About this speech

  • Title: The annual address of the Vice-Chancellor to the University
  • Speaker: Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor
  • Date: Tuesday 1 October 2024
  • Delivered at Senate House, Cambridge

Speech transcript

Colleagues, students, alumni and friends –

Good morning and welcome to the new academic year. I am delighted to have this opportunity to address you all on the state of the University and the year ahead. First though, congratulations to the new Proctors just elected by the Regent House and thanks to their predecessors who retired beforehand.

Cambridge had huge success last year, and not just in the Boat Races (though yes, in the Boat Races, and the rugby matches!). By the numbers, the year saw:

  • 10 new Fellows of the Royal Society
  • 6 new Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
  • 1 new Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
  • 6 new Fellows of the British Academy
  • 25 Affiliates recognised in the King's Birthday and New Year Honours
  • 11 alumni competing in the Paris Olympics
  • 15 new spin-out companies
  • Over 100 million learners served by Cambridge University Press and Assessment, and over 3200 new words added to the Cambridge Dictionary

The Collegiate University received over £300 million in philanthropic gifts last year and, importantly, achieved its fundraising target, set in 2018, of £500M for student support. Let me pause over that £500 million, because it has been transformative. It has gone to support the Foundation Year and the Get-In Campaign; it includes the Stormzy scholarships, the Mastercard Foundation scholarships, and the Harding postgraduate scholarships; it has supported the transformation of our student health and wellbeing services, has spawned two very successful matching programmes, and much, much more. I have met the students in many of these programmes, so for me, the student support initiative has names, faces, and life stories attached. It's a thrilling achievement.

Beyond the numbers, last year we celebrated the UK rejoining Horizon Europe. We celebrated the Black Atlantic exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, winner of the "Exhibition of the Year" prize from the Association of Art Historians. We celebrated the tenth anniversary of CARES in Singapore. We celebrated milestones in several major capital projects: The opening of Bill Gates Senior House; the completion of the Ray Dolby Centre; the groundbreaking of the new Whittle Lab; the approval of the Outline Business Case for the new Cambridge Children's Hospital; and receipt of planning permission for the next phase of building in West Cambridge. Most of all, we celebrated the discoveries, the insights, and the inventions of our scholars and researchers – the creation of new knowledge, so commonplace at Cambridge that we forget how truly extraordinary it is.

In this, my first full year as Vice-Chancellor, I took the proverbial baton and ran with it. In so doing, I learned a great many things. One is the value of this annual address. It is my one chance each year to speak to the entire Collegiate University, both in Cambridge and worldwide, at length, to reflect and explain, rather than to announce and react. I want to make the most of the opportunity.

So let me get on with describing where we are as a University and our goals for the year ahead and beyond. Along the way, I will answer some frequently asked questions, since I may not get another opportunity to do so until next October.

I'll start with Cambridge's national profile, for nothing has struck me more than this University's extraordinary significance on the national landscape. It is very different from the profile of even the most prominent universities in the US. Cambridge is global – in its outlook, its networks, and its academic standards – but the full impact of the Collegiate University is felt most keenly here in the UK. That impact takes many forms.

Cambridge is held in highly positive regard throughout the UK – 68% of people in a recent national poll said they had a positive view of Cambridge – and it is one of the top two places students from across the country come to get educated. Of course, for much of its history, there were few domestic competitors, but Cambridge remains a huge draw even within the UK's abundant HE sector. We tend to take this all for granted, but we shouldn't. It is a blessing and a huge asset.

Cambridge is a national resource, a genuine national asset, home to many national facilities like the new Dolby Centre and a keeper of national treasures and collections in Departments, Libraries, and Museums.

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus, in which the University is a key partner, is a global centre of biomedical research, innovation, and care. It provides outstanding clinical care for our community, is the largest biomedical campus in Europe, and is the hub for the country's leading life sciences cluster.

And finally, the University is a huge contributor to the UK economy – estimated at approximately £30 billion a year.

I got a glimpse of Cambridge's national profile while I was being interviewed for this job, but it wasn't until I moved to the UK that I came to appreciate it fully. In this moment of national renewal, Cambridge has a huge amount to offer. Four of our current initiatives illustrate how our directions of travel dovetail with the national agenda.

  1. In collaboration with the Colleges, we are stepping up widening participation efforts to attract students from areas of the country where we do not draw as strongly. Earlier this year I took a trip up to Liverpool and Manchester, where I met 6th form students and their parents, sceptical about whether Cambridge would be the right place for them. I also encountered a very engaged group of alumni who told me that in their experience no Cambridge Vice-Chancellor had ever ventured that far north. We are now working with those very committed and well-connected alumni to create a pipeline for clever students from the North to come to Cambridge. Those students need to feel that we want them, really want them, if they are to come.
  2. We are in the advanced planning stages for two new hospitals on the biomedical campus, the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and the Cambridge Children's Hospital, both exciting, innovative institutions that will revolutionise care across East Anglia, the UK, and beyond.
  3. We are expanding the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, which is already a hub of academic and policy research into the major challenges facing the country and the world, as well as a purveyor of the knowledge and skills required in public service.
  4. We have bold, ambitious plans for West Cambridge and for an Innovation Hub that will bring together the very best researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, spin-outs and funders under one roof. The UK does not currently have this, while places like Boston in the US and Paris have shown the way. Cambridge, with its expertise, is uniquely placed and the opportunities are tremendously exciting. We want to work with Government, and many others, to succeed.

West Cambridge will be a place where the University can work with industry, side by side and at scale, to help solve the world's biggest challenges. This development, and the Innovation Hub, will deliver huge impact, with more University spin-outs and more incoming investment. We want Cambridge to be the go-to location for the world's leading innovators.

As I noted, these initiatives, most of which have been years in the making, align closely with what the country needs now, and position the University to play a very important role in its renewal.

People often ask me about the University's relationship to the Colleges, with the framing of their questions betraying an expectation that things might be difficult; questions like, "How are you getting on with the Heads of House?" and "Is it challenging to run things with 31 independent Colleges to navigate?"

These questions are understandable, given the distinctiveness of the collegiate structure, but to me, they are like asking whether I am getting on with my partner and whether it is challenging to have so many siblings. Yes, there are more conversations to be had, different points of view to navigate, potential conflicts to resolve, but there is also a greater richness in all ways to the offering. In my experience, the University and the Colleges are like family when it comes to creating the best possible environment for education and scholarship at Cambridge. That is our joint mission, and we pursue it in partnership.

One of the keys to keeping the partnership strong is deciding wisely when we should collaborate and when we should go our separate ways. Over the last several years, we have stepped up our collaborations in particular areas, with very positive results.

For example, mental health support for students is much stronger since the University and Colleges collaborated on a joint framework to support student well-being, beginning in 2021.

We are currently in the midst of a review of teaching, prompted by concerns about Cambridge's culture of overwork. The University, the Colleges, and the student body are collaborating on this review, which greatly enhances the likelihood that it will come up with recommendations that can be implemented successfully and that will actually reduce the volume of work students have to do.

Fundraising has traditionally been an area in which Colleges and University have gone their separate ways with a modicum of coordination. But recently, we have combined forces to develop joint gift opportunities – proposals that enable donors to give both to a College and to the University. This move marks a recognition that while the Colleges and University may be separate and independent charities, we are inseparable in the experiences of students and alumni. Many donors would like to give to both. We brought in 42 joint gifts this year, which reinforces that premise.

As the University develops plans for its next fundraising campaign, to launch in about two years, we will work with the Colleges on the possibility of more joint gift opportunities and other joint initiatives, particularly in education and student support.

I am often asked: What worries me most about the University of Cambridge, or, more colloquially, what keeps me up at night?

This is always a tough one, given that I am not a worrier and enjoy staying up late. I respond by saying that the key to Cambridge's success is its ability to attract and support the most talented people from around the country and around the world. The people are the means and the ends of everything we do here. So long as we are a magnet for extraordinary talent, I am not worried. If we lose the ability to attract talent, then I will be worried.

Those of you who are listening closely will note that I have not really answered the question, so let me answer it more directly. I am not worried that Cambridge has lost the ability to attract extraordinary talent. I have seen so much of it since coming here. There are the people I met at inductions, events, receptions, lectures, meals, and committee meetings; those whose dossiers I reviewed for positions or promotions; and those whom I encountered solely through their work. The people here are world-class.

I am often asked if we can still recruit from North America, where the salaries are so much higher. Yes, we can; there were several successful recruitments last year. People will choose the job over the salary, if the salary is good enough and the job offers something special.

Of course, decline is an ever-present danger and difficult to spot. Therefore, we must always be focused on how we reward our people appropriately and support them to do their very best work here. Toward that end, the University just launched its People Strategy, which will be implemented over the next three years. The People Strategy is a suite of initiatives designed to strengthen our ability to attract, develop, and reward talent, build community, and run an effective organisation. It includes a review of our pay offer and grading structure, as well as the design and implementation of the new HR system. It includes a project on reducing the gender pay gap and one on improving support for academic staff through the retirement process, a need highlighted by the EJRA debate this summer. The People Strategy is a huge undertaking, very ambitious, and absolutely necessary to the goal of making Cambridge an excellent place to work. The information we gain from it will also help us figure out how to invest in our people most effectively.

One question I have received with increasing frequency as the year has gone on is, "Aren't you glad not to be in the United States right now?" always framed as a double negative.

There are, of course, many things to which that question might refer – the weather, the gun laws, the upcoming election. I take it to refer to the challenges besetting the presidents of leading American universities over their handling of student protests over Gaza, and I respond warmly in the affirmative. Yes, I am glad not to be at the fulcrum of an epic struggle between academics, trustees, donors, and legislators over whose authority prevails at the university. The student protests in the UK and specifically here at Cambridge have not raised the same questions about authority.

They have, however, raised questions about our investments and our research relationships that we are committed to addressing. Beginning in Michaelmas Term, a University working group, with representation from a student task force, will review our approach to responsible investment and the guidelines that inform research relationships with defence sector companies. The working group will make recommendations to the relevant University committees that oversee policies in relation to investments and research relationships. These recommendations will also inform the University Council's response to a Grace on divestment from defence sector industries submitted by members of the Regent House in June. You can expect updates on the progress of this review in the months to come.

As I and other senior leaders have said clearly before, we need to look out for each other, and work hard to make sure that Cambridge is a welcoming and safe place for all communities, whatever our backgrounds.

Now, to the University's finances. There is currently much discussion in public forums about the financial challenges facing the HE sector, and I am often asked how Cambridge is weathering those challenges. The short answer is that, although we are not immune to the financial stresses currently affecting the sector, we have resources that make us more resilient than other universities are.

It is important to recognise that Cambridge is an expensive university to operate. Our intensive approach to teaching and the sheer amount of research we do mean we lose money at both. Our heavily devolved structures and decision-making tend to be inefficient; our ancient buildings and our aging systems and processes certainly are. All of this makes Cambridge expensive.

We are fortunate to have multiple income streams, including payout from the endowment, support from donors and other benefactors, and the surplus income from Cambridge University Press and Assessment. These are resources most other universities simply do not have. They enable us not only to balance the annual operating budget but also to invest in our academic mission, our people, our Estate, and our digital capacities for the longer-term. It's a trade-off: the more we spend on the annual operating budget, the less we have to invest. But a failure to invest makes us less resilient, less nimble, and less competitive.

This brings me to the question of where we are now. The last few years have been specially expensive ones at Cambridge, as at most UK universities. Recovery from the pandemic, increases in regulatory oversight, a spike in inflation, and deferred maintenance of the Estate have produced large year-on-year increases in our costs.

These cost increases are not an immediate threat to the University, in that we can redirect income streams to cover them. But they are a threat in the long run because they keep us from investing in the things that make Cambridge a world-class university. Every pound we spend today is a pound we are not investing in our Estate and digital capacities, in modernising our systems and processes, in hitting our sustainability targets, and most importantly, in the people and the brilliant new academic initiatives that make us who we are.

That is why we are working across the University to cut costs, increase revenues including philanthropy, and thereby get back to a more reasonable balance between spending today and investing for tomorrow. At the same time, we are making progress on the Finance Transformation Programme, which will vastly improve the quality and timeliness of financial information available to heads of departments, schools, and offices across the University, so that they can make more informed decisions about costs and revenues. Plans are now underway to consolidate the University's financial management, ensuring among other things that there will be stability in leadership during the delivery and embedding of the Finance Transformation Programme. Although the ultimate payoff from this programme is still several years away, we are seeing benefits from the work even now.

Before closing, let me mention just a couple of initiatives I am eager to continue from last year:

The Vice-Chancellor's Dialogues, in which we invite people with opposing viewpoints on an issue to engage with each other and an audience. It's vital that we can disagree well within our community. We held two dialogues last year, and both were fascinating. I would like to do another this year.

Environmental Sustainability. We renewed our efforts on environmental sustainability last year, and made real progress, especially on the operations side. In the year ahead, we will bring in external leadership to do an interim review of our progress toward our carbon-zero targets and to develop a clear strategy forward. On the academic side, we now have new leadership in place, with Bhaskar Vira taking on the Environmental Sustainability portfolio in addition to Education. More to come.

Development. I mentioned the plan to launch a new fundraising campaign in about two years' time. You may ask, why another campaign, especially so soon? My answer is that campaigns are great for focusing energy and attention on fundraising. A campaign will give us a context for our internal conversations about priorities and opportunities and will add urgency to our conversations with donors about the institution's needs. Universities in campaigns raise more funding than those not in campaigns; it's as simple as that. And if we are going to launch in two years, we need to get on it. During the spring, I hosted dinners at the Vice-Chancellor's Lodge with groups of donors on some nights and groups of young and mid-career academics on other nights, getting their input and ideas for the campaign and learning how Cambridge looks from their points of view. We will continue those dinners – they are incredibly valuable. I also travelled around the UK and around the world to meet donors and alumni and will do so again, beginning in Scotland later this month.

Finally, a changing of the guard. Our wonderful Chancellor, David Sainsbury, announced last year that he will step down once the Senate can proceed to elect a successor. We are enormously grateful to Lord Sainsbury for all he has done for this University in 12 years as Chancellor. In the year ahead, we will be celebrating his unwavering service and his commitment to Cambridge. Preparations for the election of his successor are already underway and will pick up pace during Michaelmas term.

So let the new academic year begin! I look forward to catching up with friends and colleagues across the University. I look forward to meeting many more of you and learning about your work – that really is the best part of my job. And I wish you all a joyful and fulfilling year ahead.