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President's weekly update

28 June 2018

At the final Senate meeting of this academic year I thanked those members of Senate whose term has ended or who are leaving the University.

We discussed proposed changes to our Statutes as a result of recommendations from our Board’s independent review of governance last year and from the Department for Education. We agreed to pass on the comments from some Senate members to the Board of Governors. We received an update on the group of Senate members that is reviewing Senate effectiveness. Senate approved the terms of reference for the group, discussed preparations for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF), had updates on research and teaching and made recommendations to the Board on nominations for honorary doctorates. 

The Trustees of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS, the pension fund that many of our staff are members of) has issued a further update

I chaired one of our regular meetings between senior staff at the University and leaders in the City and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). We exchanged information on GMCA’s recent bid to be a leading ‘5G communications’ region which we contributed to, our growing international links - particularly with China, wider development in artificial intelligence/digital and culture, and  retention of our graduates in the North-West.  We also discussed the ‘Strength in Places’ funding from government.

We have been working on the ‘expression of interest’ for this new government fund, which aims to build on research excellence to drive regional economic benefit. We will make use of the extensive audit of strengths in science and innovation that we prepared for the government recently. This resulted in our identification of leading strengths in advanced materials and health innovation, with emerging strengths in digital, energy and industrial biotechnology. Hence the bid will be led by the University with Manchester Science Partnerships as the commercial partner and GMCA, but also with other universities and research strengths in the region. The topic will be about bringing strengths in engineering and physical sciences (eg digital, biomaterials) to health and hence economic benefit.

At a meeting I had with Andy Burnham, the elected mayor for Greater Manchester, we covered many of the same topics as with the GMCA but also talked about training in much needed areas such as nursing and other healthcare professionals.

At a meeting with both the outgoing and oncoming Executive Officers of our Students’ Union - they will hand over at the end of this month - I summarised the University’s key priorities for the next year, as agreed with our Board of Governors. We also spent some time discussing current and planned activities to support student mental health. In addition to working with GM Health and Social Care partnership on mental health issues, we plan to launch activities to provide training to raise awareness of mental health and factors which might contribute to mental health difficulties amongst staff and students.

You will all know of the critical importance of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) to the University. Our REF project board is analysing the results from our recent annual Research Review Exercise (RRE) which covers all academics with a teaching and research contract and many research staff. It is a University requirement that all of these staff respond. You can update your RRE profile at any point in PURE. I urge you to do so whenever you have a new output.  The next RRE deadline is January 2019.

I hosted an early evening event for a number of major donors to the University to thank them for their contributions - both time and financial support - and I updated them on recent and planned activities.

I met Peter Chenery, Chief Executive of the Royal Anniversary Trust, who gave us very helpful advice on future submissions for Queen’s Anniversary Prizes. We have won several of these previously - the award is of significant reputational value and marked by a major ceremony at Buckingham Palace. We are considering the next submission which is due in March 2019 and Peter was most helpful in advising on what makes a strong submission.

At our Board Finance Committee we considered further detail of our developing plan for the North Campus, including estimated costs and revenues from a range of operating models. The committee recommended approval of the 2018/19 budget to the Board for its approval but noted major risks and financial challenges in future years. They also reviewed our overall capital plan, our commercial activities and benchmarking the costs and effectiveness of our Professional Support Services against those of a number of other comparable universities. 

I chaired a Board meeting of the Oxford Road Corridor where we welcomed the new Chief Executive, Steven Cochrane. We approved the branding and marketing strategy for the area covered by the Corridor around Oxford Road and discussed promoting health assets and expertise in the area, digital infrastructure and cultural activities.

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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