President's weekly update
21 March 2019
We held our annual Accountability and Planning Conference for members of the Board of Governors and members of our Planning and Resources Committee at the recently opened Alliance Manchester Business School Executive Education suite. In the first part of the Conference, Board members questioned and challenged senior colleagues and me on our achievements over the past academic year and discussed progress towards our agreed priorities. These will be reported soon in our Stocktake Report which is a public document. We exceeded some of our targets, in some cases we met them and in other cases we only partially met them or failed to do so, although the Board recognised that we had set ourselves really stretching targets. Indeed, if they had all been met we might consider that we would need to lift our ambitions. The most notable in the latter category were our financial surplus, which was well below budget due to increased costs and only a modest increase in income (with most income streams falling well behind inflation); and the National Student Survey (NSS) of satisfaction where we went down by one percentage point (although our position improved relative to competitors and we only just achieved the required 50% return rate). The NSS is now open again and it is really important to encourage students to complete the survey as this provides us with invaluable feedback.
The second part of the conference focussed on Our Future, the University’s next Vision and Strategic Plan. We heard from Louise Simpson, the Director of the Knowledge Partnership, who conducts our biennial External Stakeholders Survey, on comparator national and international universities and on our progress to date. Conference delegates then discussed the key themes for our next Strategic Plan which will follow on from the Vision and have emerged during our conversations to date with staff, students and some external stakeholders. These themes are: Our People/Our Values (encompassing the broader topic of how we do things, by far the most popular topic emerging from the Our Future conversations); Teaching and Learning; Research and Discovery; Social Responsibility; Innovation; Global Influence; and Civic Engagement. Delegates went on to begin to discuss ideas for the Strategic Plan which will contain our key priorities that will deliver our Vision, and our measures of success. There will be further discussions and opportunities to engage on the Strategic Plan over the coming months where we will identify what we do well and must preserve and build on, as well as new priority areas which will help us to realise our ambitions.
In the evening, we visited our Manchester Museum to see the Heritage Futures exhibition, and we heard from Esme Ward, Director of our Museum about its exciting plans including the new China and South Asia Gallery. Professor Alessandro Schiesaro, Head of the School of Arts Languages and Cultures, told us about our new initiative – Creative Manchester.
The Conference was followed by a regular Board meeting at which I gave an update on key issues affecting the sector. We discussed the current position on pensions and Board members talked about feedback from students about their teaching, facilities and particularly support for wellbeing and mental health. The Board also discussed my performance over the past academic year (in my absence of course). The North Campus Working Group of the Board then met to discuss the next steps for our North Campus (now known as ID Manchester) and the very extensive interest following our presentation at the global property conference MIPIM last week.
I co-chaired a meeting of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology in London. Our expected ministerial guests couldn’t attend because of votes in Parliament on Brexit, so Professor Sir Mark Walport, Chief Executive of UK Research Innovation (UKRI), gave an update on progress of the new body (which now encompasses the seven Research Councils, Research England and Innovate UK) in its first year.
At the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) meeting, Diana Hampson, our Director of Estates and Facilities, updated members on ID Manchester and Professor Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, told the LEP about the next steps in our plans for commercialisation of graphene and other two-dimensional materials. We also discussed plans for clean air in the region, skills and progress with the LEP delivery plan.
It was good to see that our University topped the graduate employer list for the second year running. The Graduate Market in 2019 report from an independent market research company reported that we are the most targeted university in the UK for top employers.
At the Paterson Redevelopment Board this week we studied plans to meet the ‘cost envelope’ for the new building and were updated on planning consultation, facilities that will be in the new building and likely occupancy.
We have submitted our comments to Universities UK on the latest proposals for the Universities Superannuation Scheme which appears to align with views of employers from across the sector. You can read our response on StaffNet.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor