President's Weekly Update
17 April 2014
I attended the installation of the new High Sheriff of Manchester at the Town Hall, Paul Lee, who is a member of our Board of Governors and our Global Leadership Board. The event was overseen by the Lord Mayor and the Lord Lieutenant for Greater Manchester and attended by about 70 guests. The High Sheriff is a non-political, Royal appointment, which dates back to Saxon times. Nowadays the key role is supporting the Crown and the judiciary and a range of community activities.
The recently appointed Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Dr Jackie Hunter, visited the University this week. I have known Jackie for many years since we were both post-docs at St George’s Medical School. She visited the Centre of Excellence in Biopharmaceuticals and Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and met senior academic staff, leaders in Research and Business Engagement and had coffee with young scientists supported by BBSRC. This was an important visit because we have the highest BBSRC research income of any university.
I gave a presentation (despite almost losing my voice) on ‘The Role of Universities in the 21st Century’ to around 600 delegates at the national conference of the Association of University Administrators (AUA) at University Place at the end of their conference in Manchester.
I chaired our Awards and Honours Group which nominates people to whom we should offer honorary degrees, and whom we should nominate for national honours. The membership of this group comprises lay and staff members of our Board and Senate and the General Secretary of the Students’ Union. Proposals for suitable candidates are always welcome from staff, particularly from under-represented groups, notably women and black or other ethnic minority individuals.
We also held our Board Remuneration Committee, which is chaired by the Chair of our Board of Governors, Anil Ruia. This considers recommendations on the salaries of certain senior staff in the University, including myself. Obviously I am absent from discussion of my own salary. You will have noted discussions in the press about Vice-Chancellors’ salaries (which are public) which can be found at:
After the Remuneration Committee, Anil and I talked about recent and pending activities and issues, then we had a planning session for the next Board meeting.
We held a strategic briefing for our Board members, when we give them a little more detail on specific aspects of the University. On this occasion Professor Luke Georghiou talked about the University and the regional innovation ecosystem with contributions from Lynne Shepherd, Director of the Manchester Enterprise Centre, and Rowena Burns, Chief Executive of Manchester Science Parks.
I hosted an event at Broomcroft with Barclays for a number of their guests. I gave a brief overview of the University, then Professor Kostya Novoselov talked about graphene and other two dimensional materials and Professor Kostas Kostarelos, from the School of Medicine, talked about the biomedical applications of nanomaterials, followed by questions from the audience.
Much of the week has been taken up with meetings to discuss budgets across the University. These have been challenging because most of our income streams (fees for UK and EU students, all government funding and Research Council grants) are held level and therefore are declining with inflation, while almost all of our costs are increasing. Steve Mole (Director of Finance) and I have written an article to try to explain the rather complicated finances of the University, which will appear in the next issue of UniLife which is due out on 6 May.
At another meeting this week, Chris Oglesby, Chair of Manchester Science Parks and Chief Executive of Bruntwood, and Rowena Burns gave us an update on plans, progress and vision for the future of Manchester Science Parks, of which the University is a shareholder.
I was pleased to hear that around 1,500 staff watched the President’s Question time where I and senior colleagues answered submitted questions and those from the audience. The video of the event can be seen at:
Feedback has been positive with staff asking for similar events to take place more often, last longer and involve larger audiences.
There will be no message next week because of Easter, when many people will be away. I hope that you all enjoy a few days break.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Feedback
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