President's weekly update

4 November 2021

Civic engagement is one of three cross-cutting themes in our strategic plan, along with innovation and global influence. Hence, it was a pleasure to meet Councillor Bev Craig who will take over from Sir Richard Leese as Leader of Manchester City Council. Bev is one of our alumni and has also previously worked for us. We agreed that continuing our close partnership will be critical in future.

Senior colleagues and I also met Becca Heron, who has just taken on the role of Strategic Director of Growth and Development at Manchester City Council. Becca worked with the University when she was previously in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. We discussed innovation Greater Manchester and the development of our Innovation District on the North campus site.

As part of our international activities, our Toronto Leadership Council met; a group of very dedicated alumni based in Toronto who help to support our links with Canada. We updated them on recent events and activities and discussed our growing partnership with the University of Toronto.

COP26

We have a strong presence at COP2, including nine academics at the invitation-only blue zone, and many others attending as panel guests for organisations.  Professor Brian Cox voiced the video played immediately before the Prime Minister's opening address. The Humanitarian and Conflict Research Institute, in collaboration with Save the Children and UK-MED, are hosting an interactive walk-through of the graphic novel as part of their Sounding the Siren project. Professor Graham Lord met President Kenyatta of Kenya at COP26 to discuss the UK-Kenya health partnership that we are leading on.

University research funds

We have announced an additional £2.5 million support for a Research Recovery Fund for 2021-22. A UMRI (University of Manchester Research Institutes) call has been opened to support interdisciplinary collaborations for research or impact. Additionally, each Faculty has received a strategic fund to be distributed through their own channels.

Paterson Redevelopment Project

We held a virtual topping out ceremony for the new £150m Paterson Cancer Research building, limited because the Paterson is on the Christie Hospital site where attendance is still restricted. The event was attended by leaders from CRUK, The Christie, our Cancer Centre and major donors. We now have £144m of the £150m needed for the project and are half way through the build. We saw a fantastic film that showed the scale of the building.

Board meetings

At the Board staffing committee, we had a regular update on staff on open-ended contracts (ie beyond 4 years employment) with finite funding or linked to a specific project. These are largely funded by external research grants. For those staff whose funding had ended over the period we considered, more than 80% were re-employed in the University.

The Board remuneration committee approved recommended salary increases for senior academic and Professional Services staff (excluding Senior Leadership Team members). As is usually the case, the total recommended increase was less than the average increase for all other staff.

External meetings

I chaired a meeting of the leaders of each of the Russell Group committees, representing deputy vice-chancellors, leads for teaching and learning, research, registrars, HR, finance and international.  We discussed the recent Comprehensive Spending Review, Horizon Europe, pay, pensions and employment conditions and the Freedom of Speech bill that is currently passing through parliament. We also briefly discussed COVID impacts. Infection rates amongst our students remain low and much teaching is back in person. All vice-chancellors have received a letter from Michelle Donelan, the Minister for Universities, urging us to undertake as much face-to-face teaching as possible.

Ongoing internal reviews

I am pleased that we have streamlined the information and the time spent on our annual performance reviews (APR). This week was the turn of the humanities APR, where in addition to reviews of our three core areas, we discussed the future size and shape of the Faculty and civic engagement, regionalisation and innovation. All of the reviews will be collated into a report that will be assessed and interrogated by our Board later in November.

These reviews have allowed us to see the many achievements over the past academic year, in spite of the difficulties we have faced. We have much to be proud of and should celebrate more.

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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