̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Stephen J Toope

Raring to return | Vice-Chancellor’s blog

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Over a year since the United Kingdom went into its first lockdown, and even as some of the national restrictions are loosened, we continue to suffer from disruption to our core activities of teaching, learning and research.

̽��ֱ��latest review of the government’s road map offered little detail – and scant hope – to many university students wondering when they may be able to return to in-person teaching. ̽��ֱ��frustration and the bewilderment among teachers, students and their families is palpable – and wholly understandable. It is not unreasonable to wonder why students are now able to get their hair cut at a salon, or go shopping, or drink in a pub garden, but are still told by government that they cannot take part in small-group teaching, even under COVID-safe conditions.

Like many other universities, Cambridge has at every opportunity been making a strong case to the government for why students should be allowed back for in-person teaching. Over the past few months we have repeatedly provided the government with compelling reasons to move towards the easing of restrictions.

One of those compelling reasons is the personal care and attention Colleges are able to provide to students who are already here – over half of our students, according to a recent survey, with many more still expected back because they will qualify under government exceptions. With support from the Colleges, and in line with the public health guidance, many students already in residence are currently able to enjoy some of the advantages of collegiate life, including pastoral care, outdoor sports, and carefully managed social activities.

Another compelling reason is the success of our asymptomatic screening programme, which for the sixth consecutive week has registered zero positive cases among the students already in residence. ̽��ֱ��latter is, to me, proof that our student community can be trusted to do the right thing and participate in a programme that has been conceived to keep our collegiate and city communities safe. It shows that, in considering future steps out of lockdown, our students should be neither scapegoated nor patronised. They have had a hard enough time already.

What we know at the moment is that, as regards in-person university teaching, nothing will change until at least 17 May, at which point the examination period will be about to start. Even then, it is not clear that the position will be different, as any new guidance will be entirely dependent on national levels of transmission. I encourage students who believe themselves to meet one of the government’s exceptions, and who wish to return to Cambridge to get in touch with their College to obtain permission to return.

̽��ֱ��pandemic has not been easy for anyone. It feels to me, however, like this has been a particularly difficult time to be a university student. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� and the Colleges are making every effort to ensure that students continue to receive an exceptional education, and to provide students with the best possible student experience. We will continue to do so. I look forward to the time when all our students can return to Cambridge to enjoy the fullness of the collegiate university experience.

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen J Toope, writes about the return of students and continued disruption to our teaching, learning and research.

Sir Cam

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge appoints new Acting Vice-Chancellor

cjb250 — Tue, 24 May 2022 14:00:00 +0000

Dr Freeling, the outgoing President of Hughes Hall, Cambridge, will take up his post on the departure of Professor Stephen J Toope. Recruitment for the post of Vice-Chancellor is under way and an appointment is expected to be announced in the early Autumn.

̽��ֱ��appointment of Dr Freeling was confirmed by the ̽��ֱ�� Council at its meeting on Monday 23 May.

Dr Freeling has been President of Hughes Hall since 2014, having initially become involved with the College as a Fellow and Trustee in 2008. As a member of the ̽��ֱ�� Council and Chair of the Colleges Committee, he has extensive experience of the operation of the Collegiate ̽��ֱ��.

He said: “It is a great honour to be asked to lead the ̽��ֱ��, picking up the baton from Stephen and passing it on in due course to the next Vice-Chancellor. I look forward to working with the senior teams of the ̽��ֱ�� and of the Colleges. We must jointly maintain momentum on the initiatives that are underway to ensure that Cambridge maintains research and education excellence at the highest global standard, putting our students and staff at the forefront of all we do.”

Professor Toope said: “I have worked closely with Anthony over several years, and particularly in navigating our way through the challenges of the pandemic. He is an exceptionally able colleague and strong leader. He has been instrumental in helping the ̽��ֱ�� and Colleges work more closely, and with greater sense of shared purpose, than ever before. I am entirely confident that this great ̽��ֱ�� will continue to thrive under his leadership, and I wish him every success.”

Mark Lewisohn, Deputy Chair of the ̽��ֱ�� Council, said: “ ̽��ֱ��selection panel was impressed with the exceptionally strong field of applicants for the role of Acting Vice-Chancellor. With the appointment of Anthony, we are entrusting the leadership of the ̽��ֱ�� to a highly experienced figure who has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities ahead. We are delighted that he has agreed to lead the transition to our next Vice-Chancellor.”

Dr Freeling studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, between 1975 and 1984, completing an MA in Mathematics, an MPhil in Control Engineering and Operation Research, and a PhD in Decision Analysis and Behavioural Economics.

Prior to resuming his long relationship with Cambridge, he spent 18 years with McKinsey & Company, where he was a senior partner, leading its marketing and sales practice across Europe. He has also worked as an independent consultant advising a broad range of companies in areas as diverse as law and global marketing. He was a director of Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, and research director of the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Councils for Europe and Asia. He was formerly on the Council of the Open ̽��ֱ�� and on the Board of UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has appointed Dr Anthony Freeling as its Acting Vice-Chancellor with effect from 1 October 2022. His term of office is expected to be six months.

It is a great honour to be asked to lead the ̽��ֱ��, picking up the baton from Stephen and passing it on in due course to the next Vice-Chancellor

Anthony Freeling

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Anthony Freeling

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Our world-leading research: REF 2021

cjb250 — Thu, 12 May 2022 06:00:04 +0000

Cambridge’s global reputation is recognised by the Research Excellence Framework, with 93% of our overall submissions rated as world-leading or internationally-excellent.

Vigil against the war on Ukraine

cjb250 — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 16:04:47 +0000

Around 1,000 people attended a special vigil for Ukraine organised by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge on the evening of Thursday 3 March.

Cambridge academics urge European leaders to take action on Horizon Europe

cjb250 — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:50:07 +0000

̽��ֱ��campaign, Stick to Science, calls for an open and collaborative research and innovation landscape in Europe that is free from political barriers.

It comes as the UK’s participation in the EU’s research and innovation programme has stalled. Negotiations over the UK’s final association to Horizon Europe, the EU’s €95.5 billion (£79.4 bn) research and innovation programme, are part of post-Brexit trade arrangements. Campaign organisers are urging the EU to put science collaboration ahead of political disagreements and finalise association as soon as possible.

Switzerland and the UK are two long-standing and academically important partners in the European research and innovation landscape. ̽��ֱ��current situation means that the work of some of the best minds in Europe's science and excellent research infrastructures could miss out on the additional scientific knowledge and resources of UK and Swiss institutions. These circumstances could prevent Europe’s top scientists from working together to tackle global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and food security and already the delay in securing association is having an impact on collaborations.

It is estimated that the UK and Switzerland would add another €18 billion (£15 bn) to the Horizon Europe budget of €95.5 billion (£79.4 bn) representing a top-up of 18%, and allow greater collaborative resources for Europe to be put into world-leading research projects.

Among the first supporters of the campaign from across the European research and innovation community are Cambridge’s Professor Toope, Professor Dame Athene Donald, Master of Churchill College, and Nobel Prize winner Professor Didier Queloz.

Professor Toope said: "I am pleased to join academic and business leaders from across Europe’s research community in supporting the ‘Stick to Science’ Campaign. Collaboration across borders remains crucial for tackling the most pressing challenges of our time, so today we are calling for European leaders to prioritise science and research by urgently securing the UK’s association to Horizon Europe."

Members of the European scientific community can add their signatures to the initiative.

Adapted from a press release from Stick to Science

Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope has joined other Cambridge researchers in supporting a new campaign to ask EU leaders to place science collaboration before politics. This comes as the UK’s and Switzerland's participation in the EU's world-leading research and innovation programme Horizon Europe is yet to be finalised.

xresch

Abstract technology image

Yes

Licence type:

Public Domain

Letter to the Rector of Heidelberg ̽��ֱ��

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 13:19:46 +0000

Professor Dr Dr h.c. Bernhard Eitel
Rektor
Universität Heidelberg

By email

25 January 2022

Dear Bernhard,

I write on behalf of the entire Cambridge community to express our profound shock and sorrow following the tragic events on the Im Neuenheimer Feld campus.

Our immediate thoughts are with the relatives, friends and colleagues of all the victims of yesterday’s senseless act of violence.

Please accept our most sincere expression of solidarity at this moment of grief. ̽��ֱ��Heidelberg community is strong and I am sure that you will find ways to honour the victims and reaffirm your common purpose in the face of tragedy.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Stephen J Toope

Vice-Chancellor
̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Letter from Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope to the Rector of Heidelberg ̽��ֱ��, Professor Dr h.c. Bernhard Eitel.

Yes

̽��ֱ��importance of international partnerships for universities

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 17:30:00 +0000

You’ve spoken recently about the need to think carefully about how and why a university engages with the world. What brought about this reflection?

If you look at the tectonic shifts taking place in geopolitics, and their profound implications for interstate relations, you have to start asking serious questions about your partnerships around the world. For example, how do we make sure we are attuned to potential risks, and then find ways to address them? It’s not about retreating into silos of national academic culture – I think that would be disastrous. But we do need to make sure we are on the front foot, so that we don’t get pressured by political forces into taking decisions that would be profoundly negative for international academic collaboration.

Are you thinking of a particular political situation?

Obviously, the US–China relationship, and frankly the UK–China relationship, have been very much called into question. But it isn’t just about China. If you look around the world, there are risks in relationships in the Middle East, in India, in Brazil, and dare I say it in parts of Europe, in Hungary and Poland.

What kind of risks are universities experiencing?

One is the basic physical security of students and researchers. We had the horrible circumstance of one of our PhD students, Giulio Regeni, being murdered in Egypt. He was working on questions that many other people, from many countries, had worked on for many years, yet all of a sudden it became a heightened political risk. So, we have to consider situations like that very carefully.

Are there also broader threats to research?

Not everywhere we work in the world has the same commitment to academic freedom as do we, so we have to ask how we manage relationships when the partnership is based on quite different values. There is also the potential for the theft or hostile use of intellectual property, or gaining access to security-sensitive data. This is clearly an issue that governments are very preoccupied with, all around the world.

Does this make some partnerships impossible?

It’s not that we want to say that we cannot collaborate, but there have to be fences around certain areas of collaboration, so that we don’t get ourselves into damaging circumstances.

How can European universities approach this challenge?

We have to be clear with both political and public actors, and the media, that we are not naïve – although we are often accused of that – and that we are thinking very carefully about these issues. We must keep our minds open, but also show people that our eyes are open, as we engage in these partnerships.

What practical steps can you take?

̽��ֱ��most important thing we can do is help develop a more risk-literate culture in our universities. A lot of partnerships are discussed at the level of departments, or even individual professors or researchers, so I think we have a duty to help our colleagues understand that there are real risks, and that they have to attend to them. At Cambridge, we’ve established a set of international principles, which we are using to develop educational opportunities and online resources so that staff across the university think about these questions when they are discussing and negotiating potential partnerships.

Companies are also increasingly powerful global actors, for example controlling the circulation of data and knowledge...

This is complicated, because we are highly dependent on legal structures created by governments and through intergovernmental negotiation. So, the most obvious thing we can do is try to influence the policy and legal framework around how those companies operate. Some of that has to do with trying to resist the overweening power of single publishing companies, for example, and a lot of work has been done through LERU and other organisations on that issue. But we also have technology platforms that potentially can be the source of both disinformation and abuse of information produced by universities. We can’t easily attack that directly, as institutions, but I think we can do so obliquely by trying to influence public policy.

Do all these risks affect the rationale for international collaboration?

Why we collaborate has not changed in any profound way: we collaborate because it is essential to knowledge creation. There are so many areas that cannot be addressed, even including fundamental scientific discovery, if you don’t have proper international collaboration.

For example?

Universities have a fundamental role to play in helping to create resilient, sustainable societies, and I think we’ve seen that clearly in the COVID crisis. Politically, there’s been rather weak international collaboration, in my view. If you look at access to vaccines, for example, in low-income countries less than 5% of populations are inoculated, even with one dose. But at the university level we’ve done remarkably well, working together and rapidly sharing knowledge. That kind of collaboration is crucial to generating social resilience in relation to the pandemic. And if we are going to have resilience around climate change, we absolutely need to be sharing the best knowledge we can.

Universities also have an influence on sustainability as investors. Is that role changing?

There is now much more expectation that we will be active social actors in relation to sustainability. At Cambridge, we are moving towards the lowest possible carbon relationships in our endowment fund, but that’s not enough. We’ve also promised to use the endowment fund as an educational mechanism for other investors, with whom we partner, around questions of sustainability, to help them understand why it is so important that they too make the transition. I think that shows the kind of expectations that universities will be under: it’s not enough to just declare things, we’re increasingly going to be asked to show, through our own actions, how we promote sustainability.

Cambridge is hosting the LERU Rectors’ Assembly this month. What does this occasion mean to the ̽��ֱ��?

I see it as a great moment to be able to reaffirm our very strong links with European partners. That’s really important in the post-Brexit environment. It’s also an opportunity to say thank you, because LERU and the extended university network have been forceful in working with the EU to try to affirm our future participation in Horizon Europe. I’m very grateful for that.

***

This interview first appeared on the League of European Research Universities' (LERU) website on 16 November 2021. Reproduced by permission.

Universities need international partnerships to advance knowledge, but they must also be alert to the risks involved. So says Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and host of the League of European Research Universities’ autumn online Rectors’ Assembly.

Vice-Chancellor’s Awards highlight research impact and engagement across Cambridge

zs332 — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 14:44:34 +0000

Academics from across the ̽��ֱ�� have been recognised in this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Research Impact and Engagement Awards for their research into improving management of maternity emergencies during COVID-19, helping rural communities in India become agriculturally more sustainable and aiding the Government’s real-time COVID-19 monitoring.