President's Weekly Update
6 April 2017
You may be aware that Sir Howard Bernstein retired last week as Chief Executive of Manchester City Council and Head of Paid Service for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority after about 40 years of working for the Council and many notable achievements. I am delighted that Howard will become an honorary Professor of Politics at our University and will also have an advisory role on government interactions, health care delivery, devolution, culture and international links. You can find out more at: Sir Howard Bernstein I met with Howard in his first week with us and we already have a long list of actions!
I attended the North West Institute of Directors annual dinner at the Midland Hotel, along with about 250 other senior leaders, mostly from businesses, from across the region. I was very honoured to be presented with the Chair’s award for the director who has contributed most widely to the region. The Chair (Mike Perles) was on a regional trade mission to San Francisco (to mark the new direct flight from Manchester), but I was delighted that the citation was read by Professor Malcolm Press, Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.
You may have seen the very extensive national and international news coverage of one of our most recent papers on applications of graphene:
I spoke at the annual Emeritus Professors' lunch in the Whitworth Hall. It was attended by about 80 people, quite a number of whom are still active in the University. I spoke about the current climate of uncertainty and the many changes currently facing the University, our achievements over the past year and the areas where we clearly need to do better to achieve our Manchester 2020 goals, then answered lots of questions.
I met our auditors from Ernst and Young who said that the annual audit is progressing well. We spent most of the time discussing the challenges facing higher education, including Brexit, student applications, the Teaching Excellence Framework, the Higher Education and Research Bill and global competition.
I was filmed for a promotion of our Manchester Enterprise Centre and spoke about the value of enterprise training for students from across the University to research, teaching and social responsibility.
We have a number of major donors visiting us this week for our biennial Philanthropy Day. I met donors who had travelled from China, Hong Kong, the USA and many parts of the UK to thank them for their generous donations and, in some cases, for the gift of their time as well as money. Two of those I met have a strong interest in fast cars and were fascinated by the ‘graphene enhanced’ BAC Mono car.
I hosted a dinner for new staff at the University and, along with several senior colleagues, asked them why they chose to join the University, what they liked and felt worked well, and what we need to do better. They noted the reputation of the University and that they felt valued and welcomed. They mentioned social responsibility, our cultural assets, city links and international nature as highly valued and distinctive. A major comment I received from staff who have previously worked outside the university sector is how hard it is to change anything and how often they heard ‘this is the way we have always done this’! We discussed some systems and processes that could be improved, but overall they were positive.
I gave a talk at the British Society for Investigative Dermatology annual meeting at the Hilton in Manchester, where I noted a number of speakers from the University. I spoke about my career, my research and being a Vice-Chancellor and was asked if I might consider a next career move to work on skin!
It was a great pleasure to welcome Hermann Hauser this week, just before he gave a lecture at the Alliance Manchester Business School. I have known Hermann for a long time and he is an eminent and very successful entrepreneur and venture capital investor.
Can I remind everyone to complete the Staff Survey either online or on paper – the closing date is Tuesday, 18 April. We’ve had a good response so far with over 60% of staff having their say, however we need to meet our target of a 75% response rate across all parts of the University. You can find out more at:
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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