Vice-Chancellor Professor Alison Richard on how new buildings and refurbishments across the University are helping research to flourish.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Alison Richard on how new buildings and refurbishments across the University are helping research to flourish.
Expansion is not something we undertake for its own sake, of course, but because areas of knowledge open up which command our attention.
Professor Alison Richard
Research of high quality does not always depend on good facilities: I dare say Wittgenstein would have been a genius with or without a fine edifice in which to work, and Newton, Darwin, Crick and Watson would doubtless be astounded by the high-specification laboratories available to today’s researchers in the physical and biological sciences. I would certainly contend, however, that good buildings help research to flourish.
In my nearly seven years as Vice-Chancellor, I have had the great privilege to open (or more often to witness our Chancellor, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, opening) new buildings that have added significantly to the research space across the University. Like those featured in this issue of Research Horizons, all are thriving examples of the spirit of endeavour and the excitement of scholarship embodied by research in Cambridge.
These new buildings are paralleled by refurbishments of existing stock: the Herchel Smith Building for Brain and Mind Sciences, and the Departments of Chemistry and Plant Sciences are major examples. Such developments are made possible by large-scale and far-sighted investment by the University, assisted by Government infrastructure funding, charitable foundations, and philanthropy both individual and corporate.
The investments continue, with new land being pressed into service: part of the research area of the Botanic Garden provided the site for the stunning new Sainsbury Laboratory opening its doors early in 2011, and West Cambridge provides space for transformative expansion, as will North-West Cambridge in the coming years.
Expansion is not something we undertake for its own sake, of course, but because areas of knowledge open up which command our attention. Last year, as part of our 800th Anniversary celebrations, and along with 799 others, I wrote a ‘Letter to the Future’, to be opened in 2109. We can have no thorough understanding of the research our future counterparts will be conducting then. But, through decisions we make now, and attention to quality and flexibility, we are helping to ensure that ground-breaking discoveries will continue to be made in Cambridge.
Professor Alison Richard
Vice-Chancellor
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