President's weekly update
20 July 2023
Board of Governors
Our Board members recently had a tour of the student residences at Fallowfield to gain a better understanding of why the University really needs to upgrade its existing student accommodation. We discussed the importance of ensuring our students are properly supported and how we need to keep up with other universities in providing modern, high-quality residences. As this requires major external investment, we will soon be starting a search for a funding partner to realise this vision and we’ll be providing more details as this goes forward. Details of what the new campus at Fallowfield might look like can be found on StaffNet [https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=29896].
At the Board meeting, members received an update on our current position and ongoing activity in response to the recent cyber attack, having received an in-depth briefing the week before. We stressed that while we are in a much stronger position than when the attack was first identified, this was still a live incident, and the impacts will go on for many months.
I reflected that in addition to the cyber attack we are also managing UCU’s marking and assessment boycott. It is good news that less than 2.5% of our final year undergraduates are unable to receive a classification at the current time, thanks to the huge amount of additional work by academic and Professional Services staff. However, there is still a real concern for every student without a classified award: some students have unmarked pieces of work that they expect and deserve feedback on; and there are large cohorts of postgraduate taught students whose work will soon need to be marked.
I reported that UCEA, which is the universities employers’ organisation, and UCU, the union for many of our academic and academic-related staff, met formally last week, for exploratory discussions on obstacles to resolving the current dispute. The leaders of many universities are struggling to even meet the current pay award and face greatly increased costs of the teachers’ pension scheme.
The Board was briefed that the increase in pay announced for some public sector workers will be funded in part from a significant increase in visa fees, which will impact many of our staff and students from overseas and potentially on future staff and student retention.
USS pension
The Universities Superannuation Scheme, of which many of our staff are members, is consulting members on the proposed response to the 2023 valuation. The latest valuation of the scheme is greatly improved [https://www.ussemployers.org.uk/news/positive-signs-uss-pension-scheme-members-and-employers], due mainly to a very much higher return on their investments. They are proposing an improvement in benefits for members and a reduction in total costs from 31.4% of salary to 20.6%. This would mean costs to individual staff falling to 6.1% and for employers to 14.5% for at least the next three years.
Innovation District Manchester (IDM)
The plans for development of what was previously known as our North Campus are now out for public consultation. This is a very exciting £1.7 billion development, which we are developing through a Joint Venture with our partner, Bruntwood Sci-Tech. You can provide feedback [https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=30034] to Manchester City Council and the joint venture on the plans.
Russell Group meeting
The discussion was dominated by impacts of the marking and assessment boycott (MAB), which have been very variable across the sector. There was also real frustration that we have no resolution of the UK’s association with Horizon Europe.
External engagement
Cheryl Moore, Chief Research Programmes Officer for the Wellcome Trust, stressed that despite the focus of their new strategy [https://wellcome.org/who-we-are/strategy#what-do-we-want-to-achieve?-0616] on three key areas, the effects of mental health issues, escalating infectious diseases, and climate change - they are still funding more discovery science and clinical research than ever before. We also discussed our very strong activities in public engagement, including through our cultural institutions.
Professor Richard Jones, Vice-President for Regional Innovation and Civic Engagement, and I met Ed Whiting who Director of Strategy at Wellcome Trust but has now joined the government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities. Ed holds an honorary chair in AMBS and was interested to hear about IDM, Innovation Greater Manchester, our experience with the Innovation Accelerator award [https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/major-government-funding-for-greater-manchester-innovation-in-materials-health-and-ai/] (£33 million to our city region) and plans for a Greater Manchester Investment Zone.
Congratulations…
To our University Challenge team for winning a very close match [https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=30041] against Trinity College, Cambridge!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor