President's Weekly Update
11 June 2015
Our annual Cockcroft Rutherford Lecture is the largest annual event for our alumni. This year’s lecture entitled: ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ was given by Professor Dame Sally Davies to a packed audience in University Place, with the spill-over theatre also full.
Sally was previously Director General for Research in the Department of Health, is now Chief Medical Officer for England and is one of our graduates in medicine. We also awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2012 to mark her outstanding achievements. She talked about the massive problems of resistance to anti-microbial drugs, particularly anti-bacterial agents, and referred heavily to the ongoing review by Lord Jim O’Neill, who holds an honorary chair with us. After questions, Sally dashed up to the overflow theatre to take more questions, then attended the alumni reception and an informal supper. You can find out more about the event, including an exclusive interview with Professor Dame Sally Davies, at:
Professor Colin Bailey, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and I, travelled to Daresbury Laboratory for an event to formally mark the announcement of the £313 million big data research partnership with IBM. The partnership was officially initiated by Jo Johnson, the recently appointed Minister for Universities and Science. Colin and I then had a private meeting with the Minister on research strengths in Manchester and the North West and teaching excellence. He did signal the unwelcome news that followed later that day of a cut of £450 million in the annual funding to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), which funds universities, to start from April 2015 (ie in the current year). As yet we do not have the details of how the cuts will fall across the University sector, but they will certainly mean further significant reductions in our income.
We had a visit from Gareth Davies, Director General for Research and Innovation in BIS, and Dr Ruth McKernan who has recently taken up the position of Chief Executive of Innovate UK (IUK, formerly the Technology Strategy Board). Professor Colin Bailey told them about some of the strengths in the University and we discussed our future plans. They also had a tour of the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and City Labs, which is owned and run by MSP (Manchester Science Partnerships) and met with Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council.
A few days later, I was given my own personal tour of the NGI by Professor Kostya Novoselov. It is a truly remarkable facility that looks in places more like a space-ship than a science building, with a large piece of great art work installed. While some of the equipment and infrastructure is still being completed, quite a number of staff were already working in the building and I met one company that is taking over a lab.
I gave a talk in the closing session of the latest ‘HeadStart’ course, for staff who are about to take on, or aim to move into, leadership positions in the University. I gave my own views on leadership, took many questions and then handed out their certificates to mark their completion of the course.
I met Juergen Maier, the UK Chief Executive of Siemens, who holds an honorary chair at the University to talk about the exciting opportunities around the ‘Northern Powerhouse’, our collaborations with Siemens and a forthcoming visit of their global Chief Technology Officer. Juergen is also chair of the North West Business Leadership Team, of which we are members, and we discussed how we can work together on ESOF (Euroscience Open Forum) which will take place next July.
I took part in a teleconference with Professor Luke Georghiou (co-chair of ESOF) and senior staff at the Wellcome Trust to discuss how they may also support ESOF and some of the wider public engagement events that will be part of the conference.
I talked to Lord Jim O’Neill, who is now Commercial Secretary to the Treasury. Jim will visit Manchester soon and again wants to discuss opportunities in research, innovation and business engagement.
I gave the welcome at the official launch of the Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health as a World Health Organisation (WHO) collaborating centre. After my welcome, I heard about the importance of WHO collaborating centres from Dr Claudia Stein (WHO regional Director) and the great work of our Centre from its Director Dr Arpana Verma.
We had a briefing session for our Board of Governors on the ‘refresh’ of our Strategic Plan, Manchester 2020 and some changes to the measures of our success presented by Helen Barton, our Director of Planning. This was followed by a presentation of our efforts in the broad area of equality and diversity by Professor James Thompson, Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility, and Patrick Johnson, Head of Equality and Diversity.
There is now only a week to go before voting for the next Chancellor of the University closes on 18 June. If you haven’t voted yet, go to:
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Feedback
Please send comments to president@manchester.ac.uk
President's Weekly Update
11 June 2015
Our annual Cockcroft Rutherford Lecture is the largest annual event for our alumni. This year’s lecture entitled: ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ was given by Professor Dame Sally Davies to a packed audience in University Place, with the spill-over theatre also full.
Sally was previously Director General for Research in the Department of Health, is now Chief Medical Officer for England and is one of our graduates in medicine. We also awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2012 to mark her outstanding achievements. She talked about the massive problems of resistance to anti-microbial drugs, particularly anti-bacterial agents, and referred heavily to the ongoing review by Lord Jim O’Neill, who holds an honorary chair with us. After questions, Sally dashed up to the overflow theatre to take more questions, then attended the alumni reception and an informal supper. You can find out more about the event, including an exclusive interview with Professor Dame Sally Davies, at:
Professor Colin Bailey, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and I, travelled to Daresbury Laboratory for an event to formally mark the announcement of the £313 million big data research partnership with IBM. The partnership was officially initiated by Jo Johnson, the recently appointed Minister for Universities and Science. Colin and I then had a private meeting with the Minister on research strengths in Manchester and the North West and teaching excellence. He did signal the unwelcome news that followed later that day of a cut of £450 million in the annual funding to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), which funds universities, to start from April 2015 (ie in the current year). As yet we do not have the details of how the cuts will fall across the University sector, but they will certainly mean further significant reductions in our income.
We had a visit from Gareth Davies, Director General for Research and Innovation in BIS, and Dr Ruth McKernan who has recently taken up the position of Chief Executive of Innovate UK (IUK, formerly the Technology Strategy Board). Professor Colin Bailey told them about some of the strengths in the University and we discussed our future plans. They also had a tour of the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and City Labs, which is owned and run by MSP (Manchester Science Partnerships) and met with Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council.
A few days later, I was given my own personal tour of the NGI by Professor Kostya Novoselov. It is a truly remarkable facility that looks in places more like a space-ship than a science building, with a large piece of great art work installed. While some of the equipment and infrastructure is still being completed, quite a number of staff were already working in the building and I met one company that is taking over a lab.
I gave a talk in the closing session of the latest ‘HeadStart’ course, for staff who are about to take on, or aim to move into, leadership positions in the University. I gave my own views on leadership, took many questions and then handed out their certificates to mark their completion of the course.
I met Juergen Maier, the UK Chief Executive of Siemens, who holds an honorary chair at the University to talk about the exciting opportunities around the ‘Northern Powerhouse’, our collaborations with Siemens and a forthcoming visit of their global Chief Technology Officer. Juergen is also chair of the North West Business Leadership Team, of which we are members, and we discussed how we can work together on ESOF (Euroscience Open Forum) which will take place next July.
I took part in a teleconference with Professor Luke Georghiou (co-chair of ESOF) and senior staff at the Wellcome Trust to discuss how they may also support ESOF and some of the wider public engagement events that will be part of the conference.
I talked to Lord Jim O’Neill, who is now Commercial Secretary to the Treasury. Jim will visit Manchester soon and again wants to discuss opportunities in research, innovation and business engagement.
I gave the welcome at the official launch of the Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health as a World Health Organisation (WHO) collaborating centre. After my welcome, I heard about the importance of WHO collaborating centres from Dr Claudia Stein (WHO regional Director) and the great work of our Centre from its Director Dr Arpana Verma.
We had a briefing session for our Board of Governors on the ‘refresh’ of our Strategic Plan, Manchester 2020 and some changes to the measures of our success presented by Helen Barton, our Director of Planning. This was followed by a presentation of our efforts in the broad area of equality and diversity by Professor James Thompson, Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility, and Patrick Johnson, Head of Equality and Diversity.
There is now only a week to go before voting for the next Chancellor of the University closes on 18 June. If you haven’t voted yet, go to:
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Feedback
Please send comments to president@manchester.ac.uk