Message from the Vice-President and Dean
08 Sep 2025
This week Fiona looks forward to the new academic year, updates on student admissions, and highlights more project and colleague successes.
Dear All
I hope this message finds you well and that you had the opportunity for a break over the summer. I had a wonderful holiday in northern Spain which was very hot and then a few days in the Highlands of Scotland where it was super sunny. Even the midges behaved!
Welcome back to the start of a new academic year. I always feel a sense of renewed energy and possibility. I am looking forward to our campus become busy again as our new and returning students join us for a year of study, discovery, inspiration and making memories together.
Manchester 2035
This year is particularly exciting with the launch of Manchester 2035. If you have not done so already, I would encourage you to sign up for Duncan’s town hall tomorrow for a preview of the strategy.
Duncan will give an overview of the Manchester 2035 foundation and leap building blocks which have been formed through extensive engagement. You will have the chance to ask questions and take part in an interactive Mentimeter session where you can share your thoughts.
Canvas readiness
A big change to teaching for this year is the introduction of Canvas as our new central learning environment, replacing Blackboard. Thank you to everyone involved for their work so far in preparing for the launch later this month. Everything must be ready to run smoothly when teaching begins in the first week of Semester 1 from Monday 29 September.
Key actions for academic colleagues include building and publishing courses on Canvas by the end of today. Our eLearning team is also running Canvas Confidence days from Tuesday 9 to Thursday 11 September in the Booth Street East Building, featuring drop-ins, training sessions, workshops and panel discussions. Lots of people, in other words, are ready to help and give advice and guidance.
Admissions update
I am very pleased to say our Faculty undergraduate (UG) admissions are very much in line with expectations and where we wanted to be. Most of our home and international students received the A-level grades to join us and we picked up a smaller number of excellent students in Clearing.
Postgraduate taught (PGT) recruitment is ongoing. Much will be revealed when students arrive and register with us in mid- to late-September. The predictions look more challenging which is not wholly surprising as we know the market is changing. The University’s PGT Review will help us navigate these choppy waters.
Many thanks to all colleagues who have worked and continue to work hard to confirm student admissions. A very special thanks to Amanda Grimshaw and Tania Smith in the Admissions team who do a marvellous job. They are so on top of patterns and trends in UG and PGT recruitment.
Teaching Sustainability
We now enter the third and final year of the Teaching Sustainability project. As mentioned before, our Schools have presented some exciting and innovative proposals for portfolio development. This refresh of our offering is so important to attract prospective students for years to come.
The Languages subgroup has started the journey of introducing what is often referred to as an ‘umbrella model’ of language provision from 2027/28. The team will be working very closely with Julia Dobson (Head of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures), Camden Reeves (Director of Teaching, Learning and Student Experience) and Thomas Schmidt (Head of School) on this project.
Productivity Research Conference
Research excellence and impact is one of the key threads of Manchester 2035, and late last week I was delighted to welcome colleagues from around the world to the first international Productivity Research Conference. The large lecture theatre in the University Place Drum was full!
Hosted by the Productivity Institute, the two-day event is the embodiment of one of the Institute’s core objectives, to grow into a fully globally connected organisation sharing research and insights on how to revive productivity and economic growth.
Many of the conference’s sessions address regional inequalities, which was one of the reasons for establishing the Productivity Institute in Manchester and an important issue to tackle for a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation.
Morgan Centre 20th anniversary celebration
Earlier last week I was privileged to attend an event at HOME celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives. It was lovely to join colleagues and other members of the Morgan Centre community to mark two decades since its foundation.
It was especially fun to catch up with Sue Heath as we started together as lecturers in Sociology back in 1994, which is a long time ago! We wrote one book together and edited another and enjoy some modest royalties each year, which amuses us greatly.
The centre looks at the dynamics and relational nature of everyday social life, and panel discussions at the event reflected on its creation and early years, current work and plans for the future, prompting lively conversations. We also enjoyed an anniversary cake!
Colleague achievements
I am thrilled that Jenni Rose has received a National Teaching Fellowship (NTF), one of the foremost awards for outstanding pedagogy. A Senior Lecturer in Accounting, Jenni is Academic Lead for Employability at AMBS and founder of the University’s Teaching and Scholarship Network.
She was nominated for her ability to combine experiential learning, critical reflective practice and teacher-student dialogue-based pedagogy into create highly engaging and effective approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. Many congratulations, Jenni.
Hot off the press is news of a notable 13 new appointments from our Faculty to REF 2029 panels. Congratulations to Stephen Walker, Bruce Tether, James Pattison, Alexander Nunn, Kate Reed, Sam Hickey, Hannah Knox, Steven Courtney, Zahia Smail Salhi, David Matthews, Sadiah Qureshi, Peter Liddel and David O'Brien. It’s brilliant news.
Congratulations to Christian Schemmel (SoSS) who joins Ed Pulford and Rachel Winchcombe (both SALC) as a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow. Christian’s ‘Relational Equality and Social Class’ project connects relational equality to social accounts of class, with a focus on Bourdieusian approaches to class inequality.
Rob Bellamy (SEED) is co-investigator for a project led by Hugh Coe of the School of Natural Sciences which has secured a multi-million pound grant from the Advanced Research Innovation Agency (ARIA) for the REFLECT project. This will look at spray technologies for marine cloud brightening (MCB), releasing sea salt particles into the atmosphere to increase cloud reflectivity, and understanding its potential positive effects on global warming.
Andrew James, Cornelia Lawson and Vlad-Andrei Porumb (AMBS) have received an award from the SALIENT Hub for research examining risk and resilience in UK universities, specifically in international research collaborations, exploring UK academics’ awareness and responses to research security risks.
Well done to everyone. I will look forward to seeing you all around campus which we know will get very busy over the coming weeks. Let us make sure our new undergraduate students who join on Monday 22 September for Welcome Week feel included in the University community from day one!
Regards Fiona
Professor Fiona Devine, Vice-President and Dean, Faculty of Humanities