Message from Head of School

 January 2017

More than a year has passed since I did my first blog and Louise and Rachael tell me it is time to do another. Is that how blogs work?

2016 was a very eventful year. Decisions made by the electorates of England, Wales and the USA will affect us all for many years. I was appalled by the decision to leave the European Union; I stress, this is not the opinion of the University of Manchester, it is a personal view. I am still shocked that I live in a country that is very different to the one I imagined. My own research career has been hugely dependent on European friends and collaborators, and my group contains people from around the world - a working environment I find hugely positive. I also find it ironic that this year I won an RSC prize - the Ludwig Mond prize - named after a German immigrant who spent much of his working life creating jobs in the UK.

The external political atmosphere has tended to over shadow everything else. The School has coped incredibly well, and the performance of the staff has continued to be excellent. The National Student Survey again showed us to be one of the more popular high quality chemistry departments in the UK. This is due to all the staff – the student support office, the technicians in the teaching labs, and of course the academic staff. It is easy to forget it is a team effort. We’ve changed a great deal in a year, much of this driven by our Director of Teaching and Learning Andrew Horn, with support from Karen Charters, and also by the two new Teaching & Scholarship focused staff – Jenny Slaughter and Nathan Owston.

On the research side, we are catching up with the Oxford Chemistry department, and our aim now must be to be in the top two Chemistry departments in the UK. The last figures we have suggest our research spend was very similar in 2014-15. Our outputs have improved spectacularly. Simon Webb, who has been doing a great job as Director of Research in the School, noticed that we published 78 papers in 2015 and 2016 that were among the top 1% cited papers in their area. This is a fantastic position.

Part of the reason for the continued excellence on the research side is due to the restructure of the university. Gaining thirteen new colleagues within the MIB has been a major infusion of talent, and we are already seeing this in research. One target in the next year is to diffuse this talent into the undergraduate programme, and we are planning new modules at 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th year levels.

There are significant changes on the horizon with the review of our Faculty and the Student Lifecycle project. I am sure we will work together and rise to the challenges this may bring.

I’ve been at the University of Manchester since 2000. When I joined neither UMIST nor Victoria University had outstanding Chemistry departments; they were good solid departments. The efforts we have made since merger has moved us from this position to among the very best in the world. We should be proud of this achievement, and must remain confident we can maintain and even improve on where we are now. When I look at the new arrivals in the last two years – Ralph Adams, Jordi Bures, Nick Chilton, Guillaume de Bo, Anthony Green, Vanessa Marcos, David Mills, Nathan Owston, Alex Pulis, Imogen Riddell, Jenny Slaughter, Alex Walton, Sihai Yang – I’m very confident this is the case.

Finally I would also like to add in my thanks to all the Professional Support Staff (PSS) for their continued hard work in support of the schools activities.

Richard Winpenny

Head of School