President's weekly update
12 May 2022
Excellent REF results
The results of the Research Excellence Framework were published this week. You can view a summary of our results on StaffNet, though further analysis is ongoing. We submitted just over 2,200 staff across all areas of the University. 93% of our work scored in the top two categories of assessment (4*, work which is world-leading and 3*, work which is internationally excellent). These are made up of our outputs (publications and other outputs) of which scored 90% 3* or 4*, impact cases (96%) and research environment (99%).
We came 10th in the UK (up from 17th in REF 2014) on Grade Point Average (GPA) with a score of 3.47 out of a total possible score of 4. This was only 0.2 points below the top scoring institution, which is a small, specialist HE institution. The Times Higher Education places us higher at 8th on GPA, as their analysis excludes specialist HE institutions. On ‘research power’ which measures volume as well as quality (number of staff returned times GPA) we were ranked 5th, retaining our REF 2014 position. Nine of the 31 units we submitted were in the top 5 (GPA) and 19 in the top ten, with some in each faculty.
These excellent results are thanks to the very hard work of all who contribute to our research activity. I want to say a special thanks to the REF team, led by Professor Colette Fagan, who did a fantastic job.
Celebrating success
Two important events took place this week both of which I was delighted to attend - the Volunteer of the Year and the Making a Difference Awards celebrations - both held in the Whitworth Hall for the first time in over two years. Across the two events there were incredible nominations and awards for activities of our staff, students and alumni. It is quite remarkable what they have achieved and some won more than one award.
The Making a Difference Awards were presented by our Chancellor, Lemn Sissay - his seventh since he became Chancellor. Lemn was his usual individual, funny, warm, engaging and wonderful self. We gave him a special award for the Chancellor who ‘made a difference’ then he read his latest poem.
Staff recognition
Two of our staff, Professors Jonathan Green and Tim Illidge have been elected as Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Juergen Maier, who holds an honorary chair with us and is involved in commercial applications of graphene, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Congratulations to all!
Student engagement
I held a Q and A session for first year students following my lecture on brain disorders. They had some great questions!
Professor April McMahon, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students and I met Melody Stephen, General Secretary of the Students’ Union. As always, we discussed a wide range of topics including the lack of further industrial action at this time, equality, diversity and inclusion, Ukrainian and Russian students and the handover to the next Students’ Union executive officers who take up their posts on 1 August.
The Minister for Universities, Michelle Donelan had a video meeting with Professor Graham Lord, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health and I to discuss medical students in the next academic year. She said that A-levels should be more predictable this year and overall outcomes will be between pre-pandemic and last year’s results, but there will be no additional funding for extra medical student places.
Working with international partners
I had a video meeting with Professor Rocky Tuan, Vice-Chancellor and President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Professor Sir Michael Marmot to talk about a potential three-way partnership on health inequalities. CUHK is already one of our global partners. Michael, who we are working with on health inequalities, has an appointment at CUHK in their institute and also leads the Institute of Health Equity at UCL. We discussed potential collaboration and the next steps for our academic leaders in this area is to consider opportunities and complementarities.
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Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor