President's weekly update
1 December 2022
Board annual accountability conference
At this annual conference members of our Board consider our performance against each of our measures of success for the priorities set out in our strategic plan, with a particular focus on student experience as a thread throughout the conference. In discussions with Senior Leadership Team (SLT) members, we considered our performance in delivering teaching, learning and students, research, social responsibility and professional services. The feedback and questions were extremely valuable, and we have taken on board a number of actions and ideas.
We will be holding further sessions early next year on innovation, achieving net zero carbon emissions, leading implementation of the People and Organisational Development (OD) and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategies.
After the accountability session we held a formal Board meeting at which we had annual reports on areas including our duty under the government's Prevent requirements. Yet again, we did not ban any external speakers, and indeed we never have done, for as long as any of us could remember. We also had my regular update, a discussion on philanthropy and our planned approach to bicentenary activities (which you will hear more about in the New Year), and usual reports from the Board committees. The Students’ Union reported on the very positive response to agreed payments to students to help with the high cost of living and concerns about industrial action.
The Board approved our financial statements for 2021/22 and noted the positive audit report. Our surplus last year was above our target but this was largely due to delayed spending after COVID and higher staff vacancies, especially in some key areas, which is impacting on delivery of our goals and on staff workload. The surplus will, as always, be ploughed back into much needed investments, particularly in IT and processes which we need to make life easier and more efficient for our staff and students. But even this surplus is not nearly enough to meet these demands and other pressing needs, including, for example, to meet our goal of becoming a Zero Carbon Campus by 2038.
Industrial action
Members of UCU across all universities have held three days of strike action. We will not know how many staff took strike action at our University until the deadline for reporting which is 5 December, or the impact on our students, though we have taken actions to mitigate against disruption wherever possible.
Innovation Greater Manchester
We had a briefing from BEIS on the latest government position on association with Horizon Europe, which is still very much their aim, but all recognise that time is running out and alternative funding sources are being considered. We also heard about the planned agreement between Greater Manchester and Innovate UK, an update on the process for our innovation accelerator bids and future plans for IGM.
Greater Manchester universities
A meeting with other vice-chancellors in Greater Manchester was hosted at the University of Salford where we visited their very impressive Energy House. This can create environments ranging from minus 20C to plus 40C and various weather conditions. We discussed how we can work together to meet the strong demand for skills in the regions, the ever-increasing regulatory burden on universities, the next step in our Civic Universities Agreement and working with our Students’ Unions who have formed a Greater Manchester Students Association.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor