April message from Juup Stelma, Interim SEED Head of School

25 Apr 2025

Valuable field courses, celebrating external recognition, academic leadership opportunities and the National Student Survey

Dear all,  

I hope everyone has managed to recharge a bit over the bank holiday weekend and these quiet couple of early spring weeks. It may be quiet on campus this week, but there is a lot of exciting activity to report on in this month’s SEED eNews.  

I want to start by thanking the many staff returning from field courses with students. The recent non-teaching week was busy with such trips. Whether it is to understand aspects of European cities, to investigate the physical geography of highlands near and far, or to gain direct experience of the Global South, field courses are an important part of studying and working in SEED. This year academic and PS staff have taken students to several European destinations, as well as farther afield such as Morocco, Cape Town and Rwanda. Sadly, due to safety concerns we had to cancel the Istanbul field course. Thank you to everyone that have contributed to this valuable activity. A special thank you to Nick Ritchie and the PS team (Aidan Barker, Jenny Rackham and Katie Tynan), to Chris Darvill for the oversight and direction, and to all the academic field course leads - there are too many of you to list, but thank you! 

We are proud to see Stefan Bouzarovski become one of five new University of Manchester Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences. Stefan’s research focuses on energy, urban inequality and vulnerability, and he is an active member of our Manchester Urban Institute and the Sustainable Consumption Institute. We are similarly proud to see Cecilia Wong appointed as a member of the Economic and Social Research Council. Cecilia is another Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, active in our Manchester Urban Institute, and is also the Co-Director of  Policy@Manchester. Of course, Stefan and Cecilia are but two of very many exceptional colleagues. SEED continues to be a great place to prosper! 

I need to alert everyone to the May deadlines for expressions of interest for four SEED positions (Deputy HoS and three Associate Director posts). Driven by our Athena Swan commitments and our broader focus on building an inclusive school – see Laura Winter’s update - we are trying hard to improve transparency in the appointment to SEED positions such as these. 

Finally, we have to recognise the hard work that has gone into promoting the National Student Survey this year, and the success we are seeing. The NSS closes on 30 April and there is still time to encourage a few last students to do the survey. All parts of SEED have high response rates. Of particular note is that PPEM now has the highest response rate in SEED. This is a tremendous achievement. A big thank you to all our UG Programme Directors and their programme teams, and to Rachel Challinor and the Student Hub for supporting this activity so expertly. 

Our next School Board is on 14 May – hope to see you all there, if not before. 

Juup