President's Weekly Update
19 May 2016
This week we saw several major announcements from Government that may signal significant changes for universities. On Monday, a White Paper was published called ‘Success as a knowledge economy: reaching excellence, social mobility and student choice’. See:
This described the creation of a new Office for Students, a ‘more level playing field’ for all providers including new organisations, more student choice, a ‘risk based’ assessment and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), for which a technical consultation was released. It was also announced that the proposals described in the Nurse review of research councils will now be enacted. There will be a new body called UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which will oversee all seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and all research budgets and activities in universities that are currently under HEFCE. All other universities’ activities will be managed by a new ‘Office for Students’. The proposals have some merits but a key concern is that the two major activities of universities, namely teaching and research, will now be overseen by two different organisations.
I attended several meetings dealing with regional issues.
The Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership (GM LEP) meeting was hosted at the University and followed by a dinner of GM LEP members with senior staff from the University. We discussed how we can further contribute to the regional economy, Health Devolution, developments in advanced materials, culture, business and degree apprenticeships and work which is ongoing on the Government’s Science and Innovation Audits. We also updated on plans for and progress with ESOF.
A meeting called ‘20 years after the Manchester bomb’, at the National Football Museum, was held to discuss the progress and changes in Manchester since the IRA bomb in 1996. I talked about the changes to our University (many) and how we have contributed to the growth of the city, particularly since the merger of UMIST and the Victoria University in 2004.
I also spoke at a meeting of Northern business leaders which was considering the strengths and opportunities in the region. This was timely for input to our Science and Innovation Audit, which GM is submitting with Cheshire East and is being led by the University and New Economy in the City, and highlighted the need to better promote our strengths.
We held one of our regular joint meetings between the University and key staff in the City. Several senior colleagues spoke about how we can contribute to the areas of transport, culture and skills.
I hosted a dinner for about 60 staff who have joined the University recently. The purpose was for me to meet them, for them to meet each other and also for them to tell us why they joined us, what they think is good and what needs to be improved. They were remarkably positive, with many constructive comments on communication, induction for new staff and better promoting our assets (many had visited The Whitworth, our Museum, John Rylands Library and Jodrell Bank), and very supportive of our commitment to social responsibility.
At an event for the Doubleday Centre for Patient Experience, which supports our work with patients in the education of our medical students, I gave the welcome. I explained why this Centre was so important to us in the context of social responsibility and timely because of our ability to ‘join up' the health and social care budgets in Greater Manchester, which includes a major focus on engaging local citizens and patients.
I also gave a presentation at an Inside Government event on ‘The Next Steps for Devolution: Delivering the Northern Powerhouse’ about how universities contribute to regional and wider economies and deliver social benefit.
Much of this week has been spent on University budgets for next year which, with significant additional costs and reductions in funding, have been challenging. Many senior colleagues have also been working on our application for Biomedical Research Centre funding, which I reviewed at the weekend.
During a day trip to London, I met one of our major donors, attended a Council meeting of the Royal Society and met the Minister for Universities and Science with several other Vice-Chancellors.
Good luck to over 1,000 of our staff and students who will be running in the Greater Manchester (10k) Run event this weekend. They will all be starting together, dressed in purple to create what they call a ‘purple haze’, and aiming to raise significant funds for charity.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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