President's Weekly Update
15 January 2015
Some of you will have seen the news about further developments in what the current coalition government is referring to as the ‘Northern Powerhouse’. The Prime Minister David Cameron, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, and the Minister for Life Sciences George Freeman, were all in Manchester last week. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor spoke to an audience of several hundred at the old Granada studios about devolution of power to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the investments already agreed including the Sir Henry Royce Institute for Materials Research and Innovation which will be based here at our University, and about potential further investments.
I attended the speeches along with a number of colleagues, and we then joined a private ‘round table’ with all three senior politicians to discuss proposals known as ‘Health North’ to support health research and innovation, led by the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) which was initiated here in Manchester by Professor Ian Jacobs, our former Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences.
I had lunch with Professor Martin Hall who has just stood down as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford and will shortly be returning to his native South Africa. He was keen to help us to build links with South Africa and particularly with the premier University of Cape Town. We already have significant links with South Africa through the Brooks World Poverty Institute and the Square Kilometre Array linking radio-telescopes and which we host.
Dr Tim Westlake, Director for the Student Experience, and I met with a fascinating philanthropist who wants to work with a small number of partner universities to develop widening participation across the UK. We may take part in a pilot study and will report on any further developments.
I had separate meetings with Chris Outram, who became chair of The Christie Hospital Trust Board a couple of months ago, and Steve Mycio who has just become chair of Central Manchester University Hospital Trust. In both cases the discussions focussed on the future success of the Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre (MAHSC) and collaborations with the University in research and teaching.
At a meeting of the Health Innovation Manchester Leadership, which aims to develop health partnerships, the Director, Professor Jackie Oldham, presented our high level strategy, plans and early actions. Health Innovation Manchester will enable us to realise an ambitious plan to optimise opportunity for innovation in healthcare.
Over recent weeks, Professor Luke Georghiou (Vice-President for Research and Innovation) and I have had several meetings to develop plans for the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) conference that we will host in 2016. We met with the programme committee to agree key themes and will be publishing a call or proposals for sessions shortly. You can find out more at:
At the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) meeting, a major topic for discussion was links with India. This is also very important for the University and yet another area where there is clear value in partnering with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
The University’s Research Review Exercise is currently under way where academic colleagues select their strongest research outputs for review. This allows us to get a picture of the range of research taking place across our University, so it’s important that all researchers get involved. The deadline is 12 noon on Friday, 30 January. To take part, visit:
It was a pleasure to meet Dame Sue Ion, a member of our Board of Governors (and a contemporary of mine at school) to talk about local and national research initiatives including in materials and nuclear energy.
I attended a dinner after the Business Engagement away day organised by Professor Luke Georghiou. We were joined by several members of our Board with strong business interests and talked about a range of topics including our ambitions, working with smaller as well as larger companies, determining what companies want from universities, engagement with organisations in humanities and international company links.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time over recent weeks in performance and development reviews for my senior colleagues and will be preparing for my own P&DR soon which is conducted by the Chair of our Board, Anil Ruia.
Congratulations to Manchester Museum for winning the prestigious Lever Prize, which it won for the ‘Real Life Science’ programme which encourages secondary and post-16 students to develop practical investigative skills through an array of science workshops. You can find out more at:
Congratulations also to Professor Brian Cox who has been appointed the Royal Society Professor of Public Engagement in Science. This is a new position which has just been created by the Royal Society.
I hope you managed to watch the brilliant Royal Institution Christmas Lectures delivered by Professor Danielle George from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering – you can still catch them on iPlayer at:
I’ve been replying to many emails about my appearance of Desert Island Discs (this is still available on iPlayer at: Desert Island Discs). They have ranged from questions about stroke to offers of singing lessons - but not yet from Gareth Malone!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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