Address to University Court 2005
This is the text of the address to University Court given by Professor Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, in the Great Hall of the Wills Memorial Building on 16 December 2005. The address is also available as an:
audio download (MP3, 12.5Mb) 
Madame Chancellor and members of Court, this is the fifth time I have stood before you as your Vice-Chancellor giving this address. Before starting to write this speech, I reviewed the four previous versions, and they tell a clear tale about a university wanting to revisit, clarify and re-articulate its values, its behaviours and ambitions; then going through the difficult process of that articulation with a new vision, mission and strategies, following this with plans for implementation and finally really seizing the day and embarking on an ambitious investment plan to further transform our university.
Inside all of this is our overall ambition to continue to be a world-class university. Why world-class? Well, the simple answer for this University is because it is the only game in town – it is where we are and where we intend to be. If we want to ensure that, then clarity of strategy and effective marshalling of all our resources will be essential. I intend to spend the next 20 minutes or so describing where we are and our ambitions for the future in the four key areas of our activities: education, research, our working environment, and finally our relationship with the city and region.
Before I start, I want to make the ultimate ambition of this University clear. It is usual these days to describe a University in business terms with talk of turnover, diversification, surpluses, brands, new markets – and it is often very helpful to use these terms, especially when you are dealing with an institution of over 5,500 staff and an income in excess of £270 million this year. However, higher education is not just a business. I was in China earlier this year, where everyone talks of the competition that China both is and will become. As I was taken around some of the spectacular new facilities they are building for higher education, it struck me that the language of competition was inappropriate to describe this – over 20 million students are now being taught a year in China, and new knowledge is being generated through research. This is not competition; this is adding to the capacity globally for increased human transformation and for generating new knowledge. Who cares if the new piece of medical knowledge in the future that unlocks aspects of our understanding of cancer comes from China rather than the UK or the USA, as long as it comes and it benefits humankind? Knowledge generation is not a finite pot in which we strive for market share, like the global market for cars. It can be expanded, and such expansion is for the greater good. It is important that we remember that at all times.
For me, those observations reflect into our ultimate ambitions: the generation of new knowledge that changes our world and the way we see it; and the development of the minds of our students so that they become the creative leaders of our society, able to address the complex challenges it is now producing. In other words, a world-class academic environment. It is essential that all of us, academic and support staff, recognise that and keep our ambitions closely focused on that. A continued understanding of our primary purpose and a deep respect for that is vital for our continued success. That is why, of course, the first statement in our Vision is ‘a clear vision in which academic ambitions are the cornerstone of all planning’.
Bristol is fortunate to attract some of the most able undergraduates and postgraduates in the world. Let’s start with our undergraduates. We remain the most popular university in the land, and our average A level entry grades are just above two As and a B. I stress that those are the average grades on entry – not our average offer. In some of our subjects we have the most competitive entry, both in numbers and intellectually, in the land – and I mean in comparison to any other university. Our students constantly demonstrate that their qualities are not just intellectual. There is a thriving social scene here with over 160 societies. We do not have a sports degree, which would naturally provide a cadre of first class sports students, yet we are well represented at international level in many sports; just this week, Laura Bechtolsheimer, an undergraduate in Philosophy and Politics, was the second-highest-placed Briton in the International Dressage Competition at Olympia on Tuesday evening. Student Community Action has over 1,000 students involved in local charitable work, and they calculated they gave over 80,000 hours of charitable work back to the community last year. Some of our students’ achievements are literally breathtaking: many of you will know of Jake Meyer, who became the youngest man in the world to climb the seven highest peaks.
For me, I see it in the more day-to-day achievements. I meet the Students’ Union president every fortnight – a frequency that is probably unique in the sector. It is a privilege to see the president and the sabbaticals succeeding in running a complex business for a year, when they may not even have reached 21 or finished their degrees. They have strong political and moral codes: they may not march on the streets like we did but they certainly ensure that the issues of human rights, the environment and equity are kept to the fore. We certainly use more green electricity because of the advocacy of our students, and we have certainly started to think more about Fairtrade because of them. Finally, our students are a central part of the special atmosphere of this city. We only ever seem to hear when student behaviour goes wrong, but that masks the fact that the overwhelming majority of our students are well behaved and allow their vitality, youth and humour to become an integral part of our everyday experience here in Bristol.
The privilege of attracting such students invokes a set of duties. Our primary duty is to provide those students with a first-class education – an education that is intellectually challenging, will extend their brains and vision and will prepare them for their future. This means that we must maintain the traditional strengths of our curriculum, but that must be combined with a willingness to change to accommodate the students’ new needs – with modules on entrepreneurship, for example. We must also ensure that we provide them with the best physical infrastructure and support. An important part of our investment plan over the next five or so years is to reprovide the Arts and Social Sciences Library, and also the Students’ Union, in a combined building in Tyndall Avenue which we have called the Nucleus Building.
Our postgraduates are also right at the centre of our future, both from home and overseas. We are keen to ensure an internationally diverse set of students and aim for about 15% of the student body to come from overseas. The predominance of this will be in postgraduates, as overseas undergraduates will increasingly study at home as the quality of higher education improves in their own countries. It is crucial that we care holistically for our postgraduates, which is not just about providing the best academic supervision but also ensuring the best arrival here possible and that the social supports are here that will maximise their enjoyment of the whole experience. The most important aspect for our postgraduates is that we provide a world-class and challenging research environment, and that neatly brings me to my second issue: research.
Let nobody live under any illusions; every one of the world’s top universities is also a world-class research environment. Never mind how good your education activity is, that alone cannot make you a world leader. In fact, if you think of the interdependence of teaching and research, it is clear that excellence in one feeds into the excellence in the other.
We certainly do not need to be anything but proud of our performance in research up to now. In the last RAE we were in the top five institutions for the number of 5 and 5* departments. We are acknowledged by peers as world leaders in Mathematics, Chemistry, Geography and Earth Sciences, Social Medicine, Biochemistry, Clinical and Fundamental Neurosciences, Cardiovascular Disease and Biology, Education, Policy Studies, Drama, Medieval Studies, Classics, Aerospace, Computer Science and Wireless Communications, to name but a few (and I have left some out, so apologies to those others). Our list of Fellowships is genuinely impressive: we have 31 Fellows of the Royal Society on our active and emeritus staff, and 19 of those are active members of the University. This is complemented by nine Fellows of the British Academy, as well as numerous Fellows of Learned Societies within their disciplines. I know this sounds just like reeling off figures, but it is important to put us into perspective; a very large and well-established research-intensive university in the north of England, with over double our number of students, could only identify 16 FRSs on its active and emeritus staff recently.
However, academics of such calibre only come to, and stay at, universities that offer them both the intellectual and the physical environment to prosper. I have already stressed how the intellectual quality of our university is of primacy, and we have identified research themes in which we have inter-disciplinary strengths which will enable our academics to work with others to increase their creativity and give added value both intellectually and in resources. This does, of course, beg questions about what we can no longer do, and those are not easy questions. However, for a small university, it is essential we concentrate in those areas where we are already strong and there is the opportunity for growth. Here are some of our already identified themes: Cardiovascular Science, Neuroscience, Epidemiology and Health Services Research, Nanoscience and Quantum Information, Communications, Colonialism, Medieval Cultures, Reception, Applied Quantitative Social Science, Ethnicity and Migration.
You can see from that list that those themes match into many of those areas that I identified us as having international strength. These themes will not only guide intellectual endeavour, they will also guide resource allocation and prioritisation. A good example is Nanoscience: many of you will know that there is a huge great hole next to the Physics Department where a car park used to be. That is for the foundations of the new Nanoscience Building, which will not belong to a Department but will have labs that can be occupied solely for interdisciplinary research in this emergent area.
This is an example of the physical infrastructure that complements the intellectual imperative. But our commitment here is massive. We have allocated £38 million for a new Biological Sciences Building, because we have to invest that if we want to continue this important part of Science. We are planning a new Maths Building, a new Neuroscience Building, refurbishing accommodation for Experimental Psychology and Physics. The moves of these activities into new buildings creates decant space that we can use to improve other activities. The Hawthorns site gives us the opportunity to think how we can provide new accommodation for Arts and Social Sciences who can also move into other decant space. All in all, we are looking to investments of £250 million in the next five years. These investments are budgeted for – this is not a pipe dream.
Alongside of the physical infrastructure, we will be investing in staff. However, such investments that load the annual recurrent expenditure can only be done if they are financially sustainable. It bears repetition that we already have very good staff; it’s vital we ensure that they can be as productive as possible.
One final thought about research: it is, except for some specialised national areas, international these days. We have to see ourselves on the world stage; our work has to be globally competitive. We cannot talk about being the best discipline in the UK any longer; we need to know where we lie in the global environment. We are members of the Worldwide University Network precisely to ensure that we have a global view; our academics already have, but the institution also needs to.
I have stressed in this latter section that the academics, and of course the support staff who enable them to work best, are our vital resource. To that end it is vital that we have a work environment that is enjoyable and supportive. My experience of five universities is that each is unique with its own particular environment. Bristol is quite traditional but our staff, especially our young staff, expect a modern and relaxed workplace. The trick is to make that happen without destroying the strengths that tradition brings. We have been addressing this through our Positive Working Environment initiative. The first action we took under this was to survey the staff. The outcome of that was a general conclusion that our staff were proud to be in the University of Bristol but were unsure how much they belonged to that collective entity rather than the department or service division. There were also some examples of inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, and anxieties were expressed about the career trajectories of some staff, particularly women. On balance, I am glad to say, the results were mostly positive, but clearly with work to do. Our senior academic women have also told us that they have anxieties about the low number of women in senior positions of leadership.
Freud suggested that the meaning of life is to love and to work. A supportive, healthy and challenging workplace influences an individual way beyond the time they spend there. I am clear that putting a high imperative on developing and sustaining such a workplace is absolutely central to our success; in fact, I have said that if that happened during my time here, it would probably be the most important development I had initiated. I want to stress that I am not being critical of what went before – it is that our staff now, quite rightly, want a workplace that fulfils not only their physical but also their emotional needs. Nobody is pretending that we are there yet, but we are committed to getting there and sustaining it. An example is that Dr Stella Clarke has produced a report after substantial consultation following the anxieties expressed by our senior women, and we have committed to bringing an action plan to fulfil those recommendations to the next Council. One of the reasons why our excellent staff will want to stay with us is because they will look forward to coming to work every day. We won’t get perfection, of course, but we are committed to getting as close as possible.
My final core issue for discussion is our relationship with the city and region. I have identified in the past to you how important the city of Bristol is to us, and how important we are to the city. We are an international organisation, we are a major international success, but our heritage is here in this city, sub-region and region. One of the most enjoyable parts of the last five years for me has been the huge development in our relationship with the city. We fully recognise and articulate our duties here. We recognise that we will increase the success of the city by increasing the success of what we do – teaching and research. It has been particularly gratifying to see how the City Council has worked with us over our precinct masterplan. This is a bold vision for development in this historical part of Bristol, and we fully recognise our commitment to consultation about the final shape of the development. It is, however, a major step forward for our city and I am delighted by how many of our partners and stakeholders are so supportive.
But we are not just about infrastructure and economic gain. Our engagement with our local society encompasses numerous activities. We have renewed our commitment to Continuing Education for our community through our ‘Engaged University’ strategy. We currently teach over 5,000 local students through this programme; we have huge numbers of local initiatives to widen access to our university from the local area, including summer schools, masterclasses for pupils and students, student mentoring of local pupils, flexibility about part-time study and special bursary provision for local students. We are heavily involved in the Withywood Academy project. I have already mentioned the Student Community Action projects. We have innumerable public lectures and concerts. We have increased the access of our facilities to local organisations that have large national and international meetings, Wildscreen being a very good example. Our sports facilities at Coombe Dingle are heavily used by local people, and we have been at the centre of the Bristol Year of Sport.
Finally but very importantly, it is our academics who are spreading the name of Bristol all over the globe. This is a city famous for its mercantile past – a city of Merchant Venturers. Recently when I was out in China, I realised that I was in a long tradition of merchants from this city, but that what I was trading was knowledge and expertise, not physical entities but still absolutely central to the success of this city, one of the six UK cities nominated as a Science City, in the first two decades of the 21st century.
Perhaps if I finally wanted to sum it up I will return to my trip to China. Many of our peer universities are undertaking what I call ‘foreign adventures’ – opening campuses in Malaysia, China and other parts of the Far East. I am quite clear that our University is overwhelmingly a combination of a place and its people. We are of Bristol, and anything in our name built elsewhere is a different entity that is not us. What we offer is unique and we must do nothing to dilute or compromise that. I took advice from many wise people in China, especially some of our most senior alums. There is no doubt that Bristol has an excellent reputation in that part of the world, and there is no need to think that we can’t take up opportunities in the future, just because we do not have a presence there now. The unequivocal message to me was ‘get it right back home’. In other words, if we produce world-class teaching and research and sustain our international profile, the world will keep coming to us – we have what they want. Compromise that, and no amount of selling or hyperbole will compensate.
So here we are at the end of the first five years of the 21st century. A university that has preserved the excellence that has been its trademark over the last 95 years, yet has undergone necessary changes to ensure it is fit for its central purpose of teaching and education in a global higher education sector. A university that has already invested hundreds of millions of pounds in staff and infrastructure and has ambitious plans for a minimum £250 million investment over the next five years. This will ensure that we stand right in the top group of world universities, a position that is a tribute to our past leaders, our staff past and present, our students past and present, and to the great city of Bristol. You are our supporters and stakeholders. We have planned today so that you can ask many questions and test some of our plans and conclusions. We have also planned today so that you can advise over some of the thorny issues we have to address on our next journey.
And a journey it is; exciting, challenging, uplifting and fulfilling. Your Chancellor, your Vice-Chancellor, Council, the senior executive team and all the staff and students of this university are set full square for this journey. Please join us and help us. I promise it will be worth it.
Thank you.