Nic Beech on Salford University's history of social engagement

About:

In this episode of the Fit for Purpose podcast, Rt Hon Justine Greening interviews Professor Nic Beech, the vice chancellor of the University of Salford. They discuss the history and importance of the university, its engagement with the local community, and its role in driving the local economy and entrepreneurship. They also touch on the impact of Media City on Salford and the university's focus on innovation and social purpose. Nic Beech shares his own career journey and emphasizes the value of diversity in leadership.

Transcript:

Rt Hon Justine Greening (00:01.262)

Welcome to this week's Fit for Purpose podcast. This week, I'm really delighted to be joined by someone I've known for quite a while now actually, Professor Nic Beech He's vice chancellor of the University of Salford. And it's gonna be fantastic to talk with Nic really about how important that university has always been locally and regionally, but also increasingly nationally, but also his plans as a somewhat new vice chancellor at Salford for how he wants to really open it up.

to that wider community. Nic, thanks so much for being part of the Fit for Purpose podcast. I mean, maybe we'll just start by telling us a little bit about the University of Salford, because in a sense, its story is almost the story of industry and the growth of Manchester, I guess, over quite a long time.

Nic Beech (00:47.911)

It is and thanks, thanks Justine. Really delighted to be here and to have the chance to be on the podcast. So University of Salford is a Robbins era 1960s university and like many of the universities that became universities in the 1960s, we've got a long history actually as a technical institute. So back into the 1800s. And so we were always a really essential part of

the city here and Salford is its own city. But it's also a really, really innovative space. So Salford here and where I'm sitting in the campus, we're right next to Peel Park, which was in fact the first public access park in the UK. We've just had a big festival this weekend in our Media City campus called We Invented the Weekend. And strangely, they did. So behind the movement,

Rt Hon Justine Greening (01:39.598)

Yeah

Nic Beech (01:45.319)

that gave workers leisure time on Saturday afternoons in the early 1800s. That was a movement of people from Salford that did it. So the university has always been that sort of quite engaged approach to education, not a separate approach. And secondly, that Robbins era element for us is really important because it's about a form of education that is about widening access and participation so that the real opportunities are there for everybody.

but also the research that we do tends to be highly engaged. It's not just disciplines defining their own problems to work on. It's very much about picking up on what are the real issues that people are trying to work on in businesses, in the local council, in the health service and so on. What are their issues and how do we bring skills and abilities to help solve some of those problems? So that's been a long tradition here and as a relative newcomer, it's lovely to come into.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (02:21.614)

-huh. -huh.

Nic Beech (02:43.911)

into that tradition and hopefully see how we can move that forward in a productive way.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (02:49.454)

And in terms of numbers of students that you've got, just to give people a sense of how big, how many, how many are at Salford?

Nic Beech (02:55.911)

So it's around 30 ,000 students. And we also have a campus in Bahrain, which is quite important to us. So it's the British University of Bahrain. And we've got various other overseas activities as well. And I mentioned those not because they're in some sense a distraction from what we do within Salford, but because that connection internationally is utterly crucial to how we do.

really high quality experience in education here by connecting the students between those campuses.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (03:25.326)

And so right at home then, I know one of your passions is really around how Salford can be, you know, that sort of civic university that's really having a social impact, woven through everything you do and into that local community. I think it'd be really good just to talk about some of those ideas. You know, you've talked about, you know, the Park next door and if you like the campus itself.

How do you see that relationship with that local community? And in a sense, how do you want to change it over time and open it up?

Nic Beech (04:01.863)

Well, I see it fundamentally as a symbiotic relationship that actually we both not just need each other, but we hugely benefit from being with each other and working alongside. And so the idea that we've built into the middle of our strategy, being a relatively new VC, of course you have to have a new strategy. And at the heart of that are two things. One is our mission, which is innovating to enrich lives.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (04:23.278)

You

Nic Beech (04:30.567)

And all of those words are quite deliberate. So it is about innovation and it is about technological innovation, our history, but also the huge amount of work that goes on here in social innovation and health innovation and creative innovation. So it's a very people orientation to the way we operate and enriching lives is really crucial to us. So when we were talking to our students, to members of the local community,

people really don't like and they're quite right in my view to not like a deficit model. It's not that we are going to ride in and say there's something wrong with you and we're going to fix it. It's not that at all. It is about building on the strengths, the real character, the community that exists here and then asking how can we help contribute to that. So bringing that back to the other part of your question.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (05:05.934)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (05:21.223)

It's about collaborative advantage, how we work together to achieve outcomes that we couldn't possibly do otherwise. And I'll just give you a couple of little flavors of that. So we do a lot of work on creative and cultural industries. And we recently had a fantastic photographic exhibition by an internationally renowned photographer who's won pretty much every award around the world.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (05:37.518)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (05:50.727)

wonderful, wonderful works of art that he's doing. But alongside that, we had funding for a social change project, which took young people from an area where they were really struggling, to be honest, to engage with education, to get outside their bedrooms, engage with society more broadly. So they each had a camera and we went through a weekly process with them in which they produced their own photographic response.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (06:08.974)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (06:19.015)

to the art that was being done and then turned up at the big launch event and were able to speak about that so movingly. I mean, nobody who was there can forget the impact of what they said about how it had really changed them. And so for us, it's that, how do we put interconnection, really great work that in one sense is internationally leading and really great work that is intensely local, focused on the people in their situation.

and see what change you can bring about by linking the tape.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (06:49.582)

And in a sense, you being the connector and the fact that actually for Salford, you've got young people growing up literally in the shadow of the media city, this fantastic set of businesses and this creative sector that's right on the doorstep. And yet this being a creative sector that often hasn't been anywhere near as diverse as we all know in terms of who's

Nic Beech (06:53.191)

Yes.

Nic Beech (07:01.287)

Yeah.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (07:19.246)

who makes it up. And so almost the university being able to play this crucial role in just connecting that fantastic local talent up to some of these sectors that really need their diversity.

Nic Beech (07:31.847)

Yeah, no, you're absolutely spot on. And, you know, this is a wonderfully innovative place. So there's loads of firsts that were achieved here, including things like the park and the first ever lending library. The one that I'm particularly excited about is that, of course, on the 2nd of April, 1817, the world's first angling society.

was formed here in Salford. But there's all of this innovation and you're right now it's very techie and we share a building with the BBC and work with them all the time. And yet, actually Salford as a city is the 18th most deprived area in England, 18th worst out of 317. So we need to move that innovation.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (07:57.998)

Yeah.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (08:03.246)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (08:17.063)

to make a difference in those people's lives. And so that is about the way we reach out in terms of health, in terms of being a child -friendly city, and the role of adults in that. It's around social justice and how we can really move on all of those fronts.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (08:31.246)

And the university obviously has its own involvement with local schools and it's probably worth just talking a little bit about some of that core outreach that you do as a university pretty much every day.

Nic Beech (08:44.071)

Yeah, and so the ethos of collaborative advantage is that we want the boundaries around us to be as absolutely low as possible and to be as porous as possible so that we are out all the time and people come in all the time. So we run an institute of technology which links all of the local colleges in the area. So we're working in that way all the time. Our students actually do fantastic work on tutoring and we work a lot with the Tutor Trust.

who are then providing collaborative form of tutoring into schools. And one of the things that's important about that is we have quite a lot of students who come from the area or from Greater Manchester. And tutoring isn't just about the knowledge, it's often about young people thinking, well, if they're doing it, perhaps I could. And connecting in a different way. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so we work with into university and all of those sorts of things that mean we're very present in schools. But what I hope is we do that.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (09:29.358)

and the confidence.

Nic Beech (09:40.327)

in a way that is entirely supportive of their agenda rather than us trying to impose anything.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (09:45.678)

And I guess the other point I really wanted to come to as well was the other end of the pipeline. And in a sense, that heritage that you've got of the technical colleges rooted in industry, this incredible shift almost over time to update that sector to become media city, literally this embodiment almost of what 21st century economies look like. But it's probably worth talking about that.

That opportunity footprint of Salford actually, not just what you're doing through the schools and if you like yourself as a university, connect up those young people, but that much bigger role that you play in driving the local economy, entrepreneurship, being a local employer yourself.

Nic Beech (10:29.735)

Yeah, so I think there's a couple of different angles on that. One is that universities often can produce, through the staff and through the students actually, spin outs. And that's been a really important part of what we've done. And we tend to probably produce more of those per person than many universities, just because I think we have that sort of entrepreneurial way of thinking in our student population.

Secondly, we do a huge amount of work with SMEs. So over 1 ,200 that have been through the kind of innovation support process here. And just to give you one or two examples of that, we have a big robotics centre for the whole of the North of England. And in that, one of their specialities is working precisely with SMEs who normally don't have any access at all to robotics. And yet robotics linked to AI.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (11:21.71)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (11:24.039)

is one of the crucial things that's going to enable them to work quite different ways. So we've got SMEs in and out of the robotics centre all the time, alongside that they do a lot of work in health and robots to help in surgery and so on. So that's really crucial. Linked to that, a huge amount of work of getting people into employment in the first place and to then be working in the SMEs, especially when they're coming from...

areas and backgrounds have got huge challenge. So they might be care providers in a particular way, they might have all sorts of other responsibilities. And so we offer everything from business startup advice to legal advice to incubators, all of that sort of stuff. But coming back to what I was saying earlier, it's crucial for us that that's not seen as being kind of an add on. That's at the heart of what we do. And the students are involved, the staff are involved as a kind of part of their normal work.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (12:09.454)

huh. huh.

Nic Beech (12:15.495)

The brilliant thing that happens out of that is of course those businesses come back in and they then work with future students so that there's a really positive virtuous cycle.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (12:24.11)

Yeah. So it's almost like a continuous improvement approach, really, where you're steadily building up those relationships, supporting that, that local and regional economy, particularly for SMEs, you're looking at the research and the innovation agenda that's almost going to create these new sectors that will be there in the future and all of it steadily being driven through a Salford footprint that in a sense is almost so much more than just simply you run.

degree courses and students do them and then graduate and get a job.

Nic Beech (12:58.535)

Yeah, you know, and there's a, I suppose there's a really old version of universities, which is about education as formation. So it isn't just about, can I teach you these particular skills or these chunks of knowledge? Because of course those things move over time enormously. I remember hearing you speak a little while ago in which you did actually refer back to a bit of economics that sounded like it had been learned some time ago. But in reality, most people,

I didn't mean that. Gosh, that could sound terrible. I thought it was actually really relevant and very good. But it had been retained. And that is true for some people. But actually for a lot of people, things that you might have learned 20 years ago or 25 years ago, if they're not in constant use, they move. And of course, the context of their use moves. So the idea of education as formation isn't

just about the content, it is about the process of learning, the process of self renewal. And part of that is about self confidence, that people are able to go into new work situations and say, I don't know everything that's going on here and how can I learn and how can I adapt? And that I would say is, there's been a long tradition here with the university as part of the community.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (14:14.798)

And so, I mean, it's brilliant having you part of the Purpose Coalition because all of this is part of this Raising Standards, Creating Opportunities campaign that we've got where we've really been trying to demonstrate just how strategic that role of a university like Salford is, both working upstream, you are literally, whether it's the tutoring, whether it's the wider work you're doing with schools, helping to raise standards in all sorts of really different ways.

You're driving the local economy. You've got this huge opportunity footprint. And I think you are such a good example of a university that does way more on entrepreneurship than people would probably ever recognize. And in a sense, that role of the university sector in literally powering entrepreneurship.

Nic Beech (14:55.367)

Yeah.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (15:02.67)

not just today, but creating those sectors for the future for me. That's what's so exciting about this. You know, you're right at the nexus of bringing all of those things that we need together in a sense.

Nic Beech (15:14.695)

Yeah, no, and it is, I mean, perhaps I shouldn't be so excited about my job, but I actually am. It's just, you know, and so wherever you go here, you find that entrepreneurial spirit. And sometimes it's a real social entrepreneurial spirit. Sometimes it's more commercial. Sometimes it's about a real cause, people working on sustainability and environment in brilliant ways. You can probably see just the edge of a poster behind me, which is from actually some of our fashion students.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (15:20.558)

Hahaha!

Rt Hon Justine Greening (15:30.158)

and

Rt Hon Justine Greening (15:39.438)

Yes.

Nic Beech (15:42.887)

and the work that they've done on bringing sustainability into the materials that are used and how they operate. And they show stuff in Paris, they show stuff in the leading stores, both in Manchester and London, all of this, partly because it's driven by that real ethos of being courageous and being a bit different.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (16:02.542)

And of course, one of the, you know, the big things, pieces of change for Salford really over, well, not recent years, but sort of the last 20 years has been, you know, Media City and the arrival of this almost other anchor institution called the BBC. My sense, Nic, is that that really has added this new dynamic in a sense for Salford. And what's it meant?

for the university itself because you've always had such a vocational slant to the mindset and entrepreneurial as you say, presumably it's really turbocharged that aspect of what the university's always been interested in.

Nic Beech (16:45.191)

completely and turbo charging is a really good phrase. So I actually live in Salford Keys right next to Media City and it's a brilliant place to be. There's always something exciting going on from the we invented the weekend festival that was this weekend in which you got so many gigs, brilliant stuff from Peggy Seeger amongst others for the fans amongst us, to the celebration of light, to all of the things that go on.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (17:12.302)

Yes, ma 'am.

Nic Beech (17:12.775)

And we share a building with the BBC. So actually we've got people who work for the BBC who come down and talk to our students and they're part of our courses and the other way. So the students go up there and work on those programs. For football fans, I know this is a slightly touchy topic just at the moment.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (17:30.414)

I should explain if you're watching this, this is being filmed during the beginning, no, the beginning of the Euro 2024 contest.

Nic Beech (17:40.231)

Okey dokey. So there's a note of caution in my household with its slight Scottish bias. Anywho, if you're interested in watching replays and if you look at a lot of the TV production, a lot of the technology from that is done actually by the staff who work for the University of Salford as well as for the BBC. And that's brilliant because then the students are using the latest technology, the latest approaches and the flow through from their experience.

educationally into work is a very smooth flow because that's become part of the way we learn. So earlier on you were saying it's not just that we kind of do standard modules and standard courses. Actually, of course we do courses, but they are infused with both the ethos and with the practicality of the workplace. And that brings around its own innovative and ingenuity in terms of the students.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (18:34.99)

And it's so interesting in a way because, you know, maybe 10 years ago, this concept of media studies, you know, would have almost been frowned on. But actually the reality is when you look at the economic benefits of Media City in Salford, when you only have to switch on the Laura Kuenssberg show on a Sunday and see those, you know, automatically moving cameras and if you like the huge technology that now goes into.

Nic Beech (18:45.127)

Yeah, yeah.

Nic Beech (18:52.039)

Cute.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (19:03.15)

any element of TV production, setting aside, if you like, the kind of almost pure creative element of the sector that I think, you know, wherever you go in the world, people would say Britain, you know, has a uniquely fantastic heritage in some of that, that sort of, those ideas of creativity, all of that. And actually it's such an important sector for us, isn't it? And for Salford, in a sense, producing that talent,

not just if you like with the technical expertise in the world of AI and tech just absolutely romping forward, but also that ability to bring that creative lens. It's just crucial, isn't it?

Nic Beech (19:44.931)

Yeah. It's crucial and deeply exciting because first of all, it's that blend of creativity and technology and those two things being working in a really sort of imbricated way with each other, which I think is very exciting. But secondly, coming back to the social purpose, it is also the way that we reinvent ourselves and enable ourselves as part of broader society to be different, you know.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (20:09.354)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (20:14.535)

And people are hugely inspired in fantastic ways by the people that they see on the media, the people they see producing media. So we do lots of stuff around animation and games and those sorts of areas that, you know, 20 years ago wouldn't have been imagined. And now is a major part of industry, hugely creative and technical and actually increasingly democratic in terms of the small and medium end of the scale that you can get more involved in those businesses.

relatively easy. There's always barriers, but a few barriers. And then the interesting question, I think, is the scale up question and how those small organisations and sole trader approaches can start to work together in collaborations or work as part of bigger organisations. BBC is really important to us, but actually there's a whole range of large commercial organisations in Media City as well, which are crucial for us.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (21:09.39)

And I think it before I want to come, I want to finish off talking about in a way your own journey. But I think it reminds me of almost how powerful that Salford alumni approaches as well. And in a way that ability for people to keep collaborating and partnering together as a Salford community, even when they've actually moved on from that original course they might have done at the university. And, you know, obviously I've worked with many, many universities, but.

I think that the alumni, the strategicness of the alumni approach for Salford, I think, does stand out too, but it particularly matters, doesn't it, in these sorts of sectors connecting people up.

Nic Beech (21:49.159)

It does, and those sectors are very network based. So there's lots of kind of individual workers, lots of small organisations and a small number of very big ones and how they connect is absolutely crucial. So we have over 200,000 alumni of which a huge number are very, very active so that they are in contact with us, which is relatively unusual for a lot of UK universities, much more common in the States, for example.

So that is brilliant. And I've, you know, I kind of as I wander around and meet people in various business, including media, but other forms of business as well. The number of alumni that you meet is just huge. And if they themselves are not alumni, their children might have been to the university or others have been. And that sense of connectivity and the kind of care and compassion, I hope, and purpose that we've got.

that goes a long way. And so people actually are really keen to continue giving, as it were, in that. I met somebody just the other day who said, well, actually, I think I'm a staff alumni. And I thought, well, interesting idea, because I normally think about students as our alumni. But she was saying, you know, she's now working in media and very successful. She's saying, but, you know, I want to stay connected and I want to be part of that.

And that I think is probably quite a rare thing that, you know, when people move on from one place, they move on to wherever they go to and actually the level of emotional connection was really strong.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (23:13.518)

Yeah. Yeah.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (23:19.342)

It's brilliant and I think in a way it's all about journeys, isn't it? And not losing sight in a way of those earlier roots because actually, you know, they, well, certainly mine definitely shaped me. But I guess when we're all starting out on our career, Nic, not many of us think, I know what I'd really like to do when I get older. I think I'll run a university. It's funny in a sense. It's one of those career.

Nic Beech (23:43.399)

Heheheheh

Rt Hon Justine Greening (23:49.07)

career roles in a way that probably people don't think about having, but actually can be, you know, for all the reasons you've brilliantly set out and the way you set it out, so rewarding to be part of. But tell us a little bit about your own journey. I mean, the twists and turns and maybe the unexpected twists and turns as much as anything else.

Nic Beech (24:10.407)

Sure, well, it has been a long and winding road, that's for sure. And, you know, I'm off the scale introvert and that may not be immediately obvious in the way that we've been talking. But actually, for me, the natural place to be is a backroom analyst and I loved all that. At school, I really didn't find the right subjects.

connected for me and it wasn't actually until I got to university and discovered logic that I was home and this suddenly kind of all made sense to me. But if you only focus on logic and bits of applied statistics that I became truly fascinated by, actually you can easily end up not connecting to other people. And so I also ended up studying social anthropology.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (24:45.966)

Mm -hmm.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (25:01.006)

Mm. Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (25:04.871)

which was another huge journey for me. And a realisation actually that I was really interested in that kind of connectivity between what we do here, which is more technological and people oriented, but there's different ways of thinking about it. So that was kind of true for me. And I didn't immediately become an academic. I worked outside universities for a bit and then came back in largely through...

Rt Hon Justine Greening (25:15.214)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (25:33.223)

other people's agency being invited in to do some tutorial sessions and I just loved it. I just loved the students. And so I applied for a job assuming I wouldn't get it because I didn't have a PhD or anything and bizarrely got the job.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (25:45.334)

So you've left university, you're in some analyst role by the sounds of it?

Nic Beech (25:51.975)

No, and I was at the time when it came back in, I was working in HR, but again, that sort of went on and then because I had the opportunity to do some work in some seminars and tutors that became a thing that I was deeply interested in. And so I then applied for a job and moved into universities and didn't really know what I was doing at all, to be very honest. It was a kind of crazy time of.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (25:57.39)

Okay, yep.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (26:16.974)

Hmm.

Nic Beech (26:20.711)

writing out acetates at midnight the night before giving a lecture the next morning and not understanding at all what research was. But I was then in Strathclyde University, which is actually a similar, it's a Robbins era university and really, really ambitious. And I worked in business schools. And at that time, of course, business schools, there's a couple of things about them. One, tend to be very social science. So it was a place that was very good to be.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (26:23.694)

Hahaha!

Rt Hon Justine Greening (26:35.822)

Yeah.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (26:43.374)

Thank you.

Nic Beech (26:49.159)

if you were interested like me in anthropology and other things. But also it was a place of social mobility. You know, it's the big disciplinary area that people aspire to and then move on through. And that was kind of true for me as well. So I started doing a PhD part time and that's always been a real something that's lived with me for a long time. And I was teaching a lot of part time students, but studying part time and then trying to build up a research career. And then I moved to

Rt Hon Justine Greening (26:57.102)

Yeah, absolutely.

Nic Beech (27:19.015)

St. Andrews and that was lovely and I spent a lot of time there researching with the creative industries and other things and during that time there was a change in the leadership structure in the department that I was in and so with two other people I became joint head of school and that was a terrible time really because I got a big ESRC fellowship.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (27:39.086)

Mm -hmm.

Nic Beech (27:46.567)

I'd got a huge amount of external stuff going on. But actually the opportunity to just do something a bit different with the school and have a very.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (27:53.686)

And at this stage, Nic, did you suddenly, was there a point when you thought, actually, this is what I'm doing, isn't it? It's going to be, but not quite. That's what I'm just thinking. You know, you're steadily in this space and it's becoming more important and there's a bit more of a fixture in your, in what you're doing. And then, yeah, you finally get this sort of joint leadership role and it's all starting to come together, isn't it?

Nic Beech (28:01.799)

Not yet. No.

Nic Beech (28:19.879)

It is, but again, that was done on a very collegiate fashion and we deliberately had three of us as co -heads, which was unusual at the time. But that meant that we got more diversity in it. We got different ways of thinking, different genders and so on. And gradually, exactly what you're saying, it kind of dawned on me that I actually really liked this stuff. And one of the other three said to me, you like the broader canvas, don't you? You like being able to paint with big brushes on a...

Rt Hon Justine Greening (28:23.278)

And then.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (28:28.142)

Yeah, very unusual.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (28:32.942)

You?

Nic Beech (28:49.255)

big space. And I became Dean of a brilliant, brilliant faculty there, which had got everything from divinity and classics and ancient languages through to economics and management, perhaps at the other end. And I just loved that. I just loved learning from what people were doing. And then I became a vice principal there. And then I moved on from that. And at that stage, I was, I still wasn't thinking I wanted to be a vice chancellor, but I just moved on and became provost at Dundee.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (29:15.598)

Yeah.

Nic Beech (29:19.399)

And that was brilliant because there's huge life sciences and medicine, a brilliant art school. And so I was just, I was just being happy all the way through. It's just going and learning from these people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (29:26.478)

Yeah, so it's almost like this accidental career journey that, you know, any step you're really enjoying what you're doing and you think, I'll take the next step. But it's not necessarily with this destination.

Nic Beech (29:39.207)

Not at all, no, no. But I think the thing that's drawn me through, and then I was at Middlesex as VC there and then to Salford. But the thing that's drawn me through is this just fascination with what can we do as part of society as a community? How can we bring really fantastic research and education together and to do that within a civic setting? That's the thing that has pulled me through. So I'm now doing another part -time doctorate and on...

higher education leadership because I thought it's about time I worked out what it is I'm meant to be doing. But I like staying connected in that sort of way and it's just, it is a joy and a privilege, frankly.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (30:11.758)

Yeah.

sense.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (30:21.934)

And it's, I mean, I think for you in this particular role now, it's sort of, if you have a Venn diagram of, you know, the versions of Nic Beech, it sort of touches on all of them, doesn't it really? And it's complete food for almost all of your, you know, all your skill set and interest and what really inspires you, I feel.

Nic Beech (30:34.055)

It's a

Nic Beech (30:45.159)

Yeah, that's completely right. And the thing that I would add onto it is I also find it quite challenging. So, you know, I started out by saying my natural place in some senses, or certainly when I was younger, my natural place would be in the back room, not, you know, on the stage in the front. So I have to really make myself do that. But I practiced it. I really learned from and with others and I love being able to be there and do it. So I don't...

Rt Hon Justine Greening (30:51.438)

Mm -hmm.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (31:00.206)

Yes.

Nic Beech (31:13.767)

You know, all of these steps, you know, it's not just entirely unintended that you want to do things, but also you've got to try and challenge yourself, I think.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (31:19.31)

Yes.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (31:24.27)

And I think it's a really great point to finish on because I think when we're growing up, we often see particular leaders in the business pages or in magazines. And you get this impression that this is a straight line, that it's just on the up the whole time. And actually, reality is, first of all, it's never like that at all, actually. We all meander around quite a lot in our careers. That's quite normal.

But I think the other really interesting thing about what you said is there's space for all sorts of people in leadership. And actually it takes that breadth of different sorts of people. If everyone was the same, actually it would be a pretty boring. But B, it's the diversity of those leadership voices like yours in the sector that really make the difference. And there'll be people listening and watching this podcast. You think, well, I'm an introvert.

And I thought I had to be an extrovert to be able to lead. And actually, no, it just means you'll have your different style. But it can be a style, you know, as you can tell people, that can be hugely effective and valued, if you like, by others around you.

Nic Beech (32:42.663)

Yeah, I think you're right and we do need more diversity in leadership. And as part of what I'm doing at the moment, I've been interviewing other VCs about their journey and I've done 33, 34 interviews. I've not come across anybody that started out as a young academic thinking, I'd like to be a VC. But actually, I think it's really good. Those bits of meandering that you talked about are vital.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (33:04.162)

Yeah.

Nic Beech (33:10.023)

Because if you want to do these sorts of roles, you've got to be able to connect and listen to people and learn from them. And I think there's two things for that. One, that you can ask questions that show them that you're really interested. And two, that you've got enough humility. And sometimes there's an element of vulnerability that is at the heart of genuine learning that you are willing to change yourself. So I've deliberately tried to enact a different way of being to the way that would have just been natural for me.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (33:10.03)

Yes.

Nic Beech (33:37.383)

But I'm doing it with a purpose and that's why I keep going.

Rt Hon Justine Greening (33:41.55)

Brilliant. Nic, it's been such a pleasure to do the podcast today. It's run a bit longer, but actually I think it's been absolutely fantastic. And I think in a way you've really brought alive that role of being a VC. And in a sense, you've also brought alive why I love having the university's light salt for part of the purpose coalition, because, you know, in a sense you're my inspiration and food for my kind of soul and my brain.

I think in many respects, it's sort of what feeds the rest of the work that we do with our businesses, because actually universities are the ones that have been doing social mobility for a very long time. And we're now getting a lot of companies to think as strategically as all you've been, including Salford. Anyway, Nic, we need to finish, but it's been an absolute pleasure. Nic Beech from Salford, thank you so much for doing the podcast today.

Nic Beech (34:38.983)

Thank you so much, Justine, really enjoyed it.