Dear colleague,
I hope the second semester is progressing well for you. Our campuses are very busy, and it’s great to see our students enjoying all the activities that are available to them. We have recently been joined by an extra 300 students, who are taking postgraduate programmes with January start options. We have also welcomed an additional 500 associate students who are joining our community until the summer. We are a leader across the Russell Group in our recruitment of associate students, many of whom join us via partnerships with some of the best universities in North America.
This update focuses on some events we have held recently and the staff survey.
Last Wednesday we had a wonderful evening celebration of science and engineering at Queen Mary. We were joined by over 200 guests from industry, third and public sector organisations as well as key policy makers and research funders. There were interactive stands from many of our different research groups in the Faculty and guests could, for example, try playing an AI-enabled electric guitar, get close to ants of different species or hear all about organs on a chip, where our researchers create models of many different human organs on chips to enable the testing of treatments for diseases. As part of the event, we presented honorary awards to two very exceptional and inspirational people associated with the University, Dr Ibilola Amao and Gordon Buchanan: for more information about these fantastic recipients of honorary awards, please see the news section of our website.
The evening concluded with a very special inaugural lecture from Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia entitled Steeling the Show - Creating Exceptional Alloys of Iron. Guests had flown in from around the world for the lecture and were not disappointed; the whole audience was rapt. You can see some highlights of the evening on YouTube.
The event was a great opportunity to share our research with guests. We have just published some more case studies from our Research Highways, highlighting the fantastic work from across our faculties. Please see our Research Highways webpages for more information.
On 7 February we were delighted to host HRH Princess Beatrice, who visited Queen Mary’s Blizard Institute. The Princess met a delegation of our scientists and clinicians, to discuss how scientists are tackling the UK’s rising skin cancer numbers. The Queen Mary delegation was led by Professor Edel O'Toole and Professor Catherine Harwood, and their research groups and colleagues, who were able to talk the Princess through the latest research at Queen Mary.
We were also pleased to host Robert Halfon, MP, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education on 19 January. Mr Halfon met with, and was rightly very impressed by, students from our degree and apprenticeship programmes. Mr Halfon is clearly passionate about social mobility, and was very keen to talk to our students about their experiences and the choices they had made. The students present were, as usual, the best possible ambassadors for Queen Mary and made us all extremely proud!
It is very important that we offer a first-class staff experience to enable staff to reach their full potential. The last staff survey provided useful information about the experience of our staff, and I know that colleagues are working hard across the University to implement local staff survey action plans that respond to the feedback received. The University-wide staff survey action plan, which needed to build upon local action plans, will be published tomorrow. The University-wide action plan covers a range of issues, including further work on enhancing performance across the University, and on reward and recognition. Sharon Ellis (Chief Operations Officer) leads the Steering Group with responsibility for implementing the University staff survey action plan, and will be writing to all staff tomorrow with more information.
I will write to you again when there is a further update to share.
Best wishes,
Colin
Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, FREng, BEng, PhD, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, MIFireEPresident and Principal | Queen Mary University of London | Mile End Road | London | E1 4NS