President's Weekly Update

28 January 2016

I hosted our annual dinner for our civic leaders, attended by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, the Lord Lieutenant, the Honorary Recorder, the Lord Bishop, the High Sheriff, several other local leaders and senior University staff. I asked them to discuss a local theme - on this occasion, it was how we better promote Manchester as a vibrant and growing city that is attractive to visitors, residents, students and companies. European Science Open Forum (ESOF) and Manchester as European City of Science featured quite heavily, along with ideas to promote culture, business and the cosmopolitan nature of Manchester.

A similar theme was discussed at a meeting of Manchester Global Ambassadors - of which I am one! I was part of a discussion panel of four Ambassadors, asked to talk about the strengths of the City. Earlier I had been filmed about why I had agreed to be an Ambassador. Of course I talked about my pride in Manchester and its incredible past and present, and its future promise - in culture, business, science and innovation, leisure (including football) and its growing attraction nationally and internationally. I was also interviewed by the magazine ‘Euroscientist’ about why I had agreed to be champion of ESOF, with Professor Luke Georghiou, our Vice-President for Research and Innovation.

I attended a workshop on Regional Economic Analysis across Greater Manchester led by Ernst & Young, which gave a picture of economic growth across the world and in the UK, then looked at the position of Manchester, which is clearly strong in the UK, but still well behind London.

A key topic was Devo Manc and, in particular, the devolution of the health budget to Greater Manchester, which is now very close - April this year! Recognising that the University’s strengths in research, education and social responsibility which are relevant to health span all our faculties, I am very pleased that Professor Chris Griffiths has agreed to take overall responsibility for engaging these wide-ranging areas in relation to Devo Manc. Chris is a clinical professor with extensive experience in research, education and health.

We hosted a visit from senior staff from Reliance Industries, the second largest company in India. I had met with one of their senior staff in Mumbai on my trip to India before Christmas. This visit to Manchester followed up my earlier discussions about potential collaboration on advanced materials and industrial biotechnology, but we also discussed possible links on education, culture and social responsibility. In a separate meeting, I met one of the Ministers from Bangalore to talk about research and educational interactions.

I presented to councillors at Manchester City Council about Corridor Manchester (formerly Oxford Road Corridor) partnership, which I now chair, to discuss the forward strategy and fortuitously was able to join the preceding item on ESOF and European City of Science! It was so nice to hear councillors of some of the most disadvantaged city areas praising the University for what we are doing with local communities - quite a change from 10 years ago, when the University was likened to the Vatican, ie impenetrable (but probably less holy).

I met Afzal Khan, who was previously a local councillor and member of our Board of Governors and is now a Member of the European Parliament, to discuss encouraging students to vote in all elections, the relationships between the University and local communities (he also said these were markedly improved) and the forthcoming vote on the UK’s membership of the European Union.

Senior colleagues and I held one of our regular meetings with the members of the Students’ Union Executive to talk about implications of changes in government funding in a range of areas including the maintenance grant, funding for nursing students and the loss of disability allowance. They also told us that the elections for the next members of the Union Executive are imminent.

I met Sally MacDonald, Director of the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), and Professor Russell Foster, a trustee of the Science Museum Group, with Henry McGhie from our own Museum, to discuss how we can enhance links between the University and MOSI. I have known Russell for many years - he contributed to my Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1998! Sally and I explained the numerous existing links and collaborations and we considered how we can enhance these further.

At the Board Finance Committee, we focussed on the performance of our investments, our endowment funds and our capital masterplan. At the Board Audit Committee, we received a presentation on the TRAC return to HEFCE which provides a breakdown of expenditure under key headings, reviewed internal audits of a range of activities and held a more detailed discussion around two areas of risk - recruitment of international students and our Campus Masterplan.

We had our Annual Assurance Review from HEFCE, which involved individual meetings with the Chair of our Board, several other senior staff and me. The feedback at the end of the visit was very positive,  indicating that there will be no major recommendations to address.

I also spent time this week working on our submission to government for the potential audit of our regional Science and Innovation strengths, our proposal for National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) funding for Biomedical Research Centres, which will be submitted together as a ‘Manchester bid’, and the response to referees on a major grant to take our stroke research into a clinical trial in patients (referees’ reports were good, but you never know).

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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