The Manchester 2035 Podcast

hi everyone and welcome to this special

Manchester 2035 podcast on becoming the

university to partner with I'm joined by

my fabulous panel Nalin, Dan and Lexi and

today we're going to talk about the

what was discussed in them and what big

ideas are coming out of that process

I'll ask our fabulous panel to introduce

themselves starting with Nalin. I'm Nalin

Thaker vice president for social

responsibility hi Dan George associate

vice president for Blended and flexible

learning I'm Lexi Baynes I'm the Uni Exec

officer at the students union thanks all

so much for being here today so first of

all uh there's a lot of kind of new

exciting words floating around such as

Sprints can you explain to us quickly n

what is a Sprint and what was your

Sprint focusing on so Sprints are

essentially themes that emerged after

the first phase of the strategy uh

consultation sort of the big ideas that

just take us from um where do we want to

be to where do we need to be you know

what sort of University do we need to be

by 2035 so these are the sort of big

leaps we need to take to get us to that

next phase about what kind of

institution not just what we want to be

but where we need to be and just in

terms of the kind of practical so how

how did that work what how did you

assemble a Sprint like who's in the

Sprint so our Sprint was really about

you know about uh how do we come the

best the university to partner with so

why would we be a partner of choice and

we felt we had to um include people from

all different areas of of um uh people

with different expertise so you know

teaching and learning uh student student

experience uh research and

Innovation and social responsibility so

we gathered the sort of lead we ask the

leaders in those fields to sort of

contribute their ideas fabulous and

another word we're going to hear quite a

lot about are the leaps so turning to

Dan what was the leap your Sprint was

working on and what leap do we need to

make to become the university to partner

with we love a buzz word

great um so I mean there was lots of

leaps I mean this is you know it's a

Manchester 25 2035 strategy let's think

you know put yourself in that position

which is what we did as part of the

leaps you know you're in Manchester you

it's 2035 what massive advances have we

made you know as a as a university um

and and they are the sort of and what

leaps do we need to take in order to to

become this amazing place in in in 2035

um for me the the things that came out

with a leap were so of three three main

things we we have the sort of the scale

and the

scope um we have the convening power if

you like to be that University

partnership and we have that long-term

Vision as well so in terms of the the

scale and the scope you know we've

always had social responsibilities a COR

goal I can't remember when we didn't

actually have social responsibility 2011

we start 2011 um is a is a core goal you

know it's been utterly embedded in in

what we do in terms of our teaching and

and our research for a very very long

time um how can we how can we use the

fact that we are the University of

Manchester we're very big in terms of

our scale and our ambition and our scope

um how do we use that capacity to

deliver some amazing things for the

region as well as nationally and

globally so that sort of scale and scope

we are we because we're so big we could

act as this big convening Power so we

can have lots of different partners

ships with lots of different people and

then how do we act as sort of the broker

if you like to to bring other people

together as well in a really

collaborative way and then you know

we've we are committed from a teaching

and learning perspective we are

committed to that lifelong learning side

so things that came out with a leap were

okay well what do we want that lifelong

learning to look like in 2035 um and um

and not for it to just be sort of a

short-term thing how do we embed that

social responsibility into lifelong

learning so people can hop on and hop

off their ex um uh educational

experiences fabulous and Lexi Why Should

students care like Partnerships it

sounds kind of you know a bit amorphous

not something that would be necessarily

on the radar for students but why is it

so important I think like the tagline of

the you need to partner with like the

emphasis should be on the the you know

like it's why are we the top

universities come to and that's why it's

relevant for students that they should

be com to this University because it

stands apart from others in the sector

you know they can they can look to the

other Russell groups they can look to

the non russle groups but there's

something about Manchester which is

really distinctive and I don't think at

the moment we're pulling on that enough

like we're a Civic University but I

don't think that we advertise that to

students in the way that we should be

doing so if we get this right I think

that will that is what will make us

unique and that's why students whether

they're like ukas perspectives right

through to you know our like most recent

cohort graduates that's why they should

be coming to Manchester and staying here

the longterm too and in terms of why

we're making the sleep or why we should

be making the sleep what are the kind

kind of key challenges and opportunities

that we think it will help us address

well the ambition really is that we will

be recognized as global leaders in

culture and practice of leveraging

mutually beneficial Partnerships for the

good of society that's the sort of big

Global ambition for us and you may ask

why why that so you asked Lexi about

what why is it relevant to students well

if we want to be remain relevant and

create sort of work integrated learning

uh opportunities for our students if

want our curricula to be relevant to

what the industry and business needs are

um and and uh support things like

entrepreneurship development so on then

we have to engage with Partners we have

to be sort of relevant to them so it

there are a large number of challenges

the two big things that drive this are

why would people come to us what is it

about us that makes them come to us and

then when they come to us are they able

to engage with us in a constructive easy

U manner but also something that they

get out of it what is the value

proposition from them for them because

if they're not gaining anything out of

us then they won't want to participate

with you want to partner with us rather

so it's important that we are able to do

both of those things make ourselves

unique

uh so it's our brand value and then

secondly it's about how easy is it for

them to collaborate with us and what do

they gain out of it and Dan you

mentioned the kind of teaching and

learning angle as well and and micr

credits and H Hop On Hop off so what

what are the kind of challenges and

opportunities there yeah I mean Lexi you

said it you know the we are a Civic

institution we need to be committed to

the region as well and that that's the

sort of economic growth of the region um

the sort of social well-being of the

region as well um and I think from a

from a teaching and learning perspective

you know we we should be able to address

the skill shortages um and in particular

the digital skill shortages that that

are occurring you know in the northwest

region um and and so we again you know

if we are the partner uh you know the

university to partner with we can work

with industry we can work with local

governments we can work with the city um

and sort of say okay we have the most

amazing teaching going on in this

University um why should it just be that

you just have to be a student you know

for three years and come on campus all

of the time why can't we take that

education out to the region to the

communities to Industry um and and you

know and partner with you so instead of

always you having to come to us we are

going to come to you instead and I think

that's a an amazing opportunity for us

that sounds brilliant so take me into

the Sprint and the process a little bit

so in phase one we had you know over 22

workshops we had you know thousand staff

students community members submit their

ideas uh I think we had over 5,000 ideas

collected how did you distill that down

and then come up with this kind of

crosscutting proposition for your leap

well as I as I explained earlier we we

did ask the sort of leaders in all areas

of our mission as it were teaching

learning research Innovation social

responsibility Community engagement to

submit their ideas to us and then we

work together to sort of distill out of

that what were the sort of key generic

elements that we can pull out that would

make us the partner of choice for PE for

different partners you know industry uh

government local government central

government uh uh Fe

colleges so community ities you know so

it was really about taking what

everybody had uh given us brilliant

ideas and and sort of saying well how do

we make that happen for them and and

then sort of distilling it from that I

think what you've Illustrated there

really nicely is just how genuinely

cross-cutting this sleep is um people

may notice that actually the themes we

engaged on in phase one they are now

reconfigured and they're much broader

and more cross cutting and kind of

interdisciplinary so I think that that's

really brilliant to understand how many

areas you've kind of pulled into this

partnership theme the other key thing

which happened from like phase one to

phase two is um in Phase One the

students union exec officers we were

co-chairing the workshops with the um

future leader programs and now we're

like co-leading with the University

Executive this is where it gets a little

bit confusing so it's the unit executive

and the student unit executive so exec

squ effectively but it's making sure

that like student voices remain right at

the Forefront and like that the strategy

taken into account our largest

stakeholder which is our 48,000 students

absolutely essential to have student

voice in what we do yeah co-creation

side I

it yeah and you you guys have been

brilliant leading on those workshops as

well so well done

thanks so in terms of becoming kind of

the university to partner with you've

already um pulled out the social

responsibility at the core idea but

which other kind of Big Ideas came out

of your Sprint um to help us become that

partner of choice well we need to have

strategic alignment with our partners

whoever we want to partner with right

from industry to government to

communities what do they want off us so

is our research strategy aligned with

them is our Sr strategy aligned with

them is is our teaching and learning Al

aligned with the needs of Industry uh

and local economy and so on so that was

the starting point we must have that

alignment there must be a value

proposition for them it's not about us

and it was interesting when we were

talking about this with uh somebody else

and they they they were at a different

University previously and they said

Manchester lost the contract with this

particular industry because we just

listened to them um to the the people

who the funders and and they gave us the

money instead of Manchester and you say

well that's it you didn't you didn't

align yourself with what they wanted so

the starting point has to be that that

are we Al igned with them and then you

start thinking about other things like

processes and so on I think there's like

amazing opportunities for for students

and and Learners you know globally um

what what are those flexible and

lifelong learning options you know what

how how do we want to position ourselves

to be that University to partner with

you know if you are um if you're a

company if you're a community you know

what why do you want to come to us what

do we offer you um uh you know what

skills can we offer and just amazing

opportunity especially in that sort of

digital space um digital skills but also

um different ways of learning as well

you know so so how can we use Virtual

Reality in augmented reality not only

for our students who are on campus but

for for other Learners globally um and

and you know Partnerships within the the

region in order to do that as well I

think there's amazing opportunities for

for us I think it will be which ones do

we want to take cuz there are so

many and I think there's something

really interesting in there as well

because you're not the the only Sprint

that has talked about things like

learning in Partnership so this idea of

service learning but I think there's

also kind of an interesting link there

with social responsibility so I was

wondering you know how does it how does

it kind of all link together a Learners

going out in the community but it's

enhancing their curriculum so how does

that kind of work do you want to yeah

sure um so I was speaking to some

students recently who had done some

Service Learning and one of them had

done it like in the local community

within Manchester and then somebody else

had done it I think in Africa and they

were saying how like two completely

different experiences but they got so

much from it because one of them was

helping um I think they like were doing

Dentistry with like younger children

like doing Dental checks with them and

it was something which the students had

the students had experienced before like

going into local community and then

someone else was doing it in Kenya and

helping to build like water fs and stuff

like that which is so important so their

structure there so the students got a

lot from it but also they're H local

community so it's got to be 50/50 like

you can't be working against them or

like necessarily for them you've got to

be working with them and like I think

that goes back to kind of more broadly

how we go about our Partnerships like

are we working for are we working with

um I think that's something which

students really care about you know like

whether they're out on the streets

talking about it or talking about with

their social groups like they care about

who we're partnering with so going about

it in a way which is really ethical and

which is really like benefiting in like

a multi-dimensional way is yeah really

key yeah and not just assuming that we

know what the community wants so

therefore we are going to tell you what

we need again coming back to that

strategic alignment you know are we

delivering something for them yes is

what is the value for them yeah super

important and it's it's really about

community and partner engageed learning

because you know that there are

different ways of doing it Service

Learning is one of them than there is

you know work-based learning but there

different things which can do in in that

sort of approach it's a very broad

approach um because when we think about

Community Ser um sorry service based

learning we it it it works really well

for certain areas so if you're doing a

vocational course it works really well

but then we have to be sort of

innovative about how we sort of use that

use that sort of approach not exactly

the same but use that sort of same

principles in in Humanities and other

you know other areas where there isn't a

vocational element to what they do so we

uh it's about being more Innovative and

so on and delivering the needs of our

communities because something which is

really stuck with me was um how if you

walk like 8 minutes down the road from

CL Central University the John ens area

I think the life expect goes down by I

think 8 years or 10 years and it's just

an 8 minute walk down the road you know

from our massive compass that has like

lovely buildings nice shiny white

buildings that type of thing and like I

think it really stuck with me because

it's so important that we are like yes

like we're Manchester we're based kind

of along the to ro Corridor but we need

to be going out into local community in

Greater Manchester and it goes back to

what you were saying about working with

the region and what the Region's needs

are rather than just being focused on

kind of like what our own University

institutional needs are too and that's

so key particularly going back to the

whole you know we're a Civic University

we should be taking this all into

account in everything that we do thank

you so much for that insight into the

Sprints and how we've been generating

these cross cutting proposals I guess

now the question is what's next for our

community so whether staff or students

are these the final proposals um is

there a chance to get involved well um

these are not the final proposals these

are some things we have suggested at the

moment for further discussion and we

really like people to be involved

further in developing the final

proposals and there will be

opportunities as you know for them to

engage so they'll be both in person and

digital sort of online opportunities

yeah so essentially um from the 31st of

March until until the 1st of April we'll

be offering two ways for people to feed

in so there will be a popup exhibition

in the Nancy Rothwell building and

there'll also be a kind of digital space

that replicates that experience so it'll

be a really great chance for people to

look at all the proposals in the round

give us feedback ask questions so we

really hope that lots of people come

along and join us there we look forward

to that yeah yeah

sure if you're in the engineering

building then you can come along to the

ideas lab which is an in-person popup

it's just underneath the main stairs in

the engineering foyer um it's also

called Nancy rothell MCD sorry if that's

a little bit confusing but yeah it's

open from the 1st of April to the 11th

of April between 10: to 4:00 p.m. and

you can put by let us know what your

ideas are let let us know what you do

and don't like about the Manchester 2035

strategy because the listening process

is not over yet like yes we're in phase

two but we still want to hear what you

think and all of us are going to be

there at different points throughout the

days as well you can speak to the

University Executive the students union

executive team and other senior leaders

across the University because we want to

make sure we're taking all of your

thoughts into account when we're

creating this strategy and if iners

isn't your thing then you can also feed

in with the digital ideas lab which is

launched on the 31st of March and you

can make sure that we're really taking

your voices into account but it's

important that we are um yeah the

listening has not stopped so don't worry

please keep on telling us what you do

and don't like um but yeah there's your

two different

options from the 31st of March we are

going to be in Nancy Rothwell building

with a popup exhibition where people can

discover all the Big Ideas coming out of

the various Sprint groups and also see

how they kind of work together and how

they're crosscutting we're also going to

have a really great digital platform

that people can use to feed in so they

can't make it in person though ideally

we want them to do both there will be a

digital feedback mechanism as well so

we're really Keen that as many people as

possible come along whether that's staff

students or a wider community members