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The President and Vice-Chancellor

President's weekly update

30 September 2021

Senior colleagues and I have spent many hours over recent months thinking about how we best ensure a successful and sustainable future for our University against a backdrop of eroding income streams and rising costs and many more opportunities than we can currently pursue.

We will be reporting our plans to our Board of Governors next month and will demonstrate our progress to date and how we have made major savings, which are essential for investments such as in our staff and students, replacing our outdated systems and meeting our commitments on net zero. 

We discussed the same issues at our Hong Kong Foundation, along with plans for a major fundraising campaign. Members of the Foundation were together for dinner for the first time since the pandemic in Hong Kong. I updated them online on the many recent events in the University and Professor Caroline Dive spoke about our ambitious plans for cancer research and the exciting new Paterson Cancer Research building that is going up very fast.

At the first in person Russell Group meeting for over 18 months, we shared concerns about financial sustainability across our organisations. The latter is exacerbated by staff and other costs rising faster than inflation and this is unlikely to be resolved without a major improvement in government funding of teaching and research.

We also discussed the UCU ballots for strike action over pensions, pay and conditions. This is very disappointing; you can see our first response on Staffnet. I very much hope we will avoid the very significant disruption a strike would cause to our whole community but particularly our students. A vote for strike action requires 50% of UCU members to vote – whether in favour or against strike.

Progressing with major internal issues

Thanks to the fantastic work of many staff, we have recovered pretty well from the major flood on Oxford Road due to a burst United Utilities water main. The Sam Alex building is the only one that remains significantly affected. We have rescheduled teaching there for now and are aiming to reopen as soon as we can.

Senior colleagues and I met with two elected SU officers to discuss how we adjust the assessment pledge in light of our hopeful return to near normal but also recognising that students have still been very much affected by COVID.

April McMahon, Vice-President for teaching, learning and students and I also had one of our regular meetings with Melody Stephen, General Secretary of our Students’ Union. She said that Welcome Week had been really busy but with a very positive buzz, despite the flood. We also discussed student safety and well-being, together with the UCU ballots on strike action. 

Engaging with external stakeholders

In my role as Russell Group Chair, I met our new Secretary of State for Education, Nadim Zahawi. He praised universities for all we had done in adapting to the pandemic and while only ten days into the role, he was very well informed on the key issues including the Augar review, A-levels, vaccinations and infections and the value of online learning.

We met Sir Paul Nurse, leader of the Crick Institute at an in person Russell Group session to discuss the review of the research landscape in the UK that he is chairing.  Paul has great experience and restated his commitment to supporting discovery research as well as application and innovation.

We hosted a visit for Sir John Kingman. John was instrumental in the support we received for the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the Royce Institute when he held a senior position in the Treasury. More recently he was the inaugural chair of UKRI and is now chair of Legal and General, our key partner with Bruntwood in Innovation District Manchester (IDM), our programme to redevelop our North Campus. We took John on a quick tour of the Royce, NGI, MECD, the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre and IDM, followed by a round table to discuss the role of innovation in the prosperity of our region and how it can be a key part of the UK ‘levelling up’ agenda. It was fantastic to see MECD full of students studying and chatting-the whole place was buzzing!

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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