Annual Report 2010
Contents Foreword 800th Anniversary Campaign Transforming the landscape From mice to men Polar to the people Our digital heritage Teaching and learning Global partnerships Appointments and awards Charting progress
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Annual Reports of the Council and General Board
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Reports and Financial Statements
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Cover photograph: Sir Cam ‘Senate House Blues’ showing a detail of the Senate House roof.
Foreword Celebrating the past, transforming the future The University of Cambridge is sustained by shared values: a commitment to the life of the mind, developed through study, teaching and inquiry; and an equal commitment to the improvement of wider society, through the educated citizens who leave here, and through the discoveries, inventions, and scholarship we send out. We attract the very best, and we allow them to give of their best. The pages of this report show the breadth and the brilliance of Cambridge teaching and research, from biodiversity conservation to ‘educating the philosophers of the future’. In introducing this Annual Report – covering a period which began under the inspirational Vice-Chancellorship of Professor Dame Alison Richard – it is my very great privilege and challenge to ensure that these values are maintained uninterrupted. I am proud beyond measure of Cambridge’s students, staff, and alumni, and look forward to enjoying their company, whether in Cambridge or on my overseas travels, for the seven years to come. Cambridge can expect to feel the effects of national political and economic developments. Along with almost every other sector, UK universities will receive less from general taxation, and most students at all universities will be asked, after graduation, to pay a higher contribution to the costs of tuition. We will need to support our students, and aspiring students, as never before. We must guard fiercely the principle that ability to think, not ability to pay, should be the guiding criterion in the composition of our student body. Cambridge will succeed in this, and we will succeed because of those shared values and common purpose.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz Vice-Chancellor
Foreword 01
800th Anniversary Campaign The 800th Anniversary celebrations may have concluded this year but the 800th Anniversary Campaign continues. In 2005, the University announced plans to raise £1 billion by 2012, and this year, despite the challenging economic climate, Cambridge has reached and exceeded its target two years ahead of schedule, making it the first university outside the US to raise £1 billion in an institution-wide fundraising campaign.
The Campaign is centred around four areas – student support, academics, freedom to discover, and collections and heritage – and it has already made a difference. Money raised by the University and Colleges: has increased the number and level of bursaries and scholarships available to students; enhanced initiatives to encourage applicants regardless of their financial circumstances; funded new buildings for research, teaching and student accommodation; endowed and supported professorships and teaching posts; attracted key academic staff; and strengthened the University’s capacity to translate research discoveries and scholarship into benefits for society. The impact of the Campaign can be seen throughout this Annual Report – at the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, the Scott Polar Research Institute, and the University Library, to mention just a few. In terms of student support, the £4 million benefaction made by Harvey McGrath in 2008 is showing significant returns: the University admissions team has been expanded and can now better monitor the effects of its outreach and widening participation efforts; new media channels are being utilised to reach target audiences; and applications to attend the 2010 series of University Summer Schools have
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increased by almost 130 per cent. The awardwinning Millennium Mathematics Project has received generous support from the John Templeton Foundation, who funded an ambitious and substantial programme developing rich mathematical tasks and resources for exceptionally talented young mathematicians, and providing guidance materials for their teachers and parents, delivered via the existing and highly successful NRICH website. Several other donations have recognised the importance of funding to help support graduate students: another innovative gift from Mark Pigott, PACCAR Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, has established the College Masters Scholarship programme at King’s College and created the Pigott Scholarships.
Thirty-five professorships have been supported by the Campaign to date. New professorships and lectureships funded in this past year include the BP Foundation McKenzie Professorship of Earth Sciences, which will enable Cambridge to retain its world-leading position in geophysics research and teaching; and a key clinical post in Neuroimmunology, funded by the Genzyme Corporation, dedicated to the advancement of translational research into diseases such as multiple sclerosis. A new Humanitas Visiting Professorship Programme has been made possible by the vision of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and its President Lord Weidenfeld with the support of a number of benefactors. The Programme, based at the University’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), will enable distinguished academics and experts from public life to spend time in Cambridge to enrich academic discussion and understanding. New world-class facilities have also been made possible thanks to the 800th Anniversary Campaign: more than £200 million has been contributed to the University’s building programme, constituting around a quarter of the total construction spend during the Campaign period. The state-of-the-art Sainsbury Laboratory for the study of plant sciences has been built thanks to an £82 million gift from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the largest single gift received by the University since the launch of the Campaign. Several outstanding facilities have also been officially opened, including the Hauser Forum, made possible by an £8 million benefaction from The Hauser-Raspe Foundation, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, founded with a multi-million dollar endowment
from the Kavli Foundation. A £5 million donation by Alan Reece via the Reece Foundation provided the funds to complete a new building for the pioneering Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), which integrates research and education with practical application in companies. A multi-million pound collaboration between the University and Laing O’Rourke, the UK’s largest privately owned engineering enterprise, has also been announced this year. The Laing O’Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology will be a multidisciplinary academic centre of excellence, crucial in shaping the future of the construction industry by responding to the growing environmental and sustainability challenges. The Centre will be led by the new Laing O’Rourke Professor of Construction Engineering and will deliver undergraduate education, PhD and post-doctoral research and Executive Education. A new two-year, part-time Masters degree in Construction Engineering will be launched by the Centre in 2011. The Campaign is playing a crucial role in helping the University to sustain and progress its international pre-eminence, educating and training tomorrow’s leaders and developing the knowledge that can help drive economic prosperity, enhance human health and the health of our planet. “Our alumni and friends in the UK and internationally are responding with generosity and vision to the call of this Campaign,” says Sir David Walker, Campaign Co-Chairman. “They understand the need for sustained investment if teaching and research are to remain cornerstones of Cambridge’s excellence and ability to seed the world with ideas. The Campaign continues, to ensure that in a hundred years’ time Cambridge is still developing the leaders and knowledge that will transform tomorrow.” The Cambridge Anniversary Campaign Report 2009-10 gives a more comprehensive review of the Campaign, and is available from the Development Office and at www.campaign.cam.ac.uk.
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Transforming the landscape From tropical forests to tuna, the rapid loss of species and ecosystems that provide us with food, fuel and the very air we breathe has far-reaching and potentially terrifying consequences. With the launch of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), a pioneering partnership between the University and leading conservation organisations, Cambridge is rising to the challenge by demonstrating that collaborative cross-disciplinary working is key to confronting this global threat.
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As the human population continues to expand at an unprecedented rate, the detrimental impact on the ecosystems that sustain us has become impossible to ignore. Biodiversity, the millions of species that make up life on Earth, is being lost at a faster and more widespread rate than at any other time in human history. While sustainable living is an issue that is becoming acknowledged as integral to government policy and business strategy across the world, the diversity of life on Earth continues to plummet. “As economies develop, people are increasingly less connected to the natural world,” says Dr Mike Rands, Executive Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. “The consequence is a failure to appreciate our dependence on biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides for our own long-term survival and the quality of our lives.” Cambridge is committed to tackling this challenge head on, endorsing conservation as one of the University’s new Strategic Initiatives. As Rands explains, “this means that academic leaders across many disciplines have recognised that biodiversity conservation is of strategic importance for research and teaching in the University. The commitment to address the global biodiversity challenge as a central Universitywide priority presents exciting opportunities for cross-disciplinary working and innovative partnerships, bringing together world-class expertise to address this critical issue.“ CCI has already achieved one of its early goals, to create a new MPhil degree in Conservation Leadership, aimed at teaching the leaders and influencers of the future. Launched in October 2010 and directed by Professor Nigel Leader-Williams from the Department of Geography, the course has a unique format that draws on the
academic and practical conservation expertise from six University departments and nine conservation organisations. “There has never been a greater opportunity for a strategic collaboration like CCI,” explains Rands. “Cambridge is a unique place. There are over 40 conservation organisations in the area, so it is one of the largest clusters of conservation knowledge and activity on Earth! By utilising their experience, as well as the expertise around the University, we can offer an exceptional multidisciplinary course that really fills a gap in education.” Initial applications to the course have exceeded expectations. The course attracted a large number of applicants from about 30 different countries – many from the developing world and several who have PhDs or Masters already. The students are required to have several years’ practical experience of working in conservation before they start the course, and to really want to make their mark.
“Cambridge is a unique place. There are over 40 conservation organisations in the area, so it is one of the largest clusters of conservation knowledge and activity on Earth!” Dr. Mike Rands, Executive Director of CCI
Although the Cambridge Conservation Initiative has been established since 2007 and many collaborative projects are already under way, it was officially launched to the wider world at an inaugural symposium in September 2010, during the International Year of Biodiversity. The symposium, entitled Conserving natural capital: assuring the future of biodiversity, convened some of the world’s leading experts on conservation, along with policy makers and business figures, with Vice-Chancellor Emerita Professor Dame Alison Richard providing the opening remarks Cambridge Conservation Initiative 05
and a keynote address from Janez Potočnik, the European Commissioner for the Environment. Highlighting how, by working together, innovative solutions can be generated, the symposium focused on the ways in which society must change its behaviour to enable more effective integration of biodiversity conservation into how we manage and use our planet. On these issues, CCI is already having an impact. “We have definitely helped to shape government and EU policy on biofuels,” says Rands. “As CCI, we bring together the expertise of the University with that of the conservation organisations to present evidence and explore solutions.” An early success has been the cross-CCI Shared Challenges Project, which started in 2008 as a two-year pilot activity and has recently been extended. The project investigates emerging issues where conservation can have an impact on government and business decisions, bringing together ideas and knowledge through worldwide networks. It is no accident that Dr Rands is based at the Cambridge Judge Business School. While the reasons for conservation are greater than any one economic value, industry has a crucial role to play in halting the loss of biodiversity, and sustainability is a key factor for private sector bodies that wish to grow their businesses in the long term. The Judge Business School is home to innovative entrepreneurial learning across a wide range of programmes from finance to governance and energy. CCI is also closely linked with the University’s Centre for Science and Policy and the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, which provide ideal forums for crosspollination of environmental ideas and research that can have a genuine impact on the global business community. Central to CCI’s ten-year strategy are plans to create a Conservation Centre in the heart of Cambridge which would provide a state-of-theart shared working space – a physical hub for the interdisciplinary collaboration work required to meet the urgent global challenges. For Rands,
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Janez Potočnik, the European Commissioner for the Environment, seated between Dr. Rands and Vice-Chancellor Emerita Professor Dame Alison Richard, taking questions at the CCI symposium.
the enormous potential of such a project is compelling: “It is amazing what happens in workshops when you bring people together, even just for a day or two – the energy, the ideas, the new thinking. To have a centre where people with all sorts of expertise, backgrounds, knowledge and networks mix and mingle every day could generate exciting new collaborations, novel ideas, and much greater profile for the biodiversity challenge. It is essential that we get conservation on the map, in the media, in the minds of politicians, the public and the business leaders; the people who can make a difference.” “With our ten year strategy in place, CCI is off to a flying start,” says Rands. “As well as the Masters course and the Shared Challenges Project, we have an influential horizon-scanning programme and a CCI Collaborative Fund that is already acting as a new stimulus for research on conservation solutions. Our aims are ambitious: to transform how biodiversity is understood and conserved. This requires major investment, of intellectual resources just as much as financial resources.” Through the CCI partnership, the University is contributing to a transformative shift in global priorities. Rands concludes: “I hope there will come a time when the conservation of Earth’s ‘natural capital’ is so mainstream that it is automatically built into economic, social and business models, and is part of everyone’s everyday thinking and behaviour.”
From mice to men
Cancer is on one level a fundamental problem in biology. On another, it is a practical clinical problem that throws up challenges across the whole spectrum of medicine. Cambridge is tackling the disease, which will affect one in three of us during our lifetime, on both fronts. There is a wealth of high-calibre crossdiscipline research at the University, with the world-renowned Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute (CRI) acting as a conduit to bring the science together and take it through to the clinic.
“I have been in cancer research all my life, starting as a graduate student at Cambridge, and I have never been as optimistic as I am now.� Professor Gerard Evan, Head of Biochemistry
Cancer research 07
The vibrancy of research and depth of expertise were key to Professor Gerard Evan’s decision to move to Cambridge from the University of California, taking up his post as the Sir William Dunn Chair of Biochemistry on 1 October 2009. Evan’s research is principally concerned with the notion of tumour maintenance; trying to understand the processes that drive and restrain cancers, and how these things go wrong. In order to kill a cancer, his research has been working to understand the common elements that cancers need to survive and he believes these commonalities should be the therapeutic targets. He explains: “there is a lot of understanding of how complex cancer is these days; we have amazing technologies in Cambridge that show that every cancer in every human is different, even that cells within a tumour are different. This has fostered the notion that cancers are endlessly complex and that you have got to personalise therapies. But there is an alternative point of view which has fallen out of fashion, but is one that we are pursuing – which is yes, cancers have lots of differences, but they all share common elements and if you target the common elements you’ll make all, or certainly most, cancers go away.” The common element at the centre of Evan’s research is Myc: a gene that helps normal cells to divide but is overactive in cancers. The molecular nature of Myc means that it has, in the past, been dismissed as ‘undruggable’ but Evan is undeterred: “the technologies are changing. Perhaps you can’t make drugs against this at the moment, but let’s assume that we could, what would happen. How effective would inhibiting this process be at curing cancers and how bad would the side effects be?” Evan acknowledges that currently his research
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is limited to the laboratory – his principal experimental model uses unique mice with reversible switches in the genes that either drive cancer or suppress cancer – but he hopes the results of his research will persuade pharmaceutical and biotech companies to take a fresh look at these ‘undruggable’ targets. “Lately we have been doing a number of studies and our mice never die from their cancers,” explains Evan. “When we restore the tumour suppressor genes, the tumours basically melt away; when we pull the plug on the oncogenes (Myc) that drive these tumours, the tumours melt away. Of course, we are not only pulling the plug on the tumour, but on all the normal tissues of the animal as well and it has been remarkable: it turns out that normal tissues go to sleep and can stay asleep for weeks. When you pull the plug on Myc, this fundamental engine, these tumours all completely regress and the animal is absolutely fine.” Evan and his team believe that Myc could be the key to generic anti-cancer drug targets. The big challenge now is to take this research from the laboratory to the clinic, but Evan is confident: “My kids are now 19 and 20 and I don’t think they are going to have to worry about cancer – that is my belief and I am pretty certain about it. I have been in cancer research all my life, starting as a graduate student at Cambridge, and I have never, ever been as optimistic as I am now – this is a really exciting time.” “What we are now trying to do, and Cambridge is a fantastic place to do it, is to leverage the amazing knowledge base in structural biology and biochemistry; the amazing technologies in live animal imaging. By working together we are going to try and move from the genetic mouse model to actually developing ways of reaching these targets in human beings,” enthuses Evan. “It is completely new; I have never done anything like this; it is not my expertise and that is why it is so amazing to be back in Cambridge because there are people around me who, if they don’t
“My focus and that of my colleagues is on Cambridge as the place where we are doing this together.” Professor Sir Bruce Ponder, Director of the CRUK Cambridge Research Institute
know how to do it, know a person who does and they will put me in touch with them. It is all very exciting and it just might make a huge difference.” At the heart of this collaborative approach is the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute (CRI) – Evan holds a position at CRI and has laboratory meetings with Professor Sir Bruce Ponder, Director of the Institute, and other colleagues. The work of Professor Kevin Brindle in advancing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), for example, underpins the progress of Evan and his laboratory, making it possible for them to watch the tumours respond to the genetic techniques they are applying. Brindle has recently demonstrated a new advance in MRI – making the technique 10,000 more sensitive. The work of Professor David Tuveson, who leads the Tumour Modelling and Experimental Medicine Group at the Institute, could also be a crucial component in the long journey towards clinical trials for Evan’s research. Tuveson is investigating methods to improve the way pre-clinical studies are performed and is developing more relevant animal models for cancer; an area of close collaboration with Evan and his laboratory.
science and technology expertise of the Institute, and together they develop a programme which takes the most fundamental science through into application to a particular organ or tissue and then to application to the clinic. We have mouse models here at the Institution and a world-class set-up for imaging the mice so we can, without biopsy, get images of how the cancer is responding to the treatment. As far as possible, we try to replicate this in the hospital with a patient and then we move backwards and forwards modifying the research principles and resulting therapies.” In just three years, the Institute is already rated as one of the leading cancer centres in Europe and underpinning this success is collaboration: “We have an annual symposium and for the last three years we have been turning away dozens of people,” says Ponder. “They come from across the departments of the University and all over Cambridge including institutes like Sanger and the science parks. We try to bring all these disciplines together because new things tend to happen on the boundary between disciplines; that is where the opportunities for innovation arise. Compared with most places, I think we have very good cross-disciplinary collaboration; although I am sitting in the Institute I really feel that it is a Cambridge thing – my whole focus is not just on this Institute; my focus and that of my colleagues is on Cambridge as the place where we are doing this together.”
Central to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, CRI is perfectly placed to tackle the challenge of taking research to practical application. The group leaders are a mix of basic, clinical and technology-based (genomics, imaging, mouse models, computational biology, etc) scientists, with links across the University departments and institutes, as well as the NHS Trust. As Ponder explains: “the clinical groups tap into the basic
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Polar to the people Glaciers and ice sheets in the polar regions are melting, with consequences for people and communities all around the world. These areas may seem remote and inaccessible to most people but they are among the most sensitive parts of the planet and an important marker in understanding environmental change.
The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is a centre of internationally renowned research into the science, social science and governance of the polar regions; as a global polar information centre, it makes these remote areas accessible to scholars and the public. “Our library is incomparable worldwide,” says Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of SPRI. “Our Museum and photographic collections, our documentary and archival materials, and our artefacts, are the outstanding collection anywhere of the history of British exploration in the polar regions.”
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The Institute’s Polar Museum reopened this year following a £1.75 million transformation, made possible by the Heritage Lottery Fund and other donors – including a large gift this year from the Garfield Weston Foundation. The redevelopment has given the Museum more space and importantly, allowed the original entrance to the building to be reinstated, bringing visitors in directly from the main road. “Just conceptually, this is a very important change,” explains Dowdeswell. “Already we have more than trebled our visitor numbers since we reopened and I hope we will do even more than that – the tourist office is now recommending us as one of the ‘must do’ things in Cambridge.”
New displays showcase the work of scientists and explorers, many of whom have set off from the Scott Polar Research Institute. The continuing commitment to research is central to the Museum and its varied collection and displays.
An impressive new entrance through the Grade II listed façade may be contributing to the increase in visitors but it is the story being told inside the Museum that is the compelling reason to visit. Founded in 1920 as a national memorial to Captain Scott and his four companions who perished on the Terra Nova expedition (1910-13), the Institute celebrates the scientific, geographic and human legacy of this early polar exploration. Exploration into science is a central theme for the redevelopment, emphasising both the history of polar exploration and the wider environmental importance of the poles. Dowdeswell explains: “Exploration into science was a central objective of the expeditions of Scott. It is the concept behind the Museum redesign and refurbishment and, of course, it is what the Institute does today. Our intention is to engage and inform visitors about the contemporary significance of the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as polar history, for example through the links between melting glaciers and sea-level rise which affects the British coastline directly.” Reaching the widest possible audience with these important messages is crucial. “The first aim of the redevelopment was to make the Museum and its displays accessible to everybody,” says Dowdeswell:
“Accessible to children, to adults, to people who don’t know the story of British polar exploration or the wider significance of the polar regions to humankind. We start off with simple orientation about just what the Arctic and the Antarctic are – where they are. The Antarctic is 13.7 million square kilometres – now that doesn’t tell most people very much; so, it is about the size of Europe and then people think, oh yes, that’s pretty big isn’t it! People don’t know these basic facts and they are important in conveying why these areas are so significant; we need to get that information across.” The Museum can now display more than a quarter of its collections at any one time – before the redevelopment it was only five per cent; permanent exhibits are reinforced by a wealth of information on interactive screens. A new museum space has been created for temporary displays, giving more capacity to showcase research developments and host special, short-term exhibitions. The Museum will host a series of public lectures every term and expects to have up to 100 schools visit this year alone.
“Glacier and ice sheet change is a reality at both poles; the ice is thinning and retreating.” Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of SPRI
The Scott Polar Research Institute 11
The reopening of the Museum was planned to coincide with the centenary marking the departure of Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. SPRI is co-ordinating the centenary celebrations which include many international events, lectures and exhibitions. Extracts of Scott’s expedition diary are also being published online every day to give a ‘real time’ insight into the experiences and hardships endured. Much research at the Institute is concerned with glaciers and ice sheets, and their relationships to environmental change. SPRI has 10 academics carrying out research on the polar regions as well as providing teaching in the Department of Geography and several other triposes. There are also about 20 doctoral students and up to 10 Master’s students working at SPRI. In the past year Dowdeswell has spent six weeks on the UK scientific ice-breaker off West Greenland studying past changes of the ice sheet. The work involved using a variety of geophysical equipment to investigate glacial landforms on the sea floor and the stratigraphy, or layer-cake structure, of the underlying sediments. This, together with radiocarbon dating of the sediments, allowed the reconstruction of past ice-sheet growth and decay over the past 25,000 years. Dowdeswell also undertook airborne radar investigations to measure the thickness of ice in huge, but almost unknown, drainage basins in the East Antarctic. Ice is semi-transparent to radio waves at megahertz frequencies, allowing both ice depth and the shape and properties of the
Heather Lane, Librarian and Keeper of Collections, in the SPRI library, the world’s most comprehensive polar library and archives.
underlying bed to be investigated in detail. The results of this research highlight the worldwide significance of ice in the polar regions. “Glacier and ice sheet change is a reality at both poles,” confirms Dowdeswell. “The ice is thinning and retreating and that means water is flowing back into the global ocean. Today, sea level is rising at about three millimetres per year; over the coming century, sea level is likely to rise further, by up to one metre, and that has serious implications for humankind.” The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) recognises the need to further investigate these changes in the ice sheet. “We have just received a new grant of almost £1 million from the NERC,” says Dowdeswell. “We will be investigating the dynamics and changes in the outlet glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet. They control mass-loss from Greenland and have major implications for sealevel rise into the future.” For his work on both modern and past changes in glaciers and ice sheets, Professor Dowdeswell has been awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal of the European Geosciences Union. The medal was established to honour outstanding scientists whose work is related to Cryospheric Sciences, and will be presented during the General Assembly of the Union in Vienna in April 2011.
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Our digital heritage
The University Library is laying the foundations to become a digital library for the 21st century, responding to the changing needs of teaching, learning and research. Scholarly activities in a digital world push boundaries and create new areas for support and development, while advances in technology offer exciting opportunities and previously unimaginable ways of working. The academic community increasingly calls for open access to information to support teaching, learning and research; and today’s students have an expectation of ‘anything, anytime and anywhere’. Non-textual information is becoming increasingly commonplace; and research across disciplines and institutions requires a new approach in the provision of resources and support. Lead camera operator Maciej Pawlikowski in the Library’s Imaging Studio.
Cambridge University Library 13
“The Library is an ever evolving environment,” explains University Librarian Anne Jarvis. “We are responding to rapidly changing advances in information technology almost on a daily basis. Years ago users had to come to the Library for information, now the Library goes out to the user, promoting the discoverability and use of its collections in all formats – it is a completely different way of working for many of us.” The University Library is an influential voice in the international debate surrounding this new digital landscape. The arcadia@cambridge project was established in 2008, following a grant from the Arcadia Fund, to rethink the role of the research library in a digital age; a programme of Arcadia Fellowships, an ambitious series of seminars and an annual lecture have since been established. The aim of the three-year project is to ensure that the Library plays a leading role in the emerging ecosystem of digital curation and scholarship, and that it is best-placed to meet the teaching, learning and research requirements of the University community. “We are at the start of what we believe will be an incredible journey into the digital future.” Anne Jarvis, University Librarian
As a result of the changing role of the Library, a shift in user requirements and the rapidly developing digital environment, the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET) is now working very closely with the University Library. “CARET is very much about innovation, whereas the Library is more concerned with delivering services,” says John Norman, Director of CARET. “Bringing the two cultures together means that when something really works with CARET the Library can push it out as a service to the academic and student community – that is exciting.” 14 University of Cambridge Annual Report 2010
“Collaborations between the Library and CARET are already transforming the services provided,” continues Norman. “The Cambridge Libraries Widget can bring library resources, including search facilities, loans and requests, direct to a user’s mobile phone and websites including CamTools, Facebook and iGoogle.” The Electronic Systems and Services division of the Library has also implemented a new online LibrarySearch service which is currently being trialled. It allows quick and intuitive searching across the print and electronic collections of the libraries of the University and DSpace@Cambridge. DSpace@Cambridge and CamTools are important features in the University’s digital infrastructure. CamTools is the University’s virtual learning environment and electronic distribution mechanism, managed by CARET, and is a key tool for those engaged in teaching and learning. “CamTools is the local branding for a large international project called Sakai,” explains Norman. “We are leading the development of the next generation of Sakai, and the response to our proposals has been incredible: people are saying that the ideas in our plan are going to be transformative for higher education. We are now working with an international team of developers across several institutions to put our ideas into practice.” DSpace@Cambridge is the central University repository which stores a huge range of content, including research data, scholarly papers and multimedia resources; a new e-thesis depositing service has been launched this year, giving global access to Cambridge theses through the DSpace@ Cambridge interface. In response to the growth of DSpace@Cambridge, the Library has initiated a digital preservation programme. Grant Young, the Library’s Digitisation and Digital Preservation Specialist, explains further: “DSpace@Cambridge now contains more than 200,000 digital artefacts and the Library has some major digitisation initiatives in the pipeline. We are exploring best practice in digital curation and preservation to ensure that the University’s digital resources are appropriately managed to remain accessible for long-term scholarly use.”
A hospital ticket from the major Siegfried Sassoon exhibition, following the Library’s acquisition of the war poet’s personal archive.
The Library is also embarking on a major three-year digital library project made possible following a £1.5 million gift pledged this year by Dr Leonard Polonsky. “The Foundations Project will enable the Library to extend and develop its infrastructure to provide sophisticated online delivery of digitised books, manuscripts and images,” says Jarvis. The first major manuscript collections to be digitised will be entitled The Foundations of Faith and The Foundations of Science; the goal for both digital collections is that they become ‘living libraries’ with the capacity to grow and evolve. If the project proves successful and further funding is secured, the collections of scientific giants such as Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking could also be digitised, along with other major collections in the fields of humanities and social sciences. “We are at the start of what we believe will be an incredible journey into the digital future,” explains Jarvis. “Our Library contains evidence of some of the greatest ideas and discoveries over two millennia. We want to make it accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection and a thirst for knowledge.”
Digitisation is key to preservation, accessibility and long-term sustainability, but the outstanding physical collections remain critical for the Library’s worldwide reputation. The most significant acquisition for the Library this year has been the personal archive of war poet Siegfried Sassoon. It was secured following a six-month, £1.25 million fundraising campaign and means that the Library now holds the world’s pre-eminent Sassoon collection. On display for the first time in the current public exhibition Dream Voices: Siegfried Sassoon, Memory and War, the archive includes poignant accounts from the Western Front recollected in diaries, journals and letters. The Library has also been engaging with new audiences through the increasing use of new communication technologies, such as blogs and Twitter. An online presence is an important part of the Library’s commitment to engage beyond the physical walls, but it is not all about the technology, says Jarvis: “This is a great library, and one of the reasons why it is great is because of the breadth and depth of our collections. We will continue to acquire manuscripts, modern and rare books and other physical items, as well as resources and collections in digital format, because that is fundamental to our role.” This year, as part of the University’s Anniversary celebrations, 800 Letters to the Future have been sealed and stored in the University Library. They are due to be opened 100 years from now, when the digital landscape will no doubt have changed in ways we cannot yet begin to imagine.
“We have many unique resources to which scholars often require immediate access”, continues Jarvis. “We are therefore working with our academic colleagues to ensure that the materials we digitise are critical to scholarly endeavour. By digitising, we will be making these resources available to a global audience, providing interactive use to enable scholars to add value or embed these resources within their teaching and research.” Cambridge University Library 14
Teaching and learning Every year, the University honours its very best teaching talents at the Pilkington Teaching Prizes awards ceremony. The prizes were established in 1994 by businessman and alumnus of Trinity College Sir Alastair Pilkington. The aim was to ensure that excellence in teaching at the University was given proper recognition. Pilkington Prizes go to individuals who pioneer new methods of learning, those whose work on outreach programmes is outstanding, or those who show a remarkable capacity to connect with, and inspire, students to achieve. Two of the prizewinners highlight what they feel it is about the University that helps to create a unique teaching and learning environment.
Dr Helen Mott is Assistant Director of Research at the Department of Biochemistry and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. Helen recently took a leading role in the successful redevelopment of the practical classes in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology course, and continues to oversee the running of these classes with tremendous energy and enthusiasm.
I see that my job as a first-year supervisor is two-fold: to teach the students to express themselves in essays succinctly and clearly, and to teach them the skills of independent study and learning. In biological sciences, we teach the students a scientific subject that requires the assimilation of a relatively large number of facts; we feed the students more details than they can possibly remember or learn, and then expect them to summarise and extract what is important. This is a tall order for an 18-year old whose learning experience so far has often been along the lines of fact absorption and regurgitation. Most students rely on having a sympathetic and committed supervisor to navigate them through this transition, aided by the small-group teaching provided through Cambridge’s College system. The job of teachers at the University is to train students to question, and this cannot be achieved in lectures alone. Here at Cambridge, we are committed to running practical classes in the sciences. The experience that students gain from performing experiments that they have only read about is invaluable and should be preserved as far as possible. We are looking to a future where students will be under increasing financial pressure and have a right to demand excellent tuition. We will continue striving, collectively and individually, to meet this challenge.�
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The other prizewinners for 2010 are: Dr Julia Davies, Department of Plant Sciences; Dr Mark Elliott, Faculty of Law; Dr John Firth, School of Clinical Medicine; Dr Simon Guest, Department of Engineering; Dr Richard Harrison, Department of Earth Sciences; Dr Mark Lillicrap, School of Clinical Medicine; Dr Simon Moore, Computer Laboratory; Professor Simon Schaffer, Department of History and Philosophy of Science; Dr Rob Wallach, Department of Material Sciences and Metallurgy; and Dr Joachim Whaley, Department of German and Dutch.
Dr Hallvard Lillehammer is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy and a Fellow of Churchill College. As an Undergraduate Co-ordinator, Hallvard has made an outstanding contribution to enhancing the quality of teaching across the Faculty, introducing successful initiatives to bridge the gap between teaching and research by supporting interactions between undergraduates, graduates and research staff in seminars and reading groups.
From my own perspective as a teacher, the educational experience at Cambridge is distinctively valuable in at least four different ways. First, there is the quality of the students. My students often learn from each other as much as they do from their teachers. In my own experience, organising seminars and discussion groups among undergraduates is an excellent way of enhancing their ability to communicate with clarity and rigour in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Then there is the close attention to individual development made possible by the Cambridge supervision system. Focusing on a student at the start of a supervision cycle and then helping them develop at their own pace as an individual is one of the most effective ways of learning that the Cambridge system offers. Thirdly, there is the quality and range of teaching colleagues. From graduate students on the one hand, through junior faculty members, to eminent scholars of world renown on the other, our students are educated by accomplished academics who care passionately about their teaching as well as their research. As a Director of Studies at King’s College, I had the privilege for many years of being able to organise teaching for my students using a blend of talent, from young researchers to
established authorities. Finally, there is the use that our students make of their learning beyond graduation. We often say that we are educating the philosophers of the future, and we do. Many of our graduates bring an active interest in the subject to their different walks of life, as I discover when they get in touch to tell me about their experiences in private business, education and public service. After ten years working in the University, I am proud to count a significant number of my former students as academic colleagues.�
Teaching and learning 17
Global partnerships Cambridge has an international network of alumni, friends and supporters, and global partnerships with academia, industry and government. The University’s international database records nearly 2,800 collaborations in 142 countries. Building and developing these worldwide relationships strengthens the University’s ability and capacity to secure global talent and to provide support for students in order to attract the brightest and the best.
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a global future in both Cambridge and India and ever-strengthening relations with alumni. www.cambridge-india.org
Dr Jennifer Barnes, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Strategy
Dr Jennifer Barnes, the President of Murray Edwards College, was appointed Pro-ViceChancellor for International Strategy in January 2010. Dr Barnes has extensive experience in the public and private sectors, negotiating and establishing international collaborations in the sciences, humanities, technology and the arts. In 2005, she was appointed as the first Director of Global Education for BP, where she advised colleagues in more than 25 countries on how to establish partnerships between business, governments and the university sector. She continues to advise organisations on governance, organisational culture, policy and strategy.
A number of new scholarships were launched during the year to support international students at the University, and numerous existing scholarship schemes were renewed, under the auspices of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and Cambridge Overseas Trust, providing increased support for students from India, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Korea, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria. Both Trusts combined in a new agreement with Cambridge Assessment to co-fund international students on MPhil courses in the areas of English Language, Applied Linguistics and Education. The University’s ongoing liaison with Santander included the introduction of several new partcosts scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate students.
“Our international strategy going forward will be built on the extraordinary individual excellence embodied in all academic fields and disciplines,” she says. “We will engage with global challenges and problems through working in partnership with colleagues around the world.” In the past academic year, the Vice-Chancellor Emerita led senior Cambridge delegations on visits to India, East Asia, the Gulf States and Korea, meeting with alumni, fellow academics, and government and industry figures. As a result of her travel over the last few years a number of initiatives and new collaborations have emerged. The Cambridge India Partnership, for example, is a long-term, resilient and evolving relationship founded on scholarly and researchbased collaborations, two-way exchanges at every academic level, and at the interface of academia with NGOs, business and public policy, commitment to capacity building for
Students, alumni and guests gathered in Cambridge in July to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Gates Cambridge Scholarships.
The Gates Cambridge Trust celebrated its 10th Anniversary this year. The programme aims to build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others, and since its foundation nearly 1,000 scholarships have been awarded to students from more than 90 countries around the world. Professor Robert Lethbridge, Master of Fitzwilliam College, took over as Provost in October, following the retirement of founding Provost Gordon Johnson.
Global partnerships 19
Appointments and awards The calibre of University staff and academics and the significance of the work undertaken at Cambridge are reflected in the awards and prizes received each year. This section gives just a small insight into the people behind the University’s worldwide reputation; it includes some of the new appointments made this past academic year and mentions just a few of the many accolades received.
Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, former Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University, replacing Professor Dame Alison Richard on 1 October 2010. Sir Leszek is supported by a team of five Pro-Vice-Chancellors, three of whom were appointed in January 2010: Dr Jennifer Barnes (International Strategy); Professor Lynn Gladden (Research); and Professor Ian White (Institutional Affairs). They join Professor Steve Young (Planning and Resources) and Professor John Rallison (Education). Lord Watson of Richmond has been elected to the office of High Steward of the University, in place of Dame Bridget Ogilvie who resigned after eight years in this high office.
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Other appointments this year include: Professor Dame Ann Dowling, Head of the Department of Engineering, and Professor Howard Chase, Head of the School of Technology. The University has announced the appointment of two new professors in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP): Richard Jozsa, Leigh Trapnell Professor of Quantum Physics, and Paul Linden, G I Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics. Professor Jozsa is regarded as one of the founders of the subject of quantum information science and is renowned for his many fundamental contributions to the field. Professor Linden is an eminent fluid mechanist and a leading figure in environment
and sustainability research. Michael Green, a distinguished theoretical physicist who pioneered String Theory, has been elected as the 18th Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, succeeding Stephen Hawking. Doug Crawford Brown was appointed Executive Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Mitigation Research, and Peter Hayler became Associate Vicar at Great St Mary’s Church and Chaplain to University staff. To mark the University’s 800th Anniversary, HM The Queen created a new Regius Professorship, by conferring the royal title on the University’s Professorship of Botany. Regius Professor Sir David Baulcombe is the first incumbent of the chair, which is held in the Department of Plant Sciences – the discipline that underpins the preservation of natural heritage and biodiversity, food security, and the development of medicines and important fuels. It is the first time Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has designated a Regius Professorship – and the first time since the early 20th century that such an honour has been bestowed by any monarch, underlining the significance of this area of learning and research. The new Regius Professorship joins six others in Cambridge – Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Physic, Civil Law, and Modern History.
has been appointed Dame Commander of the Order of British Empire (DBE) for services to higher education; and Professor Athene Donald, Deputy Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, and Director of the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, has been appointed DBE for services to physics. Colin Humphreys, Emeritus Goldsmiths’ Professor of Materials Science, and Director of Research in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, has been awarded a knighthood for services to science. Sir Colin has also become the Master of the Armourers and Brasiers’ Company in London, whose charity, the Gauntlet Trust, is the largest charity supporting materials science in the UK.
Sir Colin Humphreys
Five Cambridge academics have been recognised in the Queen’s New Year Honours list for 2010: Paul Mellars, Professor of Prehistory and Human Evolution, Department of Archaeology, has been knighted for his services to scholarship; Robert James Mair, Master of Jesus College and Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, has been made a CBE for services to engineering; Dr Andrew Herbert, Managing Director of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, has been made an OBE for services to computer sciences; Dr Peter Clarkson, Emeritus Associate at the Scott Polar Research Institute, and David Duke, Principal Technician in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, have also been awarded MBEs. The Vice-Chancellor Emerita and two leading Cambridge academics featured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list: Professor Alison Richard
 Eight Cambridge academics have been elected Fellows of the British Academy in recognition of their contribution to the humanities and social sciences: David Abulafia, Professor of Mediterranean History; Mary Beard, Professor of Classics; Christopher Clark, Professor of Modern European History; Dr Alan Baker, Life Fellow of Emmanuel College; Deborah Howard, Professor of Architectural History; Juliet Mitchell, Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies, and Founder Director of the Centre for Gender Studies; Dr Karalyn Patterson, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Clinical Neurosciences; and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Master of Sidney Sussex College, and newly appointed Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Classics. Seven Cambridge academics have been elected to British Academy Fellowships in recognition
Appointments and awards 21
of their research achievements: Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre; Philip Ford, Professor of French and NeoLatin Literature; Jonathan Haslam, Professor of History of International Relations; Mary Jacobus, Director of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, and Professor of English; Dr John Marenbon, Senior Research Fellow of Trinity College; Susan Rankin, Professor of Medieval Music; and John Duncan, Honorary Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience. Five Cambridge academics have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society: Andrea Brand, Gurdon Institute and Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Biology; Professor Nicola Clayton, Department of Experimental Psychology; Professor Ben Green, Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics; Professor Roger Hardie, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience; and Professor Max Pettini, Institute of Astronomy. A further five have been elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences: Sir David Baulcombe, Regius Professor of Botany and Royal Society Research Professor, Department of Plant Sciences; William Bonfield, Emeritus Professor of Medical Materials; Anthony Holland, Professor of Developmental Psychiatry (Learning and Disability), Department of Psychiatry; Gordon Smith, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology; and Maria Grazia Spillantini, Professor of Molecular Neurology, Clinical Neurosciences. The Royal Society has also awarded Professor Christopher Dobson, Master of St John’s, a Royal Medal for “his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of protein folding and misfolding, and the implications for disease”; Dr Andrea Ferrari, Department of Engineering, has received a prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, in recognition of his proven outstanding ability to undertake independent, original research. Three Cambridge academics at the Institute of Astronomy have been honoured for their outstanding contribution to astronomy by the Royal Astronomical Society: Professor Douglas
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Gough, Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow, formerly Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics and Director of the Institute, has been awarded the Gold Medal for Astronomy – the Society’s highest award; Craig Mackay, Professor of Image Science, has been awarded the Jackson-Gwilt Medal for his long-term work on astronomical instrumentation; and Dr Barbara Ercolano, Visiting Researcher, has been awarded the Fowler Prize for her work and development on the MOCASSIN code, one of the most important astrophysical tools to have been created during the past decade.
Dr Helen Mason
Dr Helen Mason, Assistant Director of Research, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, has been named as one of the UK Resource Centre’s Women of Outstanding Achievement 2010, for her inspirational work in communication within science, engineering and technology. The Millennium Maths Project has won the prestigious Inspire Mark by the Olympic Games for its new Maths + Sport: Countdown to the Games project, which explains the maths and science behind the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. The catalogue accompanying the record-breaking exhibition Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum has been awarded the 2009 William M B Berger Prize for British Art History.
Professor Austin Smith, Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, has won this year’s Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine for his pivotal role in stem cell research – the prize rewards Europe’s top biomedical researchers. Professor Shankar Balasubramanian has been named Innovator of the Year by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in recognition of his work on Solexa sequencing, a high-speed genome sequencing technology that is revolutionising bioscience. Professor John Williams has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is distinguished as the originator of the spiral groove pumping seal, which is widely used in the oil and gas handling industries. Dr Matthew Juniper and Rolls Royce received the Environmental Technology Award at The Engineer magazine’s Technology and Innovation Awards. They have jointly developed a software tool that can help in the design of cleaner jet engines. Dr Dan Tucker and colleagues from the Department of Veterinary Medicine and the Royal Veterinary College have won the Dieter Lütticken Award for developing a new way to study respiratory diseases in cattle and other species without having to use live animals.
Emeritus, Boston University (Doctor of Letters); Richard Sennett, Visiting Fellow-Commoner of Trinity College, University Professor of the Humanities, New York University, Professor of Sociology and Academic Governor, the London School of Economics and Political Science (Doctor of Letters); Sir Harrison Birtwistle, composer, Henry Purcell Professor of Composition Emeritus, King’s College, University of London (Doctor of Music); Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, percussionist (Doctor of Music).
The Chancellor’s Procession in Senate House Yard for the 2010 Honorary Degrees.
The following distinguished individuals were awarded honorary degrees by the University: George John Mitchell, lawyer, formerly a United States Senator, sometime Chairman of the International Body on Arms Decommissioning in Northern Ireland and Chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks, United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (Doctor of Law); Ratan Naval Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group of Companies (Doctor of Law); Dame Louise Napier Johnson, David Phillips Professor of Molecular Biophysics Emerita in the University of Oxford (Doctor of Science); Sir Andrew John Wiles, Honorary Fellow of Clare College, James S McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics, Princeton University (Doctor of Science); Geoffrey William Hill, Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, poet and critic, University Professor and Professor of Literature and Religion
Appointments and awards 23
Charting progress Undergraduates Undergraduates
Postgraduates Postgraduates
Undergraduates
Postgraduates
Full-time students 2009*
Full-time students 2009**
Men 6,157
Men 3,052
Women 5,659
Women 2,530
Admissions statistics† 0
500
Admissions statistics††
1000
1500
0
500
1000
1,675
1500 1,530
2009 2009
1,318
1,167
486
1,762
1,449 2008
2008
1,277
1,078
492
1,517
1,425 2007
2007
1,023
1,327 546
1,630
1,400 2006
2006
1,340
1,114
445
UK maintained UK independent Other and overseas * Full-time equivalent student load for year of entry as published in Reporter, Special No. 4,Thursday 7 October 2010. † Acceptances by type of school/college by year of entry or deferred entry for the following year. ** Includes all graduate and postgraduate courses by year of entry. †† ‘Home’ includes students from the EU and other overseas countries paying the home rate of fees and students paying the ‘island’ rate of fees.
24 University of Cambridge Annual Report 2010
Home†† Overseas
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