President's weekly update
13 July
I am delighted that we have appointed two new Vice-Presidents. Professor Colette Fagan, currently Deputy Dean and Vice-Dean for Research in Humanities has been appointed Vice-President for Research and Professor James Thompson, currently Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility has been appointed to the new post of Vice-President for Social Responsibility.
I was delighted that a major award (£9.7 million) from the HEFCE UK Research Partnership Infrastructure Fund has been announced for our Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS). This capital award will benefit the whole of AMBS and reflects particularly our great strengths in research in innovation (linked to advanced materials and biotech), health (particularly related to the opportunities of health devolution) and ‘big data’. You can find out more at:
At the final meeting of the Board of Governors for this academic year we welcomed Alex Tayler, the incoming General Secretary of the Students’ Union, who reported on the Union’s activities for the past year and their plans for the future. Professor James Thompson, Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility, gave an update on our activities and plans in this area. For those of you who receive the THE in hard copy you may have seen the pull out on our ‘Making a Difference’ activities which you can see at:
The Board of Governors received an update on the proposed staffing changes which form a part of the M2020 Programme. We reported on meetings with the affected areas that I have attended and the ongoing consultation with the Trade Unions. We also reported on Senate where a motion was tabled which included calling for the Board to pause the M2020 programme proposals. This motion was rejected 35 votes to 10. We have added further responses to the frequently asked questions on M2020 and these are available to all staff at:
The Board also approved our budget and five year financial plan, while recognising significant challenges for the future. We considered the Teaching Excellence Framework outcome and how the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will deal with the National Student Survey (NSS) results (since our return rate was below 50% our overall result for 2017 will not be made public). We discussed our updated risk register, the external review of the Board’s effectiveness and our budget and five year financial plans. We held a dinner to say thank you to those Board members who have completed their term.
In London, I co-chaired the Council for Science and Technology (CST) with Professor Sir Mark Walport, where there was much discussion of the government’s industrial strategy challenge fund and updates on the CST’s many current and planned projects. I met Professor Julia King (Baroness Brown) who is chair of the Royce Institute to discuss the good progress and next steps to further engage industry and government. I also had a meeting with Professor David Cannadine, who will soon become President of the British Academy and hence will become a member of CST, together with Alun Evans, Chief Executive of the British Academy. We discussed the breadth of activities of CST, much of which is very relevant to humanities, business and social sciences.
I travelled to Yorkshire to attend a meeting of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, of which I am a member. The discussion focussed on transport links across key centres in the North, updates on staff appointments and on the key work streams (I lead on Health Innovation).
At a meeting of the Board of Health Innovation Manchester (the innovation arm of health and social care in Greater Manchester, GM), we heard great progress on integration of the Academic Health Sciences Network (AHSN) and the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC), recruitment to key posts and establishment of the projects that are key priorities, all of which involve the University.
James Thompson and I visited the Manchester Communication Academy, a school in Harpurhey in East Manchester, with Mike Blackburn, BT's North West Regional Director and Chair of the GM Local Enterprise Partnership. The school, which is sponsored by BT, was established only a few years ago and faces many challenges as it is in one of the least privileged areas in the country but was doing remarkably innovative things with incredibly impressive outcomes. We were struck by how quiet, polite and studious the pupils were!
Professors Keith Brown (Vice-President and Dean of Humanities) and Alessandro Schiesaro (Head of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, SALC) and I attended an open meeting with staff members of SALC to discuss the M2020 proposed staffing changes. We answered many questions and heard concerns put forward in writing by members of the School and more presented verbally.
Several senior staff and I hosted a dinner for new Professors. Many had been promoted internally but some had joined from other universities. We had very interesting discussions covering issues ranging from how we can assess teaching quality, the future of student fees, M2020 proposed staffing changes, how to better improve our performance, the limitations of metrics, the welcome major investment in IT Services and the review of the Faculty of Science and Engineering.