Hello
I’m Stephen Toope
It’s been a year of
great achievement
and change for the
University of Cambridge.
I'm speaking from the new
Student Services Centre
which opened in March
and which for the first time
has brought together
all the student-supporting
teams of the University.
On the West Cambridge site
we recently opened the
new Civil Engineering building.
Work began on the University’s
new Cavendish Laboratory,
a project that will help strengthen
the University’s position
as a globally leading
site for physics research.
New college buildings,
like Newnham’s Dorothy Garrod building,
have added greatly to the
city’s rich architectural mix.
We saw sporting success in rowing, yachting,
road cycling, ice hockey, sailing and rugby.
There was achievement of another kind,
in ground-breaking research,
notably in the award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Sir Greg Winter, Master of Trinity.
The prospect of Brexit
continues to loom over us.
We're no more certain now about
whether or how it will happen,
but we've continued to
plan for the contingency
of a disorderly and disruptive exit.
Cambridge colleagues continue to engage with government to make sure that the impact
of Brexit on immigration, research funding
and collaboration are well understood
and, where possible, mitigated.
And we continue to reach out
to our partners around the world.
From Munich to Nanjing,
from Paris to Delhi.
To show through our actions,
not only our words,
that we are a global university
open to global collaboration.
Over the past year,
we've actively engaged
with the new regulator:
the Office for Students (OfS).
As part of our compliance with
OfS regulations
the University submitted
its Access and Participation Plan.
The Plan contains ambitious
new targets on access:
We've said that, by 2025,
more than 25% of our intake
will be from the most under-represented
and disadvantaged backgrounds.
That will rise to 33% by 2035.
We've also declared that, by 2025,
more than 69% of the
undergraduate student intake
will be from state schools.
We've expressed a strong commitment to
closing all attainment
gaps amongst student cohorts.
Our most recent admissions
figures are exciting
and show that we are already
attaining some of our targets.
It's been one of my greatest satisfactions
as Vice-Chancellor
to announce, in February,
an unprecedented gift
of £100 million
to help attract the
most talented postgraduate
and undergraduate students from the UK and
around the world.
The donation from
David and Claudia Harding
was the biggest single gift
made to a university in the UK
by a British philanthropist.
It's now the cornerstone of
an ambitious fundraising drive
aimed directly at increasing
financial and wider support
for students at Cambridge.
We're committed to ensuring
fair access and participation
not only because it's
expected of us,
but also because it's
the right thing to do
and because it will make Cambridge
a better place to study,
to teach and to work.
Change is the theme of
this year’s Festival of Ideas.
And we can see it in action today.
Sometimes, the change is in
the way we understand ourselves.
In February, I announced that
an Advisory Group
would be coordinating research into the University’s
links to historical forms of enslavement.
The purpose of this initiative is not to undermine
the University’s proud history
in the abolition movement,
but to better understand and acknowledge
our own complex, multi-layered past.
Sometimes, the change we need is in our
processes.
At the end of 2018,
the University launched
ourcambridge,
an initiative designed to recognise
realise and liberate the potential of
our professional services staff.
At the time of increased economic pressure,
and as we take action to reverse a budget
deficit, we are improving the way we manage
our finances.
We're providing greater transparency on the
University endowment and investment activities.
Even as we implement change, however, our
commitment to fundamental principles is unwavering.
Absolutely central among them is the principle
of freedom of speech.
Cambridge is the natural home for all those
who want to challenge ideas, and are prepared
to have their ideas challenged in turn.
And even if ideas make us uncomfortable,
it's our duty ensure their free and lawful expression.
But let me be clear:
We cannot allow the imperative 
of free speech
to become a cover for hateful
or unlawful behaviour or language.
No other university has contributed more than
Cambridge to the sum of human understanding.
The question before us today is: 
how do we move forward?
What stories of discovery will we be telling
about the University ten, twenty, or fifty
years from now?
For instance, how will we, in years to come,
have answered to the growing challenges of
mental health?
How will we have responded to the crisis in
democratic institutions as we know them?
How will we have contributed to mitigating
the existential threat of climate change?
I'm pleased to announce that, later this
term,
we will be formally launching Cambridge Zero
the University of Cambridge Zero
Carbon Future Initiative.
The Initiative’s aim is to address holistically
the challenge of climate change, to help us
think about what a sustainable future looks
like, and to ensure that policy decisions
are based on the best available evidence.
Moving forward successfully will require close
collaboration amongst Colleges, Schools, Faculties
and Departments, and the University leadership.
But I am confident that our efforts will,
over the next few years, help us remain the
University we all want to be:
A Collegiate University with a shared sense
of purpose, moving towards
and helping to build
a fairer, better, more sustainable world.
