President's Weekly Update
23 June 2016
I spent Sunday and Monday in Hong Kong attending the THE (Times Higher Education) Asia Universities Summit, with about 250 attendees. I spoke on ‘Research, industrial engagement and entrepreneurship - finding the right balance’ and included some examples from our own University.
This coincided with the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), with which we have several collaborations. I attended the dinner to celebrate their anniversary with about 1500 other guests. This gave an excellent opportunity to chat with other vice-chancellors of universities where we have strong links, such as the National University of Singapore, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Harbin and Zhejiang universities in China, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University.
I had several private meetings with our major donors in Hong Kong (one of whom pledged £1 million for access scholarships) and saw many of them at a dinner hosted by Dr Eric Li, Chair of the University’s Hong Kong Foundation, which is enormously supportive of the University.
Before I left Manchester I met Dr Gerald Chan, who is from Hong Kong but now based mainly in Boston. Gerald has visited us several times and on this occasion he heard about a number of research project and start-up companies. He was particularly interested in Health Devolution and discussed with Professor Ian Greer, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City, and me how we can capture information on what we called ‘The Manchester Experiment’, ie the massive change resulting from devolution of Greater Manchester’s healthcare budget (£6 billion per annum).
I landed back from Hong Kong early on Tuesday and that evening hosted a garden party at Broomcroft Hall for about 20 of our major UK donors to thank them for their generosity. Rory Brooks, Chair of our Global Leadership Board, spoke on behalf of our donors, and the sun did come out for a while
At General Assembly this week I updated members on recent developments in the University, including some notable successes and major challenges - not least the outcome of the EU Referendum which we will know tomorrow, the Government’s White paper on Higher Education, the rising costs of construction while income streams are level at best and the ever growing competition for students.
Professor Andy Westwood, who is our Associate Vice-President for Public Affairs, also spoke on ‘Success as a knowledge economy’, describing the Government’s proposed changes to higher education and research funding. Prior to the meeting members viewed posters describing our ‘Making a Difference’ activities with the main themes of our Social Responsibility agenda. Inevitably there was discussion on the EU referendum and you may have seen my message to all our staff and students:
I opened a conference in University Place attended by almost 500 delegates to launch the N8 universities’ (the eight Northern research intensive universities) collaboration on agriculture and food sustainability. This has brought Government funding across the partnership which has allowed us to recruit in this area and thus build on our new Environment Institute.
I met Anil Ruia, Chair of our Board of Governors, to update him on current activities and plans, then we met with two potential new members of the Board.
We held yet another meeting to update on ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum) which is now really taking shape, with almost 1500 registrants from over 80 countries and 250 representatives of the media attending. The exhibition space is nearly full and most speakers are now in place.
It is with some relief that all three major bids that we have been working on have now been submitted: Biomedical Research Centre funding and extension of our Clinical Research Facility to the National Institutes of Health (funded through the Department of Health); and funding for a dementia research centre to the Medical Research Council. Each bid alone was a huge amount of work but, since they all came at almost exactly the same time, many people have been working exceptionally hard to get the proposals into such good shape.
Stroke Association, which funds my own research, is calling for ‘A New Era for Stroke’ so that the Government implements a new stroke strategy from next year when the current one ends. If you work on stroke or you or your relatives or friends have been affected by it, you may wish to see:
You will have seen many prospective students visiting the University last Friday and Saturday for our major open day of the year - let’s hope they chose to study with us!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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