President's Weekly Update
14 September 2017
Next week will see Welcome Week and the start of the new academic year. Many new students will arrive and our existing students will return – indeed some international students have arrived already. I hope that you will all make our students feel very welcome and wear your purple ‘Ask Me’ badges!
I spent much of last week in Hong Kong and in Shenzhen, which is just over the border in China. It was a very busy but productive week. I met the President of the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong (CUHK) and some of his senior staff. We already have several partner projects with CUHK that are funded through our Hong Kong Foundation (HKF) which is comprised of very successful and generous alumni. Since these have been running for a while and are working well we are considering extending the programme.
We have also invited bids for similar collaborative projects with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and I met their President and senior staff. For both universities there are many areas of common interest. For details of applications for funds, visit:
Applications should be submitted online at:
At a board meeting and Annual General Meeting of our HKF, I summarised the opportunities and challenges facing universities in the UK at the present time, including Brexit, which they all wanted to hear about. At a dinner following the meetings we met several alumni that we had not previously had contact with. I also had private meetings with a number of current or potential donors.
I spent a day in Shenzhen, which is considered to be the ‘Silicon Valley of China’, with many companies and a huge amount of investment (the region spends 4% of its GDP on universities and research). I visited the CUHK, Shenzen campus which is extremely impressive. It is very new and so far has only about 4,000 students. All teaching is conducted in English, their facilities are excellent and they recruit the top few percentage of Chinese students. We discussed the possibility of student exchanges and joint degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
I also met senior staff from TsinghuaUniversity, Shenzhen campus, with which we have existing strong collaborations and aim to build on these, particularly in science and engineering.
Staff from our Faculty of Science and Engineering spent several days with the China Guangzhou Nuclear group, which is a major government owned organisation. I joined them to give an overview of our University and to witness the signing of an agreement on research collaboration.
We held a large and very lively alumni event in Shenzhen for about 200 graduates, most of whom had graduated in the past few years and all of whom were very enthusiastic about Manchester and the University. Some had travelled from Hong Kong, Beijing and even Wuhan to attend.
On the final evening I presided over a renaming ceremony at what was our Alliance Manchester Business Centre and will now be our University Worldwide Centre, reflecting an extension of their remit beyond the BusinessSchool. The Centre is celebrating a very successful 25 years and the event was attended by many graduates and local VIPs.
The direct flight from Hong Kong allowed me to leave at 1 am after the dinner and arrive in Manchester at 6am, so I could be at work by 8.30 am!
Back here on campus, I chaired a further meeting of staff from across the University working on data sciences, which incorporates computing, maths, health data, personal data, social sciences, ‘fintech’, cybersecurity and ‘creative digital’ to discuss opportunities for collaborative working and funding and areas where we may need to build strength.
At Finance Sub-Committee and the Board Finance Committee we reviewed the financial position for the past year, which is still subject to audit, the pension position and bids for endowment funds. At Capital Planning Sub-Committee we received an update on all of our ongoing capital programmes.
The inaugural Pennine YPO (Young Presidents) ‘Gold’ dinner was held in the AV Hill Building for about 60 leaders of companies in the region, several of whom are significant supporters of the University. Guests toured the labs and heard about research on dementia. I gave the opening welcome and the main speech was given by Professor Koen Kas, an oncologist and entrepreneur from Ghent University, Belgium, on how to make healthcare more personalised, predictive and ultimately preventative.
I visited The King David High School in north Manchester with Lawrence Rosenberg, one of our final year students and a former President of the Manchester Jewish Society. We both spoke to their assembly about the University, the importance of the diversity of our students and free speech. Lawrence spoke passionately about how welcoming our University is.
I had a teleconference with Jake Berry MP, Minister for the Northern Powerhouse, to talk about how universities can contribute to economic growth and better social equality in the North. He now aims to visit the University to discuss our activities and partnerships across the North.
At the Board meeting of the Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre (MAHSC), which I attended, a major topic was our response to the government’s Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. We also received an update on Health Innovation Manchester and progress on external partnerships.
The Voluntary Severance Scheme in identified academic areas is now closed and panels are in the process of reviewing the applications we received. In the meantime, the scheme for Professional Support Services staff (which closed several weeks ago) did not receive the number of applications we had hoped for in one area. As result of this we are preparing the case for Staffing Committee to consider recommending to our Board of Governors the use of a compulsory redundancy process for a small number of roles in the PSS.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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