President's weekly update

1 August 2014

I met with Patrick Johnson, the University’s Head of Equality and Diversity, to discuss how we go about increasing ethnic and other forms of diversity across the University. In the autumn, I will be holding a lunchtime meeting with members of the Race Charter Mark self-assessment team (chaired by Professor James Thompson, who will soon take up the position of Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility) and we will be surveying staff to hear their views and suggestions.

I gave a welcome speech to new staff that have joined the University over the last few months. The audience included staff who work in all parts of the University. The event is one of a regular series, this time run by Sue Field (Head of Human Resources for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences). I gave an overview of the University then answered questions about the major challenges we face, the importance of social responsibility and the University’s role locally, nationally and internationally.

I attended part of our Research Strategy away day led by Professor Luke Georghiou, Vice-President for Research and Innovation. We discussed how to enhance all of our research, better targeting of high quality publications, support for staff who have high potential but time constraints, team work, proposing more staff for prizes and awards and for membership of national bodies, and recognising and supporting ‘applied’ research with real impact (in the broadest sense, not just for REF).

At a meeting with senior staff in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences we discussed the recruitment of a new Vice-President and Dean as a successor to Professor Ian Jacobs, the great progress of the Faculty over recent years and the challenges ahead.

I was interviewed by staff from the Hay Group about leadership in the City of Manchester. They are conducting a piece of research into what many observers comment on as ‘the great success of Manchester’. I told them about what I saw as great leadership of the City; real joined up collaboration between the leaders of many different organisations - including industry, public bodies and indeed the universities, which all work closely together; a determined ‘can do’ attitude and a clear vision for where Manchester wants to be and how we get there.

The campus is very quiet now that undergraduates have finished and many staff are on research leave or holiday. I was filmed (very briefly) looking out of the window and sighing loudly to send the message to our returning students that we miss them!

There are, however, a number of graduate students still on campus, along with attendees of the many summer schools which are taking place over the summer months. I spoke at the closing session of one such summer school run by Mike Sanders in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. About 70 students from nine countries have attended academic sessions, undertaken projects and assignments and also learnt about Manchester and the surrounding area. It was impressive to see how many were wearing University of Manchester T-shirts.

Other highlights from this week included being interviewed for an article in Bloomberg magazine, spending quite a lot of time on the recruitment of new Vice-Presidents and Deans of Engineering and Physical Sciences and Medical and Human Sciences Faculties, and I even started planning our next Foundation Day which will take place in October.

The warm weather continues - though on a trip to London this week, it was a little too warm and sticky. I hope it continues if you’re able to get away on holiday over the next few weeks. Thank you all for your very hard work and great contributions to the University over the past academic year. I will resume my weekly messages in September - unless there is any important news to report in the meantime.

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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