Message from Ken McPhail, Head of Alliance Manchester Business School

18 May 2026

This week, Ken highlights recent collaborations and impactful events on equality, economic growth and productivity, celebrates the work of the new Centre for Teaching, Learning in enhancing pedagogy, and welcomes new leadership focused on strengthening partnerships as AMBS advances its Manchester 2035 ambitions.

Dear colleagues,

I usually listen to the Wall Street Journal podcast on my way home. It covers stories about money, business and power, so it’s never short of content.

Last week it ran a story about China’s growing expertise in robots and how earlier this month a humanoid robot called Lightning broke the world record for running a half marathon. While the US is at the forefront of developing the AI brain, China is winning the race to develop the AI body, said the reporter.

Despite the bad pun, they did go on to make some good points about how the business of manufacturing embodied AI raises questions of agency, responsibility and trust that blur the distinction between business, politics and ethics. It reminded me again of why AMBS’s position within Humanities is so important and part of our distinctiveness.

On that theme, a particular recent highlight was our collaboration with the School of Social Sciences on a joint Vital Topics Arthur Lewis Lecture on gender equality and economic growth. The thought-provoking lecture, delivered by Pierre-Richard Agenor, Hallsworth Professor of International Macroeconomics ad Development Economics, showed how addressing gender inequalities remains one of the defining economic and social challenges of our time. Academics in the Work and Equalities Institute, based at AMBS, continue to collaborate with colleagues from across a broad range of research disciplines in search of solutions to this challenge.

Relatedly, at the end of April, I had the pleasure of attending National Productivity Week, led by The Productivity Institute, which brought together business leaders and policymakers from across the UK to explore the issues shaping the UK’s long-term prosperity and inclusive growth. Among the many events from the week, I would urge you to listen to President and Vice-Chancellor Duncan Ivison’s contribution to the conversation during a podcast with Productivity Institute Managing Director Bart van Ark.

Meanwhile, AMBS launched our Centre for Teaching, Learning and Innovation earlier this year as an engine for pedagogical development, excellence and innovation  within the School. The Centre creates the conditions for colleagues to reflect on their practice, experiment with new approaches, and share what works across disciplinary boundaries. In a period when expectations of the student experience are rising and the modes of learning are diversifying rapidly, having a dedicated space and community focused on teaching excellence is incredibly valuable. I would encourage anyone who has not yet engaged with the Centre's work to do so. The conversations happening there are shaping the way we teach, and the benefits to students are tangible.

Innovation and entrepreneurial thinking are also necessary skills for students. We continue to work closely with the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre – one of the UK's leading centres for applied enterprise support – and are building impactful partnerships with the University’s innovation unit Unit M. Please do continue to promote MEC’s programmes to your students.

Over the past six months we have been starting to put the delivery mechanisms in place to realise our Manchester 2035 aspirations, especially in terms of being the university to partner with. With that in mind, I am delighted to welcome Chris Garnett to a new role as Director of Partnerships at AMBS. Chris brings extensive experience in higher education partnerships and a strong track record in industry collaboration, having previously headed up our Careers team.

He takes on the role at a moment when this agenda has never been more important. This strategic appointment will provide dedicated leadership to identify and develop the collaborations that align with our strengths, nurture relationships that are already bearing fruit, and open doors to new ones. It will also help ensure that our partnerships are joined up and that the connections being made across research, education and enterprise are coherent and cumulative. Feel free to get in touch with Chris if you have connections or conversations that might be worth exploring together.

Chris will also be working closely with the amazing teams at Unit M and Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange. This week we received confirmation that a major partnership proposal, developed with colleagues in Unit M, has been approved. Details are under embargo at present, however do look out for some exciting announcements involving one of the world’s largest financial services institutions.

I hope this gives you a useful flavour of life in AMBS at the moment. We are stronger for being part of a broader Faculty community and we look forward to finding more ways to collaborate in the years ahead.

And yes, in case you wondered, when I got home after listening to the Wall Street Journal podcast, I did watch RoboCop!

Best wishes,

Ken