Message from the Vice-President and Dean

14 Jun 2024

This week Fiona looks back at the Universally Manchester Festival, reflects on a successful Faculty Leadership Conference and celebrates more research funding and social responsibility awards.

Dear All

Did you enjoy the Universally Manchester Festival? I had a fabulous time. It was so lovely to meet many of you with your families and to be introduced to many delightful children (face painted or otherwise).

Our bicentenary celebrations have allowed us to go beyond the everyday to bring the extraordinary work, creativity and skills of our staff and students to the fore. I am super proud that our Faculty played a central role in making the festival such a fantastic success.

With more than 150 free events for our University community and the public to enjoy, it embodied our University values and was an excellent demonstration of our theme of civic engagement. A huge thank you to all the contributors and the team that made this all happen.

The festival encapsulated how, through the bicentenary, we are reflecting on our 200-year history as a University while looking ahead. Our annual Faculty Leadership Conference, which took place late last month, similarly focused on what is to come, with the theme of ‘Humanities: Shaping our Future’.

Around 100 academic and professional service leaders and managers attended the event, which is designed to allow people to network while finding out more about different parts of our Faculty, celebrating achievements and discussing strategy. It was, as always, great to catch up with everyone.

This year our keynote speaker was Lou Cordwell OBE, Professor of Innovation at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) at AMBS and Special Advisor to the Office of the President and Vice-Chancellor, through which she will be giving strategic guidance on innovation ecosystems.

Her speech, outlining Manchester’s unique opportunity to drive the region’s economy through innovation, the University’s critical role as part of this, and the role of Humanities in a changing world, was inspirational and the perfect way to open the conference.

We spent time in discussion at strategic workshops on AI innovation in teaching and learning, and on key research and social responsibility issues. We enjoyed a series of fascinating short showcase presentations, highlighting research success in our four Schools and the work of the Student Support Hubs.

It was also fantastic to hear from a small group of students in a panel discussion, talking about their experiences of student support, using their voice to make change, and what makes them proud of the University. Finally, we watched a short video of staff and students explaining what innovation means to them.

After reviewing core goal operational priorities for 2023/24, the Faculty leadership team have been looking to the future through setting ambitious aims for 2024/25. These operational priorities are essential for achieving our strategic objectives, optimising resources, supporting decision-making and making sure we are all aligned.

One priority which we have been focusing on for several months and which will continue into next year is the Teaching Sustainability project. I have now met all the School leadership teams to outline the rationale for the project and the benefits it will bring as we streamline our portfolio of UG and PGT portfolio.

I have also met members of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures in SALC to consider the ways in which we continue to value and support language provision. In a sub-committee of the main taskforce, focusing on languages, we have had constructive discussions as we try to navigate the challenges ahead.

Researchers in our Faculty continue to secure important awards. Congratulations to Rachel Gibson, Professor of Political Science, who is leading a project linking digital footprint and survey data for open research (DIGISURVOR).

This is one of seven projects across the UK awarded funding from ESRC’s DigitalFootprints Accelerator scheme, which has now become part of the Smart Data Research UK programme. Rachel’s project looks to improve how browser and social media information can be anonymised and linked to survey data responses.

I am delighted that Dr Katsushi Imai, Reader in Economics, is part of team to have been awarded an international writing workshop by the British Academy. The workshops programme aims to encourage professional networks and mentorship for early career researchers and to provide access to the academic requirements of journals, equipping them with the skills to be published.

Dr Imai’s workshop will help researchers in Vietnam and Thailand develop their capability to publish in high-impact Development Economics journals. The international reach of our research is amazing!

I am excited that we will be welcoming a new cohort of Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellows to the Faculty next year, with success across multiple Schools. We have six awards confirmed so far, for Lia Brazil and Martyna Majewkska (SALC), Jack Benton and Thuy Duong Khuu (SEED), and Julia Perczel and Justina Berskyte (SoSS).

This week I was pleased to join Ken McPhail, Head of AMBS, in addressing the opening reception of the AMA (American Marketing Association)-Sheth Doctoral Consortium hosted by the Business School.

The event brings together the best doctoral students from business schools across the world, designed to spark creativity and insight by challenging students to broaden their views on what constitutes good research. It helps students with their academic career aspirations, to establish professional networks among themselves and beyond.

I was also privileged to join people from across the University and external stakeholders in celebrating the achievements of many of our Faculty colleagues, who have been recognised for giving something back, at the Making a Difference Awards ceremony last month.

All the projects, activities and individuals who won awards, were highly commended or were nominated are a true inspiration. They embrace social responsibility and epitomise the positive contribution we can make to communities and society locally and further afield.

There are too many great winners and highly commended nominations to list here, so I would encourage you to check out the full list on StaffNet. Well done to everyone! Thank you for your amazing contributions.

Finally, I know the exams period has come to a close and most of you will be in the thick of marking and the processing of those marks ready for exam boards. It is a demanding time in the academic year but one that will soon be over. The joy of graduation, for students and staff, is just around the corner.

Regards Fiona

Professor Fiona Devine, CBE FAcSS FRSA, Vice-President and Dean