President's Weekly Update
9 July 2015
This week saw many students on campus in their gowns attending their graduation ceremonies with family and friends. This is one of my favourite times of year for the University as our graduating students celebrate and visitors come from all over the world, often in colourful dress. It is also a very busy time for all the many staff who work behind the scenes to ensure that the many ceremonies -four each day for two weeks - run smoothly. The first one I presided over was for students in the Schools of Psychological Sciences and Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work. In addition to me as Presiding Officer, the Acting Registrar and all three presenters were female.
At the last meeting of the academic year of our Board of Governors we had a very full agenda. In addition to the discussion and agreement of budgets and a number of other end of academic year activities, the Board discussed the report on the Review of Life Sciences and Cognate Disciplines and approved the recommendations from Senate that the University should be reconstituted so that all academic activity is organised around three Faculties, moving different component parts of the current Faculty of Life Sciences into two other Faculties: the Faculty of Medical, Biological and Human Sciences and the Faculty of Science and Engineering (working titles).
The Board also considered a paper from the Students’ Union and Fossil Free Manchester urging us to divest our reserves in companies that excavate fossil fuels. This was discussed in detail and the Board recommended that the Board Finance Committee consider reviewing our current Socially Responsible Investment Policy in light of the paper and also requested a detailed paper from the University on these issues.
After the Board meeting we held a reception to say goodbye and thank you to members whose terms of office have come to an end.
We held another meeting of the leadership of the developing Academic Health Science System (AHSS). This will act bring together research in the University and across our partners in the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) with the organisations which are implementing new innovations and providing health care.
At one of my regular lunches with staff from across the University, they raised the challenge of finding out who is working on similar areas in the many Schools across the University. I suggested that they try our research repository where you can search key words or academic staff working in similar fields which can be found at:
They also raised the complexity of some of our regulations - many of which are determined by our Statutes and Ordinances or by external regulatory bodies. We discussed how these could be simplified and made easier to navigate. We also talked about the importance of changes to our campus and how we can make the University an even more attractive place that people wish to visit and learn about what we do.
I attended a meeting of the local Steering Group of ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum to be held in July 2016) which is chaired by Sir Howard Bernstein. Progress is very good and we have a large number of proposals for the scientific programme that are currently under review. You can find out more at:
There was an induction day for the incoming executive members of the Students’ Union. I spoke to them about the scale and activities of the University, our aims and ambitions and the likely challenges over the next few years, then answered questions on how we choose what to do and what to stop doing (or do less), how we balance our response to addressing ‘radicalisation’ and potential terrorism with freedom of speech, what makes The University of Manchester distinctive and what I thought the Students’ Union could do better. I said that the key issue for them is the challenge of trying to engage across a very large and diverse student body.
Dr Nick Hillman, one of our graduates and now head of HEPI, the Higher Education Policy Institute, visited us this week. Nick was previously special advisor to David Willetts when he was Minister for Universities and Science and is a good friend of Professor Andy Westwood, our Associate Vice-President for Public Affairs. Nick, Andy and I discussed how the ‘new’ government is likely to support universities, likely cuts in funding in forthcoming budgets and the comprehensive spending review and how we can best present the case for the importance of universities to the health and wealth of the UK. Andy and Nick then set of to the Students’ Union to visit their old haunts!
I had a meeting with Tony Lloyd, the interim Mayor for Greater Manchester until the full Mayor is elected in 2017. Tony was keen to visit the University to meet key staff to determine how the University can help Grater Manchester and how he and the region can best support us.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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