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President's weekly update

25 October 2018

I have previously highlighted the launch of Creative Manchester and last week wrote about the Nancy Rothwell Award run by the Royal Society of Biology for artwork by children depicting biology. The relationship between art and science is something I have a longstanding interest in. This came up again in the annual Manchester Medical Society event I attended this week which was devoted to art and health, which is a major activity for a number of our staff. I described my personal views on art and science (notably that they are really not so different and both involve creativity and rigour) and gave examples of interactions, such as our annual Bluedot festival at Jodrell Bank which combines science and music. Others discussed the impact of the arts on health and ‘intelligent machines’.

As you may know I still try to spend some time each week on my own neuroscience research which has a particular focus on the treatment of brain damage in stroke and head injury.  It was a real pleasure therefore to speak at the official launch of our Lydia Becker Institute for immunology and inflammation, led by Professor Tracy Hussell.  I am a (modestly active) member of the Institute in the neuroimmunology and neuroinflammation section.  A very important feature of the Institute is its breadth. It covers fundamental and translational science, clinical research, including the development of new treatments, collaboration with industry and has a strong commitment to public engagement. There was a very impressive turnout of senior staff and younger researchers, external collaborators and funders at the launch event at the Science and Industry Museum.

Last week I also gave the annual Sir William Harvey lecture at Bart’s and Queen Mary, University London on our research on inflammation and stroke where I spoke about fundamental mechanisms of brain damage and our ongoing clinical trials. It was a great pleasure to catch up with colleagues who I have worked with in the past on inflammation.

Senior colleagues and I met with members of our Students’ Union Executive to get to know each other better and to discuss items of common interest. Students asked about the likelihood of further strike action by staff, however the recent UCU ballot on strike action over pay did not reach the required threshold of 50% returns across the sector or for our University. This means that the UCU does not have a mandate to take industrial action over pay.  We also discussed student mental health issues following our announcement earlier this month to increase mental health support to students, better engagement with international students and transport in the city.

I participated in a visit by the Chief Technology Officer for Rolls-Royce which included tours of our National Graphene Institute and the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (the latter will formally open soon). We discussed several major potential ‘industrial challenge’ bids to government which we would likely be directly involved in, and the potential of new materials, particularly to reduce weight in transport and hence lower energy requirements.

At the External Relations Strategy Group, which I chair, we agreed that we can be much better at promoting the University internationally, telling more stories about our staff and social responsibility activities and ensure that some of the unique offerings to our students are better communicated, including Stellify.

We held our senior salaries review meeting, which I chair. This includes consideration of salaries for senior academic and Professional Services staff. We are very mindful of concerns about salaries for senior staff and always ensure that the total spend on salary increases is less than the average for staff across the University.

At a regular meeting with Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, we discussed our work in schools in the city, including our School Governors’ programme, our consultation on ‘Our Future’, our new initiative to support student mental health, developing plans for our North Campus, transport in Manchester (which has been challenging for many of late), Creative Manchester and other activities that we hope benefit the city region.

If you missed Horizon on BBC2 this week, you can catch up on BBC iPlayer. It was presented by Professor Danielle George, Vice-Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students in the Faculty of Science and Engineering and was all about avalanches. The programme was described by one newspaper as ‘the Jason Bourne of documentaries’!

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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