Hello
I’m Stephen Toope
It’s been a year of great achievement
and change for the University of Cambridge.
I'm speaking from the new Student Services Centre
which opened in March
and which for the first time has brought together
all the student-supporting teams of the University.
On the West Cambridge site
we recently opened the new Civil Engineering building.
Work began on the University’s new Cavendish Laboratory,
a project that will help strengthen the University’s position
as a globally leading site for physics research.
New college buildings,
like Newnham’s Dorothy Garrod building,
have added greatly to the city’s rich architectural mix.
We saw sporting success in rowing, yachting, road cycling, ice hockey, sailing and rugby.
There was achievement of another kind,
in ground-breaking research,
notably in the award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Sir Greg Winter, Master of Trinity.
The prospect of Brexit continues to loom over us.
We're no more certain now about whether or how it will happen,
but we've continued to plan for the contingency
of a disorderly and disruptive exit.
Cambridge colleagues continue to engage with government to make sure that the impact
of Brexit on immigration, research funding and collaboration are well understood
and, where possible, mitigated.
And we continue to reach out to our partners around the world.
From Munich to Nanjing,
from Paris to Delhi.
To show through our actions, not only our words,
that we are a global university open to global collaboration.
Over the past year,
we've actively engaged with the new regulator:
the Office for Students (OfS).
As part of our compliance with OfS regulations
the University submitted its Access and Participation Plan.
The Plan contains ambitious new targets on access:
We've said that, by 2025,
more than 25% of our intake
will be from the most under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds.
That will rise to 33% by 2035.
We've also declared that, by 2025,
more than 69% of the undergraduate student intake
will be from state schools.
We've expressed a strong commitment to
closing all attainment gaps amongst student cohorts.
Our most recent admissions figures are exciting
and show that we are already attaining some of our targets.
It's been one of my greatest satisfactions as Vice-Chancellor
to announce, in February,
an unprecedented gift of £100 million
to help attract the most talented postgraduate
and undergraduate students from the UK and around the world.
The donation from David and Claudia Harding
was the biggest single gift made to a university in the UK
by a British philanthropist.
It's now the cornerstone of an ambitious fundraising drive
aimed directly at increasing financial and wider support
for students at Cambridge.
We're committed to ensuring fair access and participation
not only because it's expected of us,
but also because it's the right thing to do
and because it will make Cambridge a better place to study,
to teach and to work.
Change is the theme of this year’s Festival of Ideas.
And we can see it in action today.
Sometimes, the change is in the way we understand ourselves.
In February, I announced that an Advisory Group
would be coordinating research into the University’s links to historical forms of enslavement.
The purpose of this initiative is not to undermine the University’s proud history
in the abolition movement,
but to better understand and acknowledge our own complex, multi-layered past.
Sometimes, the change we need is in our processes.
At the end of 2018,
the University launched ourcambridge,
an initiative designed to recognise
realise and liberate the potential of our professional services staff.
At the time of increased economic pressure, and as we take action to reverse a budget
deficit, we are improving the way we manage our finances.
We're providing greater transparency on the University endowment and investment activities.
Even as we implement change, however, our commitment to fundamental principles is unwavering.
Absolutely central among them is the principle of freedom of speech.
Cambridge is the natural home for all those who want to challenge ideas, and are prepared
to have their ideas challenged in turn.
And even if ideas make us uncomfortable,
it's our duty ensure their free and lawful expression.
But let me be clear:
We cannot allow the imperative of free speech
to become a cover for hateful or unlawful behaviour or language.
No other university has contributed more than Cambridge to the sum of human understanding.
The question before us today is: how do we move forward?
What stories of discovery will we be telling about the University ten, twenty, or fifty
years from now?
For instance, how will we, in years to come,
have answered to the growing challenges of mental health?
How will we have responded to the crisis in democratic institutions as we know them?
How will we have contributed to mitigating the existential threat of climate change?
I'm pleased to announce that, later this term,
we will be formally launching Cambridge Zero
the University of Cambridge Zero Carbon Future Initiative.
The Initiative’s aim is to address holistically the challenge of climate change, to help us
think about what a sustainable future looks like, and to ensure that policy decisions
are based on the best available evidence.
Moving forward successfully will require close
collaboration amongst Colleges, Schools, Faculties and Departments, and the University leadership.
But I am confident that our efforts will, over the next few years, help us remain the
University we all want to be:
A Collegiate University with a shared sense
of purpose, moving towards
and helping to build
a fairer, better, more sustainable world.