Oration by the Vice-Chancellor
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WEDNESDay 15 octobEr 2014 • SUPPLEMENt (1) to No 5072 • VoL 145 Gazette Supplement Oration by the Vice-Chancellor colleagues and friends of the University, illustrating some of the ways in which it is of the Highland Infantry. Passing through thank you for joining me at the start of woefully wide of the mark, but to go further his home station on his way to the front another academic year. the annual oration and even to argue that life as it is lived – still in 1918, he threw out on to the platform by the Vice-chancellor is something I with that capital L – needs and increasingly a matchbox, addressed to his wife and regard as a pleasurable duty. that’s not a depends on what good universities do. containing a message. a fortnight later, quality one can ascribe to all duties, and I Not so much Life, our most dangerous rSM cavan was killed in action. It was only am grateful for the opportunity it provides competitor, perhaps, as Life, our most when one of his descendants uploaded the to share some thoughts with you about our valuable partner. matchbox and message to the Great War University; a gratitude amplified by your archive website that his full story came before I explore the many direct benefits apparent willingness to come and listen. to light. that last poignant message reads that oxford’s scholarship brings to the simply: ‘Dear wife and bairns, off to France, In my oration a year ago, I took the world, I want to make one thing clear. you love to you all, Daddy.’ Now, I can’t quantify opportunity to look inwards, to ‘hold a are not about to hear a hymn of unqualified the impact of our uncovering, archiving and mirror up to the University’ and to take praise to impact. at oxford, we reserve the contextualising that story. I certainly can’t stock of our academic achievements and right to investigate subjects of no practical put a price on it. yet we as a community aspirations as one of the world’s leading use whatsoever. are better for the knowledge, particularly centres of learning and research. this Karl Marx wrote: ‘Mankind only sets itself as we struggle to comprehend a world morning, I plan to look outwards rather than such problems as it can solve.’ Well, Karl was exploding into war 100 years ago and the inwards, and to focus less on our teaching wrong about that as he was about lots of resulting devastation of millions of lives. our and research in themselves, and more on things. oxford is almost defined by its ability improved understanding is a public good. what we as a University contribute to the to set problems with no apparent solution. wider world as a result of them. Hence my there will be many occasions when we are to take one example: whatever became of title: oxford and the Public Good. challenged about the real-world benefits the dinosaurs? of our work. When someone asks: ‘What is I want to reflect with you on the public Well, it seems they shrank. Dr roger benson the earthly use of knowing that?’ we should value of oxford: the benefit that flows to and his colleagues in the Department of be strong enough, and confident enough, others from who we are, what we do, and Earth Sciences recently estimated the body to reply: ‘you know, I’ve absolutely no idea how we do it. and if, in the course of these masses of 426 species of dinosaur. the what use it might be. but isn’t it fascinating?’ reflections, I manage to say something of team, along with international partners, wider interest and relevance about the and, sometimes, it’s the learning with found those evolutionary lines which special importance and value of higher no apparent practical use that yields the reduced fastest in size had the greatest education in the world of the 21st century, greatest benefit.b ack in the 1920s, two survival success. there are 10,000 species well, I shall consider I have not entirely members of the English Faculty, one from of dinosaur alive and around us today – only wasted my time or, more importantly, yours. Magdalen, one from Pembroke, would talk we call them birds. late into the night, exploring their mutual It was our celebrated Public orator, richard Now, unless you’re a budgerigar wishing to interest in Norse mythology. From those Jenkyns, at Encaenia this year who stated trace your family tree, that information is of beginnings, c S Lewis and J r r tolkien in the course of a typically mordant review precisely zero practical value. yet it’s brilliant both wrote a series of books loved the world of the worldly achievements of oxford research and, somehow, I feel better just for over, which have inspired film franchises alumni: ‘Life – always our most dangerous knowing it. grossing more than $6.5bn at the box office. competitor.’ He captures neatly that too- as a consequence here in oxford, there familiar perception of the academic world a new book this year, Hidden Stories of are now tours around the two authors’ having little if anything to do with life, the First World War, drew on two oxford favourite haunts, one corner of Waterstones certainly life as it is lived; life with a capital L. University crowdsourcing projects, the is devoted to their works, and it is almost Great War archive and Europeana 1914– Well, this morning I want to try not just impossible to get a seat in the Eagle and 1918. one such ‘hidden story’ was that of to take issue with that perception by child on a summer’s evening. Now, Lewis regimental Sergeant Major George cavan 61 62 University of Oxford Gazette • Supplement (1) to No 5072 • 15 october 2014 and tolkien didn’t know that their musings from external sponsors. How could we One cornerstone of the deal is to be the about mythology would lead all to this. be anything other than a landmark in new centre for applied Superconductivity, they didn’t have an inkling. It is a classic the regional, national and international housed by the Departments of Physics and example of intellectual curiosity sparking off economic landscapes? Materials. Ever since Sir Martin Wood’s a hundred unexpected developments. early experiments with superconductors yet my point goes beyond this. of course, we in the clarendon Laboratory, oxford has to take a more recent and seemingly sustain and support the current economic been a trailblazer in this scientific field. unconnected example, a DPhil student, structure of our region. but we are also Now we can put that knowledge to work: in torsten reil, was developing computer crucial in building the economy of the computing, in medical scanning, in efficient simulations of nervous systems based on future. this region has expressed the aim energy storage. the vast majority of the genetic algorithms. In other words, a more of becoming a knowledge economy. that UK’s fast-growing concentration of applied natural animation of human and animal sounds like a job for us. superconducting industry lies within a 20- movement. He started to wonder what It is for that very reason that the University mile radius of the spot on which I stand. our other applications this technology might helped frame two major economic new centre will provide the skills they seek have. Movies perhaps? Video games? I think announcements made this year – the city and the technical solutions to the questions many of you know what happened next. Deal and the oxfordshire Growth Deal – they pose. torsten set up a highly successful company, around knowledge-based growth. NaturalMotion, providing animation but our economic involvement does services for major Hollywood pictures – the city Deal will, over time, unleash not end with these ambitious deals. We including the Lord of the Rings films – and an estimated £1.2bn of investment in understand the problems our region faces, a series of best-selling digital games. the infrastructure and innovation. We are a key great and small. Wherever there is an issue company, employing more than 200 people, player in two new innovation centres, part to be tackled, you are likely to find ano xford was sold for more than $500m earlier this of a cluster which also involves our partners researcher working on the solution. the year, with some £30m coming back to the at Harwell and culham. the first new centre, unlovely Westgate car park, for example, University. all from one Zoology DPhil. the oxford bioescalator on the Headington is soon to be demolished. but how will the academic and clinical research campus, will city cope with the loss of 800 of its 2,000 one further example of this kind of be the heart of an innovation ecosystem parking spaces? Our Transport Studies serendipity: Professor Harish bhaskaran and – a lively, thriving nexus of academics, Unit and Department of Engineering are colleagues in the Department of Materials clinicians, entrepreneurs, investors, working with the city on a sophisticated have been investigating the relationship engineers and the public. Start-up life response. their study recommends smarter between the electrical and optical properties science enterprises will take their first steps use of the data already available to local of phase-change materials – materials that here and I fully expect to see them grow and government and business, improving can change from amorphous to crystalline move onto larger science parks in the region. traffic management and keeping residents, state. to their surprise, they found that a businesses and visitors flowing around our seven-nanometre-thick layer of one of these the second centre, the begbroke Innovation city.