President's weekly update
1 February 2024
Royal Recognition of Jodrell Bank’s attainment of World Heritage status
We were honoured that Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, visited our Jodrell Bank Observatory to mark its recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2019 - an amazing achievement. She visited our control room to learn about the history and scientific work of Jodrell and the SKA, met many staff and planted a sapling apple tree that was grown from seeds taken from descendants of Sir Isaac Newton’s famous apple tree which had travelled to the international space station with Tim Peake. She also learnt about the amazing outreach activities of Jodrell and how it gained World Heritage Status from Professor Teresa Anderson.
The ‘Jeff’s’ fantastic showcase
The Geoffrey Jefferson Institute, known as the ‘Jeff’, brings together scientists, clinicians, surgeons and patients to address major brain diseases, notably stroke, dementia, brain tumours and Parkinson’s. I attended a fantastic and packed showcase event to highlight our current research. Notably for me, it was held in the ‘Rothwell Suite’ at the Hyatt Hotel with many of my former-PhD students there!
A wonderful visit to Hong Kong
I made a short trip to Hong Kong for my last visit as President and Vice-Chancellor to undertake important meetings which I just couldn’t do remotely. We met our major donors and many alumni, visited our East Asia Centre and acknowledged Christina Siu’s great contributions as leader of our Centre, with 27 years amazing service. At an event with our Hong Kong Foundation members, I presented Dr Eric Li with our Medal of Honour. He was the founding president of our Hong Kong Foundation and has led it to huge success. We hosted a Bicentenary event with alumni and had private meetings with major donors. The trip also included a visit to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a major strategic partner.
Meetings with students and staff
At our regular meeting with officers of the Students’ Union we discussed a range of important topics from student hardship and wellbeing, Students’ Union officers’ elections in early March, and concerns about international student visas to yet another below inflation uplift (2.5%) to the student maintenance loan and the harm reduction and teaching sustainability programmes.
At a meeting with about 60 leaders from across the University, our Students’ Union Officers talked about their priorities and PJ Hemmaway, Director of IT Services, and his colleagues updated us on the ‘Evolve’ programme.
In a staff open meeting with SLT colleagues, which you can watch, I gave a general update including on the recent Sunday Times article which confused entry grades for international students’ Foundation year with entry grades for degree programmes. To be absolutely clear on this point, international students who want to study at our University have to achieve the same rigorous entry criteria as UK students to enter our degree programmes. Entry into our Foundation Years, for both UK and international students are at a lower level, but they have to achieve the required entry level to go on to our degree programmes. International students do not take the places of UK students as there are separate targets for both groups and I would reiterate that all students who study with us are greatly valued and vitally important to us.
Kim Graakjaer spoke about our Bicentenary events, Carol Prokopyszyn gave an update on our financial outturn last year and Louise Simpson updated us on the fundraising and volunteering campaign which will launch later this year. We then answered quite a number of questions on a wide range of important topics.
I have begun my regular meetings with staff and students in each School. In the School of Biological Sciences, which is of course my own School, staff raised issues about research contracts, international staff visa costs and estates costs and we discussed student experience, staff workload and general operational issues. Students said that their staff are ‘brilliant and amazing’! They wanted to hear more from leading researchers earlier in their degree and expressed concerns about study spaces, slow PCs in cluster and food costs.
More good news!
It was great to see that we have risen to 23rd, up six places in the THE most international universities. This recognises our international staff, students and partnerships. We have also been awarded Silver by Athena Swan for gender diversity, gained Disability Confident Leaders’ status and we are only the sixth university worldwide to be accredited by the United Nations Environmental programme. Many congratulations to all those teams who have worked so hard to achieve these wonderful external recognitions.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor