Tim Jones, the new Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University, to discuss how we can expand our collaborations, particularly in health and advanced materials.
At the Innovation Greater Manchester Board with partners from across the region, we discussed latest talks with government, planning the future of IGM and skills as a very big issue.
Skills was also the key topic of discussion I had with Sir Michael Barber who is advising the government on developing skills for the country. I talked about how the Russell Group can contribute to this important topic.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor