President’s Weekly Update
29 January 2015
General Assembly is a large group of influential individuals, often representing relevant external bodies with an interest in the University, but also including members of our Board of Governors and some of our own staff. We often refer to General Assembly as ‘our critical friends’. It meets twice a year at a session chaired by our Chancellor, Tom Bloxham, and last week’s meeting was well attended. Steve Mole, Director of Finance, summarised our financial performance over the past year and factors that will influence our financial position in the future. I gave a talk on our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, recent achievements and plans for the future. Dr Paul Redmond, Director of Student Life, talked about ‘Generation Y’ which relates to most of our current students. He described their expectations and how they differ from past generations and the actions we are putting in place to improve the employability of our graduates.
This week we launched our five ‘research beacons’ where we offer a unique concentration of high-quality research and are at the forefront of the search for solutions to global challenges. These are: industrial biotechnology; energy; cancer; advanced materials and addressing global inequalities. Our research beacons showcase areas where our researchers are working with colleagues from across the University and beyond to produce solutions that are distinct to Manchester. Over the coming months you’ll be hearing a lot more about our research beacons and you can find out more now at:
It was a pleasure to meet Cornelia Parker, the acclaimed sculptor and installation artist who came to see me with Maria Balshaw, Director of our Whitworth Gallery. Cornelia is working with Professor Kostya Novoselov on the finale of the re-opening of the Gallery next month: a graphene-triggered firework and meteorite shower over the Whitworth Park. She is also working with a number of staff across the University on art projects and as Honorary Pilkington Professor she will be exploring art, sustainability and climate change.
Last week, a number of our staff and I took part in a visit by Innovate UK (IUK - previously called the Technology Strategy Board) to assess bids to host a new Catapult in precision medicine. Catapults are centres that work between academia and industry and this one is to develop personalised nd targeted new diagnostics and medicines. We are part of a proposal from the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) which comprises the eight research intensive universities across the North of England and their main hospital partners. The proposal is for the heart of the Catapult to be based at Alderley Park in Cheshire, which is now owned by Manchester Science Partnerships (MSP) and where there are fantastic facilities, and work with all of the NHSA partners.
I was at Alderley Park again the next day to present awards for AstraZenecea’s ‘3R’s initiative’ to develop ways to replace, reduce or refine the use of animals in research, drug discovery and assessment. I saw some remarkable research, much developed by their technical staff.
Professor Richard Reece, Associate Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, and I met Simon Nelson, Head of FutureLearn which hosts MOOCs (mass open online courses). We already run a number of these free courses, which have been very successful, and are now considering some further topics, possibly with FutureLearn. Professor Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, visited the University to give a seminar in the Faculty of Life Sciences and host a lunch with Manchester fellows of the Royal Society. We discussed scientific publishing, careers, PhD students, how the Royal Society interacts with senior politicians on issues such as research funding and sensitive topics like climate change and further links between business and academia.
At the Board of Governors’ Finance Committee meeting we reviewed our major Capital Plan and progress on all targets. We have some great buildings/refurbishments opening soon, including the Whitworth Art Gallery extension, the National Graphene Institute and the new cancer building opposite The Christie Hospital. We also considered our long term investments - here we try to balance the need for a strong financial return, level of risk and our policy of socially responsible investment.
The next day was the Board Audit Committee meeting where some of the same topics were reviewed along with a range of internal audits. We met our new external auditors from Ernst and Young and heard about the true costs and returns of all of our activities through our ‘TRAC’ (transparent approach to costing) analysis. We also heard about the risks we face from ‘cyber attacks’ on all, or any, of our IT systems and the proposals we are putting in place to counter these.
At other senior staff meetings, we discussed the scheduled ‘refresh’ of our Manchester 2020 strategy and plan over coming months and the position on proposed changes to pensions for staff who are members of the USS scheme. You may have seen that Universities and College Union (UCU) members have voted to accept the joint UUK/UCU proposal for reform of the USS. The USS Joint Negotiating Committee is meeting today and you will be kept informed of the outcome and next steps.
Too many grants to review just at the moment, but the early results of our clinical trial look exciting!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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