Dear All

As many of us recently saw the first snow of the year, it was a reminder that winter is fast approaching. We will soon be attending graduations and then Christmas and the New Year beckon. We will all be busy!

In recent weeks, the Faculty Leadership Team attended an Annual Performance Review (APR) with the University’s Senior Leadership Team. It was a great opportunity for Duncan to hear about what we achieved in 2023/24 alongside some of the challenges we faced. We also talked about the future and Manchester 2035.

I sat in on the APRs of the two other Faculties and the PS team. A common thread across all these meetings was improving the student experience. We talked about the importance of a diverse student intake, the challenges for students who must study and work at the same time, and the importance of offering an attractive portfolio of programmes and course units.

Duncan’s own visits to our Schools were completed earlier this week as SEED staff heard his thoughts on the development of the Manchester 2035 strategy, asked questions and offered their own opinions on the future direction of the University. Many thanks again to everyone who attended the visits. They have been another way to chat to Duncan.

While the initial, pre-Christmas listening and discussing phase of the Manchester 2035 process is nearly complete, you can still book onto the final online workshop on Monday, 2 December at 11am. This focuses on the ‘one university’ theme which Patrick Hackett and I have been leading on, and I have been really pleased with the engagement we have had with the theme so far.

Following the conclusion of the listening and discussing phase in January, phase 2 from February to May involves reviewing and testing the proposals, with further feedback sessions planned. To keep up to date with progress, visit the Manchester 2035 web pages. Please use all the opportunities to have your say on the future of the University.

One of the main areas of discussion for Manchester 2035 is the University’s place in our local communities and our regional, national and international influence. Through their many activities, higher education institutions are a significant driver of economic growth, and our University continues to have a crucial role to play in the economic health of city-region.

Cooperation between cities to generate growth is an important topic as the Labour government sets out its plans for the next five years. I was pleased to be at AMBS earlier this month for a special event focusing on this area. Celebrating the establishment of the Sir Terry Leahy Chair in Urban and Regional Economics, Northern Cities Collaborating for Economic Growth saw the new Chair, Professor Philip McCann, join Sir Terry in conversation.

It was fascinating to hear discussion on how close work between northern English cities on matters of mutual benefit can propel economic growth and enhance national GDP, and we and other great city universities across the north of England are part of this ecosystem. As ever, collaboration, with healthy competition of course, is what we are all good at.

Manchester has long taken the lead in economic development in the North. Much of the credit for the city’s success lies with Sir Howard Bernstein. Howard led the regeneration of Manchester city centre following the IRA bombing in 1996 and was deeply committed to bringing businesses and employment to the city as Chief Executive of Manchester City Council between 1998 and 2017.

I was privileged to join many people at a memorial service for Sir Howard held at The Bridgewater Hall. He joined the University and our Faculty in 2017 as an Honorary Professor of Politics and UoM advisor. His passion for our great city and support for many important causes and institutions, including our University, were marked at the moving and celebratory service.

The responsibility of social sciences in understanding some of the most important social issues facing our communities and how to address them was highlighted in a panel event hosted by Duncan earlier this week. Maggie Gale and I attended along with representatives from a range of local and national government departments and bodies – including Manchester City Council, Bolton Council and the Home Office – community and faith organisations and University colleagues.

The workshop, entitled, Rioting in the UK – Reflections on the civil disorder in the summer of 2024’, was a panel discussion featuring experts from two of our Schools – Professors Rob Ford, Bridget Byrne, Hilary Pilkington and David Gadd from SoSS – and SALC’s Professor Peter Knight. They were joined on the panel by Afzal Khan, MP for Manchester Rusholme.

The panellists discussed research findings on the complex factors behind the riots in England and Northern Ireland and explored ways to prevent them in the future. It was an important conversation demonstrating the value that social sciences, humanities more broadly and our University can bring in tackling significant societal challenges.

Last week, Angie Wilson and I hosted visits by representatives from Wuhan University and Indiana University. The Wuhan University delegation, which included Vice-President He Lian, discussed teaching collaborations with SALC, while Indiana University’s Vice-President for International Affairs, Professor Hannah Buxbaum, met colleagues from across the institution, and visited Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Museum and John Rylands Institute and Library.

The Teaching Sustainability project continues to make excellent progress. Fiona Smyth, Emma Rose and I updated the Senior Leadership Team earlier this week on our work last year. To recap, the purpose of this project is to offer a sustainable portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes, pathways and course units which will attract great students now and in the future.

In lots of meetings, you will have heard me talk about our unwieldy portfolio, built up over the years by accident rather than design, which we struggle to deliver. I suspect you will be astounded to hear that we are closing over 400 ‘legacy’ programmes (those which have either not recruited students or were previously closed but not removed from our systems), more than 200 programmes with fewer than four students on average over six years, and over 900 course units, many not offered in ages.

The main taskforce, and the languages sub-group which is looking at the special circumstances that prevail for these disciplines, will continue to look at other programmes with low demand. In addition, however, we are going to take a close look at what is growing and what could grow more with a review and refresh. We offer some fantastic programmes and course units that students love. It is exciting to see what can grow, too.

In addition, we have had some fascinating discussions in our meetings about our curriculums, what might be the optimal mix of core and optional course units in different years of study, how we facilitate students to study outside their own disciplines, even in other Faculties, enjoy an international placement or work experience, exploring flexible modes of delivery, and what skills are important for future employment.

Fiona, Emma and myself have been meeting School Leadership teams (SLTs) to update them on the project. Following discussions with SEED and SoSS SLTs earlier this month, we are seeing AMBS and SALC SLTs in December. There is a such lot of innovative thinking going on and, as I say, it is exciting as we pro-actively work together on a great teaching offering informed by great research.

I am delighted that two of our academic colleagues have been awarded an Advance HE Principal Fellowship. Dr Claire Fox and Dr Minjie Xing have received the Fellowship in recognition of their commitment to professionalism in teaching and learning, demonstrating a sustained record of leadership in high-quality learning. Well done, both!

Following on from the great news of an £8m investment by ESRC and UKRI in the Centre for Joined Up Sustainability Transformations (JUST), led by colleagues in SoSS and SEED, a second tranche of funding of £425,000 has been allocated by ESRC to the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) based in Leeds.

AMBS’s Professor Emma Bannister, Professor Jill Rubery, Dr Isabel Tavora and Dr Cassandra Bowkett are Co-investigators for the Centre, whose research aims to increase understanding of how digital technologies are changing work and the implications for employers, workers, job seekers and governments.

In SALC, Dr Gordon Fraser has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Visting Professorship to host Clinical Professor Karen Karbiener of New York University, who specialises in 19th century America literature and culture. Professor Seth Schindler (GDI) has been awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, working with Cambridge PhD candidate Debolina Majumder on a project entitled ‘The Hidden Abodes of the Urban: infrastructural labour and urban transformation’.

I am full of pride for all the great achievements of our teachers and researchers across the four Schools of the Faculty. I am ever grateful to the commitment and hard work of our professional services. There are lots of joyful moments every working day.

Regards Fiona

Professor Fiona Devine, Vice-President and Dean, Faculty of Humanities