President's weekly update
5 July 2019
The annual NSS results were published yesterday. Most, but not all, subject areas achieved the required 50% return rate and our University return rate was 64%. Our overall score was 84% compared to 83% last year, so a modest improvement. Our score is just above the English sector average and equal to the average for the Russell Group. Some subjects achieved remarkably high scores while others were disappointing. We are working on detailed analysis for each subject area and reading all of the many comments, both good and not so good.
Today we learnt that we have been ranked equal 9th in the Times Higher Education (THE) European teaching rankings, down from 7th last year. We are always cautious over the interpretation of league tables and this table does not take into account student satisfaction scores which are not available in many European countries.
We held our annual Distinguished Achievement Awards event which recognises our most outstanding undergraduate and postgraduate students, our leading teachers and researchers, and Professional Services and Cultural Institutions colleagues, as well as small and large teams of the year. The event was held in our Whitworth Hall with nominators, friends and families. As every year, I was amazed by the incredible achievements of our staff and students. This time we were joined by a young baby of one of the award winners, who behaved extremely well and smiled at us all!
I attended the Board of the Russell Group of Vice-Chancellors in London. In addition to normal business and discussions about Brexit, pensions and international partnerships, we were joined at various times by Jonathan Slater, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students, and Robert Chote, Director of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
We held a joint meeting between our senior staff and me and leaders from Manchester City Council and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. We discussed our collaborations on skills, infrastructure, international partnerships and business engagement, with particular focus on delivery of the Greater Manchester Local Industrial Strategy. We updated on our many activities in this area including international partnerships, ID Manchester, our future vision for the University and our strategic plan and business development opportunities, particularly in graphene and other 2-dimensional materials. We also considered future bids to UK government to support the main areas of focus in Greater Manchester’s Local Industrial Strategy and partnerships in skills and wellbeing.
I opened the European Association of Environmental Economists annual conference which was attended by over 700 people at the University. I told them that throughout our history we have had three Nobel Prize winners in economics (and 22 other Nobel Prizes) and commented on the importance of this area to the University.
I also opened a conference on Particles, Strings and Cosmology (not an area I am so familiar with) in our School of Physics and Astronomy. I was asked to comment on gender diversity in this field. I stated with confidence the huge efforts of this School which have been outstanding.
We have publicly committed to supporting the UK government’s declaration on climate change. Professor James Thompson, Vice-President for Social Responsibility met Lizzie Haughton, Activities and Development Officer in our Students’ Union and Dr Eithne Quinn from the School of Arts Languages and Cultures to discuss our current and potential future activities that will contribute to improving the environment and climate change.
I was interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme (from 2hrs, 35mins) talking about the importance of research and innovation for UK prosperity and to urge the two candidates to be the next Prime Minister to commit to this area. In addition, I was asked about immigration, particularly for international students and highly skilled workers (which I argued was critical for the prosperity of the UK), the Augar review of post-18 education and funding and what it would mean if the fee cap for Home/EU students was reduced to £7,500 (very serious for universities such as ours) and what Brexit would mean for universities. I said that a ‘no deal’ Brexit would be the worst possible outcome for the higher education sector.
This week our University celebrated our longstanding achievements in public engagement and being awarded the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s Gold Watermark. A brilliant publication called Our Engagement Stories describes some of our best public engagement activity.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor