President's weekly update

26 June 2014

I travelled to ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum) in Copenhagen which runs for four days and attracts about 4,000 participants from 75 countries. The next ESOF in 2016 will be held in Manchester, organised jointly by our University and the City Council. I spoke at a reception which was attended by over 150 people, including the organisers of the 2014 event. Professor Luke Georghiou (Vice-President for Research and Innovation and my co-chair for ESOF) attended the official hand-over session where the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Susan Cooley, talked about Manchester as a city of science and innovation and our excitement at hosting the 2016 meeting.

After a few hours back in Manchester I travelled to Liverpool where the International Festival of Business is taking place. In the evening I attended a dinner hosted by Juergen Maier (Chief Executive of Siemens UK and an honorary Professor at our University). The guest of honour was Lord Younger who is a Minister for Trade and Industry. We discussed how we protect and grow innovation in the UK, the value of small and medium businesses, collaboration, entrepreneurship, links to universities, government support, skills and globalisation.

The next day, I met Sir Howard Newby, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, then chaired a session on academia and business. The speakers in my session were Professor Sir Alan Langlands (Vice- Chancellor of the University of Leeds and formerly Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England), Amanda Brooks (Director of Innovation, Department of Business, Innovation and Skills ) and Fraser Burton (BT). I also heard a presentation by Bob Sorrell from BP about our International Centre for Advanced Materials, which BP funds. He praised the senior leaders in the University who had made this happen and the Director, Professor Phil Withers.

I was very impressed by the Postgraduate Summer Research Showcase held in the Whitworth Hall and Christies Bistro. Over 170 PhD students displayed posters of their research across all four Faculties. The posters were judged by members of both academic and Professional Support Services staff. I was even more impressed that three of the President’s Doctoral Scholars initiated and organised the entire thing - Parmesh Gajjar, Scott Midson and Grace Rice. Congratulations to them!

The University was filled with thousands of prospective applicants and their parents on our Open Days last Friday and Saturday. Mike Gibbons (Director of Student Recruitment and International Development) took me on a tour around the Whitworth Hall where there were many stands on courses, accommodation, sport and much more. Then we visited the Samuel Alexander Building where prospective students were hearing about degrees offered in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. The sun shone throughout, so the campus looked lovely and the many student volunteers in purple were all smiling and welcoming.

We were pleased to welcome Dr Harpal Kumar, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, and several of his colleagues to Manchester. Professors Nic Jones, Director of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre, and Richard Marais, Director of CRUK Manchester Institute (formerly the Paterson Institute), and I summarised many recent successes and outlined our vision and plans for cancer research in Manchester over the next ten years.
I gave the opening presentation at the Annual Conference of University Legal Practitioners which was held at the Manchester Conference Centre. I spoke about the role of legal practitioners in 21st century universities, highlighting the huge range of stakeholders, funders and regulators in the higher education sector.

I attended a meeting with Dr Roger Blake (External Liaison Manager) from the Wellcome Trust with Professors Cay Kielty from the Faculty of Life Sciences and Mike Dixon from the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences to talk about our past activities and future plans under Wellcome’s funding through their Institutional Strategic Support Fund.

Professor Ian Jacobs (Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences) signed the renewal of our collaborative agreement with Sir Andrew Dillon, Chief Executive of the National Institute for Clinical Health Excellence (NICE). We have been working with NICE on a number of health research projects and now plan to expand into some new areas.

It was a pleasure to meet Dr Eli Harari, one of our alumni who is now based in California. Eli studied physics and has a strong interest in graphene. He funds a prize for the best student enterprise project in graphene and met some of the student applicants informally when he was in Manchester. Professor Kostya Novoselov joined us for part of the meeting and we spent more time than envisaged talking about how we develop and exploit some of the really exciting and continuing discoveries around graphene and related materials.

Professor Martin Hall, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford, came over for a chat about our respective universities and the many future challenges.

Apart from that, there was the usual range of meetings with senior staff and research collaborators, and I chaired the University Promotions Committee - congratulations to all those academic staff who were promoted this year.

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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