President's weekly update
27 June 2019
I am delighted to announce that we have made two outstanding Vice-President appointments. Professor April McMahon will take up the role of Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students from 1 October. April is Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Kent with responsibility for teaching, learning and students, has been a Vice-Chancellor at the University of Aberystwyth and chairs a Teaching Excellence Framework panel. Professor Nalin Thakker, currently Associate Vice-President for Risk, Compliance and Research Integrity at our University, will take up the role of Vice-President for Social Responsibility, from 1 September.
At the meeting of our General Assembly I gave an update on the performance of the University over the past year and talked about some notable successes and external challenges. I also gave an overview of the positive and less positive messages from the recent Staff Survey and showed a film about Innovation District (ID) Manchester. There were also presentations on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and our University’s societal and environmental impact and on developing our University’s values.
The Board Finance Committee reviewed the status of our ongoing estates projects, approved the budget for next year and discussed the five-year forecast, risks and mitigations. The major risks remain the impact of Brexit (most notably to our staff and students but also financially because of EU research funding and recruitment of EU students uncertainties), the cost of the USS pension scheme, and static fee cap of UK/EU students. Some universities are struggling with their student recruitment because of global competition and a dip in the number of 18-year-olds in the UK, though applications and acceptances remain very high for us for this September entry.
Judging by the number of attendees at our open days, we are hopeful that applications for study starting in 2020 will also be strong. 21,000 prospective students registered for the open day last Saturday alone – and the sun was shining. Feedback I have seen was that our staff and student ambassadors were excellent.
Professor Colette Fagan, Vice-President for Research, and I met a group of our fairly recently appointed Presidential Fellows (early career researchers initially with protected time for research). I spoke about the future plans for the University. They asked about their future careers, securing external research funding, probation and promotion, how they could contribute further to the University, particularly in promoting what we do and in social responsibility, and the importance of our role as a civic university contributing to the health, wealth and prosperity of our region.
Colette and I met John Young, the North West representative of the Bank of England, who already has strong links with our Alliance Manchester Business School. We told him about our alignment with the Greater Manchester Local Industrial Strategy, work with businesses and enterprise and about ID Manchester.
Professor Clive Agnew, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, and I met Kwame Kwarteng, the incoming General Secretary of our Students’ Union. Kwame is a Master’s student from Ghana who is just finishing his dissertation. We explained the many committees that he will be a member of (Board of Governors, Senate, Planning and Resources Committee) and events that he may wish to attend such as Foundation Day.
I appeared on BBC Breakfast TV to discuss the continuing inequalities of skills, infrastructure funding, health and prosperity between the North and the South of the country. This featured in several news stories as it was the fifth anniversary of the announcement of the Northern Powerhouse by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. I said that of course there are areas of great disadvantage and inequality in the South but the average measures are far worse for the North.
We held a meeting of our Board North Campus Working Group to consider progress on ‘ID Manchester’. There continues to be great interest in the project from many parts of the world. We agreed the principles for seeking a Joint Venture Partner which will begin in September this year.
I spoke at the Applied Health Research domain event on social care. We have a unique opportunity to conduct leading research and its application to social care given the devolution of the health budget to Greater Manchester, as health and social care now come under the same control and because of the depth and breadth of relevant strengths across the University.
You may have seen news coverage indicating that, based on a freedom of information request by UCU (University and College Union), a significant proportion of Vice-Chancellors are on the remuneration committees that set their salaries. I am not a member of and do not attend the Board Remuneration Committee that sets my salary.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor