President's weekly update
24 September 2020
The government has brought in new measures to limit the increasing spread of COVID-19, but has made it clear that schools, colleges and universities should remain open. The advice that people should work from home where possible is consistent with our own advice, though many of our staff have to carry out some, or all, of their role on campus. The safety of our staff and students is our foremost priority. We have in place many measures to reduce the risk of infection, which align with, or in many cases exceed, the advice from government and Public Health England and we will escalate these further if advised to.
We are welcoming new and returning students to Manchester as they arrive over a staggered period of several weeks. More than we anticipated are taking up places in our residences and we will soon start to get a firmer sense of how many international students register for study with us. Our survey of student intentions indicated that more than 75% wished to study in Manchester, though some of their teaching and all large events will be online.
The beginning of this academic year will be very different to normal as we try to ensure that all our staff and students are safe, while providing the best possible experience for our students. We are sending out regular messages to highlight the great importance of student behaviours in order to limit the spread of infection, not least given the growing infection rates in Manchester and beyond. I am sure that the vast majority will respect the need to behave in line with government guidelines, but we will not hesitate to take disciplinary action if these are breached.
Tim Bradshaw, Chief Executive of the Russell Group, and I met the Chair and the Chief Executive Universities UK (UUK) to discuss the major problem we face with the latest valuation of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and how we can best engage all of our staff who are members of USS and the trade unions.
I spoke at an induction meeting for new members of our Board of Governors to explain the role and activities of the Board. We will soon be undertaking an external review of our governance to include our Board, Senate and other University committees.
I joined a Council meeting for the University of Cambridge, which is the equivalent of our Board. I talked about the role and purpose of UK research intensive universities, threats and opportunities we all face including from COVID-19 and financial challenges, the government position on research, students and the Comprehensive Spending Review and the role of the Russell Group of universities. Then I answered questions on the government’s view of research intensive universities, how we adapt to the pandemic, the challenge of USS and the priorities for universities like Cambridge and Manchester.
At this time of year I normally travel to the Far East to meet alumni, partner universities and donors. This year it is all happening online. I spoke at a meeting of our Hong Kong Foundation with other Hong Kong alumni and some from Japan and Taiwan. I outlined recent events at the University, how we are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and thanked the many generous donors from the region. I was joined by Professor Rob Bristow, Director of our Manchester Cancer Research Centre (MCRC), in which we partner with Cancer Research UK and The Christie. MCRC has been extremely successful and has won many major awards. This is in spite of the devastating fire at the Paterson Building several years ago and displacement of most activities to Alderley Park. Rob spoke about the exciting plans for the new Paterson Building and the fundraising needed to complete the building.
We held a meeting of the shadow Board of the Manchester Graphene Company (MGC) - it is still shadow until it is formally associated. Juergen Maier, who holds an honorary chair with us, chairs the Board. There has been good progress in identifying commercially valuable projects and in securing funding for MGC and we will soon be establishing the formal company and Board.
At Finance Sub-Committee, we considered the financial out-turn for last year which was slightly better than budget. We lost a great deal of income from residences, conferences, catering etc and spent a great deal on IT support, extending contracts of research staff and students and on voluntary severance. But we also saved a lot on heating, lighting, furloughing around 2,000 staff, non-pay and capital expenditure (we have suspended all capital that is not in contract and delayed long term maintenance). Some staff, including all of the Senior Leadership Team, have taken voluntary pay cuts, many have donated generously to the University and all staff have had a freeze on annual pay increases as agreed nationally.
The financial position for the current year looks slightly better than we had assumed because of strong recruitment of home/EU undergraduate students and a high take up of voluntary severance. However, our financial position is still very dependent on recruitment of postgraduate taught and international students and we are still forecasting a very significant deficit that will have to be covered by loans, and of course these will have to be repaid. We are also spending quite a lot of money on making the University ‘COVID-safe’ , for example on face masks, hand sanitisers, additional cleaning, hiring extra teaching spaces to allow physical distancing and potentially taking on extra staff in areas where we have over-recruited home students.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor