President's weekly update
6 September 2018
This week’s message comes from Hong Kong as I’m on a four-day visit (including a day in Shenzen in China) to meet alumni, our Hong Kong Foundation, many generous donors and partners. I will give a further update next week.
I hope that you all managed to take some time as holiday over the past few weeks, although I know that many colleagues have been working hard on activities that take place over the summer, including research, preparing for the forthcoming academic year, student recruitment and the intensive estates work that takes place while many students are away.
August was a particularly busy time for all staff involved in student recruitment as A level results were announced. There were a number of challenges this year including a major change in A level courses, a reduction in the number of 18 year-olds in the UK and some universities making more unconditional offers than usual. We took over 7,000 calls on and soon after A level results were released and received 350,000 hits on our clearing website. It’s too early to confirm our final recruitment figures for the new academic year, but at the moment it is likely that we will be below our target numbers on Home/EU undergraduates (largely because we kept to quality thresholds for entry) but will be above target on international students.
Those of you who are members of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension scheme will have received a consultation pack through the post to your home address outlining proposed changes to the scheme. The consultation is open now and runs until Friday, 2 November 2018 and it is important that you take the time to read the information available and respond. This consultation is taking place at the same time as the Joint Expert Panel which continues to meet and aims to report its findings to stakeholders during September.
- For more information on the current consultation visit: USS Consultation
Members of the other main pension scheme (The University of Manchester Superannuation Scheme - UMSS) should previously have received notification that the consultation on proposed changes to this scheme has now been extended until 11 September.
- You can find out more at: UMSS Consultation
We heard in August that our University had climbed four places in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU - also known as the Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking) to 34th, our highest position ever. We need to be very wary of global rankings of universities which are proliferating and measure very different things. ARWU, unlike some, is based on data but focusses on the very highest end of research achievement.
The National Student Survey (NSS) of satisfaction result for 2018 was also announced in August. For our University, the overall satisfaction was 83%. This is lower than where we want to be and we know we have much work to do to improve this score. We also acknowledge that this year’s survey took place at a time when some of our students felt disadvantaged by industrial action. To add further context, there was a drop in satisfaction across the whole sector and amongst the Russell Group of universities. We are now at the same average as both groups.
Over the summer, several senior colleagues and I visited Chester Zoo for the launch of a major collaboration on research to support conservation of endangered species. I liked the news headline ‘Saving species through faeces’ referring to measuring hormones in rhino dung. This partnership includes research, student internships and wider community engagement about delivering understanding of science through enjoyable experiences.
Over recent weeks I have had meetings with the Bangladeshi Assistant High Commissioner and the Deputy British High Commissioner for Kolkata (Calcutta) in India to discuss international students, business engagement and academic partnerships.
I met the incoming Director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) to discuss potential collaborations. We already have research links with LSTM and will look to developing these further.
Senior colleagues and I met with the new executive team of our Students’ Union to brief them about the University and the wider HE sector. They asked some smart questions and we look forward to partnering on many issues, while of course we will disagree on others.
A most pleasurable experience was meeting two PhD students from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in Mumbai. We have a number of collaborations with ICT. I visited ICT last year and was honoured with an Ambani ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’, with a modest cash award. I asked that the funding be used to support a visit to Manchester for PhD students who are part of our collaboration. The two I met were just full of praise for the support they had received at the University and how warmly they had been welcomed by everyone.
Next week we’re launching Our Future – an initiative to encourage colleagues to think about what the future holds for our University and share their ideas about the kind of institution we want to be – looking as far ahead as 2030. This is a totally new approach to developing our University’s strategic vision and one which gives a voice to the University’s greatest asset – you, our staff. All staff will have the opportunity to get involved by taking part in dedicated team meetings, University-wide events or simply by putting forward your own ideas online.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor