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- Nice to meet you. - Great to meet you.
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I think that you can see the Queen's Tower.
I think that that copper dome is the Queen's Tower.
- Over that way. Oh, I see.
- It's a pleasure to meet you Hugh.
And thank you so much for agreeing to do this today.
- Well, thank you for inviting me.
I'm delighted to be here.
- I wondered what,
What attracted you to Imperial?
Why did you want to move here?
- Well, opportunity to lead one of the world's
great research universities, first and foremost.
But there's a personal piece as well.
So, I entered academic medicine mainly because
I was inspired during a medical school elective
in The Hammersmith, all those years ago.
So it's kind of a book ending of a career
with an Imperial experience.
- So you mentioned briefly working at The Hammersmith,
and that being part of your story to getting here.
But I wondered what it was that really inspired you
to get into medicine in the first place.
What made you want to study medicine?
- Yeah, gosh. I'm often asked that.
I'm not really sure.
I mean, I had a grandfather who was a rural GP
in County Wexford, in Ireland.
So that was. And as kids, we would go down and visit.
So there was a bit of mystique about this,
all of these concoctions,
that he would be rustling up for his patients.
So that was probably part of it.
And then, at a certain stage,
having entered medicine, got the kind of
bug for academic medicine, and that was around people.
So I had a fantastic Professor of Medicine,
Muiris Fitzgerald, who was-
- When you were in Ireland?
- In Dublin, yeah. So he was kind of our Professor.
And he was just, he was an inspiration.
He was a superb clinician, wonderful bedside skills,
but was always talking about mechanisms of disease,
and always pointing out where the frontiers were,
and how little we knew about even basic diseases.
He was respiratory. So asthma, how little we knew.
And prompting us then to think about
what we could do to fill that knowledge gap.
So I think, like so many of us, mentors are important.
And these role models that, at certain times
and phases of our career we meet are very influential.
- I was wondering.
What do you look to achieve during your time here?
Or do you have any kind of plans
for what you want the college to become?
- So I think the big thing for me, initially,
is to recognize the strengths of the university,
which are just fantastic.
And then to really engage, and listen to colleagues,
and understand what their ambitions are.
What are their dreams and ambitions?
So, I mean, my job is really, I think,
to work on creating the ecosystem.
So everybody's, staff or students,
can really reach their full potential.
- Students are really important to us here at Imperial.
And I wondered what you thought some of the biggest issues,
or the kind of challenges students are facing are?
- Well, I must say, I think students now
are a lot more mature than when I was a medical student.
They think about the world, I think,
in a much more kind of holistic and mature way.
So I think first and foremost students are looking for
an inspiring education that sets them up for a good career.
But I'm also really interested in the way students now
think about the society that they want to live in,
the lifestyle they want to have, their values,
and of course the planet, in a way that we never did.
- It's wonderful to hear.
And it kind of comes back to what inspires students.
I think seeing that leadership in research,
seeing that kind of conversation with you,
and hearing those messages inspires them to go off,
and create, and to do wonderful things.
- So, just to be part of that community,
where I can help people realize their full potential
in these critically important areas for both
individual society and the planet, just fantastic for me.
And real privilege, I should say.
- So obviously there are certain groups
that are particularly underrepresented
in subjects like science and engineering.
And I was wondering how you felt you could contribute
to that, improving that sense of belonging for students
and staff from historically marginalized groups.
- So first, I'm really encouraged that it's,
people are talking about this within the college.
So it's been identified clearly as an issue.
But there's an ambition to do so much more.
It's an area that I'm passionate about.
And it's a conversation that I look forward to having.
And certainly for me, as the incoming president,
what is most reassuring is that people
are already talking about it,
and already think it should be a priority.
- Yeah, and it's wonderful.
I truly believe a more diverse
scientific community will be a better,
and a more productive scientific community, as well as
making it a better place for all of us to work in.
- Yeah, and a better learning environment for our students.
- Completely.
It's so exciting, and I wonder whether
you kind of had any advice to scientists starting out.
- I think first, to follow their passion.
They've got to love what they're doing.
And perhaps, perhaps secondly and,
in the modern era, maybe more importantly,
is to appreciate that most careers,
academic, research, and otherwise, they're no longer linear.
So to be willing to make a right turn or a left turn,
or indeed loop around if an opportunity comes up.
- And that opportunity, I think,
you see it and you feel it when you walk around Imperial.
You can go into entrepreneurship,
you could go and do a course in the business school.
You can go and learn something like philosophy.
You can join the Royal College of Music,
and play these beautiful symphonies.
You have that chance, all within one post code.
It's really quite an extraordinary place to be.
- I mean, the business school, I think,
is a really good example,
where they're absolutely world class in terms
of nuts and bolts of kind of finance,
and marketing, and leadership,
the standard courses that any business school should offer.
But what I really, what really excites me, is the way
they're engaging with the world of climate change,
or the world of green technologies,
or the world of bio technologies.
So again, harnessing
what other parts of Imperial has to offer.
- Everyone has to have these funny conversations
when you're in the line to buy coffee or something,
where you're like, what do you do,
and how can we work together?
- And some of the best ideas
are sparked by those chance conversations.
Coffee is important.
- We're very, very lucky.
So I wonder, alongside coffee, what was,
what do you remember best about being a student?
What are some of your highlights of being a student?
- Gosh, that's a hard. Yeah, that's a hard question.
Well of course, I mean the highlights
are the friends that you make when you're a student.
So some of my, well my closest friends now were
from my medical school days.
And there's a group of about eight of us
who meet up probably every quarter,
and have managed to do that
no matter what part of the globe we're in.
So I think first and foremost,
the friendships that you generate,
if you look after them, will be friendships for life.
- Firstly, I wonder whether you have any free time.
And then if you do have any free time,
what do you do in that free time?
- Oh, gosh. Well, I won't answer the first one.
I do have some free time.
I'm an enthusiastic, but very moderate kind of golfer.
But I do enjoy it.
And I have three sons who are avid golfers,
and an awful lot more talented than I am.
So occasionally I surprise them.
- That's fantastic.
So who, or what, makes you laugh?
- Oh my goodness.
Well actually I talking about my sons, certainly they do,
particularly when they're ribbing their dad about something.
Gosh, who else? Ted Lasso.
Have you watched Ted Lasso?
- Yeah. I've watched Ted Lasso.
- If ever I want a good laugh, I just turn,
even if I've seen it before.
- It's very comforting, right? A footballer.
- Very clever, yeah.
- Imperial has a extraordinary community
of about 240,000 alumni all over the world,
working in different sectors,
and pushing these new boundaries,
and doing incredible things.
And I wondered, as president, what your thoughts
and visions were for that alumni community?
- So I think they're just a critically important community.
I mean, first and foremost,
they're wonderful ambassadors for Imperial.
But Imperial,
flipping it around Imperial cannot, I think,
realize it's full potential
without the support of those alumni.
They're going to be critically important.
And I really look forward to engaging with them.
What is so fantastic here is,
the ingredients that we have to play with.
I mean, what a fantastic set of kind of ingredients,
whether it's our students engaging with alumni and donors.
Our research, which undoubtedly has
and will continue to inspire them.
Not all universities have that fantastic
set of ingredients, so it's.
I would hope the future is really bright on that front.
- Yeah, you do feel it.
You feel it walking around,
when you speak to our extraordinary students,
just how lucky we are to have such brilliant ones.
And I hope they continue to shape
all of the vision in the future.
So thank you so much for that discussion.
It was absolutely fantastic.
And we're really, really lucky that you're joining us.
- Well, it's a privilege, and I'm very excited.
So many, many thanks.
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