President's weekly update
29 May 2014
I attended an event at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Castlefield to mark the opening of a fantastic exhibition called ‘Collider’. It is a huge walk through mock-up of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN where the Higgs Boson was discovered. Several of our staff spoke - Professor Geoff Forshaw gave one of the introductory talks and Professors Brian Cox, Fred Loebinger, Terry Wyatt and Dr Cinzia DaVia took part in panel discussions. Many more staff and students from the School of Physics and Astronomy also attended.
I gave a closing talk at the latest ‘Headstart’ programme which is for staff who are considering moving into more senior positions. I gave my own perspective on management and leadership, particularly in universities where many staff don’t always expect to be either managed or led!
By coincidence, I was interviewed by Sir John Tusa, the radio and TV presenter, for a BBC Radio 4 programme on leadership. He is interviewing around eight leaders of organisation in the private and public sector. As the only Vice-Chancellor, he wanted me to explain what is different about a university. I gave him the short version.
Professor Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust spent a day with us. He addressed an open ‘Town Hall meeting’ about future plans and priorities for Wellcome and met smaller groups of staff. I hosted a lunch where we considered how we promote collaboration and ‘team science’, support for underrepresented areas and new initiatives. We discussed the fact that our funding rate with Wellcome has declined and how we are addressing this.
I spoke at an event on ‘women in science’ organised by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Royal Society in the Kanaris Theatre of the Manchester Museum. Professor Helen Gleeson from the School of Physics and Astronomy and Professor Dame Tina Lavender and Professor Dame Nicky Collum, both from the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work and I all talked about our careers and the highs and lows along the way, before taking questions.
I visited the ‘official opening’ of the amazing new space occupied by the Division of Communications and Marketing. Their offices on the lower ground floor of the John Owens Building have been opened out, the false ceiling removed and decorated to make a lovely bright area. The refurbishment came as a result of feedback the Division gave in the Staff Survey last year – a great example of how staff feedback is being put into action. They also had amazing cakes - many of them purple!
At meetings this week we agreed recommendations on fees for international undergraduate and home/EU and international postgraduate students, reviewed progress in budget planning, management accounts for the year to date and considered how we calculate the full costs of each area of teaching. We also considered how we can recognise and promote the many awards we have recently received (for some recent examples see below).
Professor Clive Agnew, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students and I had our last meeting with Grace Skelton, the General Secretary of the Students’ Union, before she hands over to the new executive team, Grace will be moving to ‘Labour Students’ in June and hands over to Charlie Cook.
Professors Rod Coombs (Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor), Colin Bailey (Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences), Luke Georghiou (Vice-President for Research and Innovation) and I had dinner with Professor Sir Alan Langlands, Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University and Professor Peter Jimack, Dean of Engineering at Leeds. Major topics of discussion were the value and limitations of research metrics such as citations in assessing research quality, ‘N8’ - the consortium of eight northern research intensive universities and the Northern Health Science Alliance (comprising the medical schools of N8 and their main hospital partners). Of course there was much speculation about future political scenarios in the UK, Scotland and Europe and their likely implications for universities.
I am very proud to say that The University of Manchester won an annual Rainmaker Award last week. It was voted winner in the Non-Traditional Deal of the Year category for the launch of its £300 million 40 year bond in 2013. Sally McGill from the Directorate of Finance accepted the award on behalf of the University, along with Guy Bagshaw and Dayna Whewell of Rothschild who advised on the transaction.
I was also delighted to learn that the University's ‘C crew’ security team has received a national award from the Association of University Chief Security Officers for their exceptional bravery and extraordinary service to the University. You can read more at:
At the weekend, Sweden was sunny and very hot for May, which meant that the grass had grown even faster than usual.