Annual Review 2011/12 News Annual Review of the Year This Annual Review covers an 2011/12. We won the Queen’s located within the Faculty of The improved NSS scores would seem eventful year for the University Award for Enterprise for our Engineering and Physical Sciences, to indicate that the concerted effort when we have continued to make achievement in more than doubling which has core strengths in materials, we have been making over the past progress towards many of our annual overseas income over the last engineering, characterisation, three or four years to improve the strategic goals and maintained a six years and the Queen’s Anniversary collaborative working, and a track student experience are beginning to strong financial performance Prize for our applied research and record of delivering breakthrough bear fruit. Many of these despite major changes in the skills training for the nuclear industry. research and engineering applications improvements have been effected on higher education environment and We also won University Challenge that can be deployed in the real world. the front-line of learning in the an uncertain economic climate. earlier this year - the 50th classroom and the laboratory, and for anniversary year of the programme! Colleagues from across the University this I want to thank and applaud all of It is a tribute to the hard work and Whilst not in themselves financially have spent an enormous amount of my many colleagues who have put so dedication of my colleagues from significant, these public accolades time during 2011/12 preparing for the much effort into improving the across the campus that the University illustrate the University’s growing forthcoming Research Excellence students’ experience. Some major was able to end the academic year reputation and global significance. Framework (REF), which will assess University-wide initiatives have also 2011/12 with a financial surplus, research quality. This is the successor come on stream, including the launch which gives us the scope to invest in Following the award of the Nobel Prize to the Research Assessment Exercise of University College, which aims to our key priorities. for Physics in 2010 to Professor Andre (RAE), which was last run in 2007/8, improve the educational experience of Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov and in which the University performed our students by enabling them to The core driver for all of our activities for groundbreaking experiments using very well. The results of the RAE/REF study a range of interesting courses is, of course, our Strategic Plan. Early the two-dimensional material are important because they are used from across the University alongside in 2012 the Board of Governors graphene, the University has to assess how much block funding for their main degree subject, and the enthusiastically endorsed a new plan – announced it will be building a state- research we receive from government, opening in of the £24 million Alan Manchester 2020 – which was of-the-art National Graphene Institute but the results also have a much wider Gilbert Learning Commons. developed following widespread (NGI) to continue research into the reputational impact. What is new for consultation across the campus. This wonder material. Chancellor of the REF, compared to earlier RAE exercises, 2011/12 was another good year for ambitious plan builds on the strong Exchequer George Osborne visited the is the requirement to submit cases home and international student foundations of previous documents University in October 2011 and showing the impact of our research. recruitment, although it was widely and our achievements since 2004, but announced that the government This is challenging because it is new, acknowledged across the sector that also lays out what we want to achieve would be providing £50m worth of but we already have many excellent this was a highly unusual year, as by 2020, and sets this in the context funding for graphene research in the stories of how the research we do record numbers of home students of the opportunities and challenges UK, £38m of which has been provided makes a difference locally, nationally sought places before the introduction we are likely to face. for the NGI. The institute is set to open and internationally. of the £9,000 fee. Nevertheless, as we in early 2015. enter a much more turbulent and Manchester 2020 reaffirms our headline We continue to work hard to improve competitive environment for student ambition to become one of the top 25 The Chancellor was also present in the student experience for all of our recruitment, it is reassuring to see that research universities in the world and London in August 2012 when it was students, so I was delighted to learn in this University remains an enormously retains the three core goals of world- announced that BP is to establish a August that the results of the annual popular destination for undergraduate class research, outstanding learning and £64 million international research National Student Survey (NSS), showed and postgraduate study. student experience, and social centre, known as the BP International that we have moved up four percentage responsibility. The detail surrounding Centre for Advanced Materials, or points from 79% overall satisfaction to In terms of Goal Three and the social each of these goals has been enhanced BP-ICAM at this University. The centre 83%. This is a major achievement and a responsibility agenda, we continue to and we have identified eight enabling will lead research aimed at advancing real testament to the hard work of many make an impact with a range of goals and some more precise key the fundamental understanding and of our staff as it represents the first step impressive initiatives and activities, performance indicators (KPIs). use of materials across a variety of towards our goal of achieving at least particularly in the areas of widening industrial oil and gas applications. The 90% in the NSS – though of course, no participation and public engagement, The University received some notable BP-ICAM will be modelled on a “hub one is complacent and there is much with major events taking place at the awards and recognition during the and spoke” structure, with the ‘hub’ more to do. Manchester Museum, Whitworth Art News Features Research Manchester wins University Tribute to visionary President as New life for Nubian bones Challenge – again 48Learning Commons opens 6 News President and Vice-Chancellor Nancy Rothwell in the new Alan Gilbert Learning Commons Gallery and the Jodrell Bank Discovery academic staff. In November 2011 we the future capital needs of the the completion of ten new buildings Centre. We have just completed a launched a high-profile “World- University for the next decade. In and many large-scale refurbishments. serious review of how we can embed Leading Minds” campaign to recruit October 2012 the University approved and promote social responsibility as a more than 100 new academic staff an Estates Master Plan which will The fact that, in a very uncertain key feature of our work of our Schools from across the world. We also found create a single campus and will economic climate, we have found and Faculties and in the day-to-day additional resources to invest a involve the construction of new resources to invest in staff, and time operational activities of the University, significant sum in the development of teaching and research buildings, to plan our future strategy and which will result in changes and our existing staff through an student facilities and major estates needs will, I hope, send a investments in this important area. innovative “Investing in Success” improvements to the public realm. very clear signal that we will scheme and a new President’s PhD The plan runs to 2022 and will require remain an ambitious and forward- I am pleased to report that, despite scholarship scheme. the investment of £1 billion. This is in thinking university. the harsh external economic climate, addition to the £750 million spent Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell we have found resources over the past During 2011 we also began the since 2004, which has already seen year to appoint more than 120 new process of planning and prioritising President and Vice-Chancellor Contents 2 News 6 Features 8 Research 10 Culture and community 12 People 14 Facts and figures Culture and community People Blue Peter – live from Sir Bernard Lovell the John Rylands Library 10 12 1 News Viking burial site unearthed Manchester archaeologists helped to discover the UK mainland’s first fully intact Viking boat burial site while working in the Scottish Highlands last autumn. The five-metre-long grave contained the remains of a high-status Viking, who was buried with an axe, a sword with a beautifully decorated hilt, a spear, shield Dr Hannah Cobb, Co-Director of the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project, with a thousand-year-old Viking sword boss and bronze ring-pin. The Viking had been buried in a ship, whose 200 or so metal rivets were also found by the team. Co-director of the project and archaeology teaching “A Viking boat burial is an incredible discovery, but The 1,000-year-old find, on the remote Ardnamurchan fellow Dr Hannah Cobb, from our School of Arts, in addition to that, the artefacts and preservation Peninsula, was made by the Ardnamurchan Transitions Languages and Cultures, said: “This is a very make this one of the most important Norse graves Project (ATP) – a team led by experts from the exciting find. Though we have excavated many ever excavated in Britain.” Universities of Manchester and Leicester, CFA important artefacts over the years, I think it’s fair to Archaeology Ltd and Archaeology Scotland. say that this year the archaeology has really exceeded our expectations.