President's Weekly Update
8 March
I am very pleased to see that Universities UK (UUK), representing employers, and the University and College Union (UCU) have been meeting with the arbitration service ACAS regarding the proposed changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension scheme. It remains my firm hope that they will reach a solution that provides a secure, attractive and affordable pension for members of USS and the end to the current industrial dispute. I have been in regular contact with UUK to personally encourage the negotiators to seek common ground and to find an alternative solution. I hope you have also seen from the statement I issued last Friday that our university would be prepared to consider an increase to the already very significant employers’ contribution to USS as part of an agreed national solution - though this could be difficult for some other universities.
As part of our ongoing commitment to students the University will in no way benefit from the industrial action called by the UCU. Any savings on pay from staff who declared they were on strike will be used for the benefit of our students. We are considering whether it would be helpful for deductions in pay to be spread over several months. I hope that staff will continue to alert students to forthcoming disruption to teaching in order to minimise the impact on our students.
In a visit to the School of Materials, the meeting with students was rather dominated by one student who had questions on our investments, research collaborations, an interview I did with the Mancunion a few years ago and pensions. Other students raised questions about the effect of industrial action, said that some employers felt that a one year Masters course was too short and noted variations in teaching quality. Much of the discussion with staff was about pensions but they also raised the proposed Faculty Teaching College as something beneficial and one said that at all his previous institutions he had never had an opportunity to meet with the Vice-Chancellor.
I attended an open meeting where students from the Alliance Manchester Business School asked about the new building and when it will be open, what steps we are taking to reduce crime at night and whether we can give more notice of cancelled lectures due to industrial action. On the latter we explained that staff are under no obligation to inform the University that they will be taking strike action, though helpfully many have been alerting their students in advance. Staff asked about improving staff morale, reducing teaching loads, enhancing the quality of our undergraduates and apprenticeships and executive education.
One question was about recent claims that 75% of our staff are on fixed term contracts. I explained that this was partly because of staff on research contracts with finite funding but also because we have moved staff on ‘atypical contracts’ that used to be paid causally to our payroll so that they benefit from the same terms and conditions as the rest of our staff. The ‘headcount’ for these staff is 4,600 but the full time equivalent (FTE) is only 229. They include teaching assistants, demonstrators, visiting lecturers, external examiners etc.
I attended our Global Leadership Board (GLB) in London. GLB members are all closely affiliated to the University and help with fund raising and offer general advice. I gave an update on the many things that are happening here on campus. They were particularly interested in the current public perception of universities and how we better recognise the value of our work to society. Matt Atkin, Director of Planning, talked about the longer term future of the University, and Clive Rowland (who leads UMI3 which is our commercialisation arm) and Dr Luke Hakes, one of our graduates and chair of UMI3' talked about commercialisation opportunities for the University.
I met Esme Ward, who has been appointed as Director of Manchester Museum. She is passionate about the contribution of our Museum to research, teaching and social responsibility. We discussed many exciting opportunities within the University, across the region and internationally.
Graham Brady, the MP for Altrincham and Sale West, visited the University. After meeting with me, he visited the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, the National Graphene Institute and was taken on a tour of the campus. We discussed the ongoing review of financing post-18 education and the importance of international students.
I met Chris Oglesby, CEO of Bruntwood which is a close partner of our University. Bruntwood is the majority shareholder in Manchester Science Partnerships (we are also a shareholder) the company which owns and runs the Manchester Science Park (MSP). MSP’s activities include major developments and new buildings on the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust site and Alderley Park. We discussed the further development of innovation strengths around the University and the Oxford Road Corridor and a number of companies that are looking to locate close to the University.
I had my annual performance and development review (PDR) with the Chair of our Board, Edward Astle. Overall it was very positive with some very helpful feedback from many members of our Board, much of which aligned with the 360 review that I recently undertook.
I know that many of you have had serious difficulties with travel and school closures due to the exceptionally bad weather conditions last week. I was due to go to London to give a talk at the Royal Society of Medicine. I was happy to go, but they cancelled because they expected that many of the audience would not be able to attend.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Feedback
Please send comments to: