President's Weekly Update
7 June 2018
Our Annual Cockcroft Rutherford lecture, our main alumni event of the year, was given by David Nott OBE to a packed audience in University Place. David graduated from our University in medicine, then went on to become a surgeon. For many years he has taken unpaid leave to work in the world’s worst war zones, treating civilians with horrific injuries. He also trains local surgeons, runs training programmes in London and works with many aid agencies such as the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Médecins Sans Frontières. His enthralling and very moving talk showed pictures and film of his incredible work, often in terrible and dangerous conditions with bombs going off around him. One film was of an emergency caesarean section on a woman who had been shot in the abdomen and was met with loud applause as the baby was delivered safely. You can watch the lecture online but be aware that it includes graphic images and footage of injuries and surgery that some viewers may find distressing.
You may have seen the announcement last week that Patrick Hackett has been appointed the next Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the University to succeed Will Spinks when he retires at the end of September. Last week Patrick came in to the University to meet a number of staff and will be doing so again over the summer.
There’s an update on StaffNet outlining how national pay increase negotiations are progressing to reach agreement on the level of pay increase for 2018/19 across higher education institutions. We aim to provide an attractive pay and benefits package to our staff and remain committed to reaching a settlement which is fair for staff and affordable for our University.
I met nearly 60 colleagues who have enrolled on our Building Futures programme which is funded via the government’s Apprenticeship Levy and enables us to further invest in skills development for our staff. Many staff involved were returning to learning after a considerable gap. Everyone was very positive about their experience and keen to gain qualifications. We are hoping more colleagues will enrol and that our recruitment of apprentices from local communities will continue to grow.
I gave evidence as a member of a panel to the Civic University Commission, chaired by Lord Bob Kerslake and set up to explore how civic universities operate today, how they operated in the past, and how they should operate in the future. I spoke about the importance of social responsibility to our University and the work we do with local communities. The whole group of commissioners had earlier learnt about our programme The Works, which has helped about 4,000 local people into employment, our Manchester Access Programme for widening participation and the outreach activities of our Manchester Museum. An interesting question posed by the Commission was: “What would the founders of the Manchester Mechanics’ Institution (the origin of both our University and Manchester Metropolitan University in 1824) think of our universities today?” I said I hoped they would feel that we had returned to our roots in our growing work with local people.
At the Humanities Faculty Leadership team meeting we discussed challenges to the higher education sector. We also discussed the major opportunities for humanities, for example in creative and cultural studies, digital, business engagement, development studies and health and social care. I was asked about my expectations for the Universities Superannuation Scheme pension fund discussions and the post-18 review of student education and finance, though on both I could only speculate.
I had separate meetings with Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council (MCC), and Joanne Roney, Chief Executive of MCC. In both we discussed our work on inclusive growth, community engagement and our work with local schools, progress with our Campus Masterplan and the plans that we are developing for our North Campus, business engagement, our growing activities in digital and creative and the recent government funding announcement called Strength In Places to support regional economic growth.
Professor Clive Agnew, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, and I held our last meeting with Alex Tayler, the outgoing General Secretary of the Students’ Union. With other senior staff we also held our last meeting with current officers of the Students’ Union who will hand over to the new officers at the end of the month. We were updated on their many achievements over the last month and also discussed our ongoing and planned activities to tackle the growing problem of student mental health.
At a meeting of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Foresight group we discussed the recent dinner on artificial intelligence and specific outcomes to take forward, and considered the next meeting of the group in the autumn.
Professor Steve Flint, Associate Vice-President for Internationalisation, and I met the Mexican Ambassador, Julian Ventura Valero, to discuss our Mexican students and current and future research and business engagement activities with Mexico. He then went on to meet some of our Mexican students and staff.
At a meeting of a new group (the Biomedical Forum) hosted by the Wellcome Trust, I joined with many leaders in biomedical research to discuss how best to impact on government policy, engage with the wider public and help to support the next generation of leaders in biomedicine.
I hope that you have managed to enjoy the recent beautiful weather, especially those who took a short holiday for half term. But as so often seems to be the case, glorious sunshine coincided with students revising for and sitting exams and many staff with heavy marking loads. Let’s hope this glorious weather continues after exams are finished and all marking is complete.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor