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THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF DURHAM UNIVERSITY Carrville Pity Me University Hospital Keiper County Hall Newcastle ➡ Freeman’s Quay alkergate W Durham Hild Bede St Giles Market Place Claypath North Road s Lane on Elvet Bridge Renny’ Elvet ➡ Bailey Colleges Darlingt Crossgate Palace Green DSU Maiden Castle Queen’s Campus Neville’s Cross Lower Mountjoy South Road 2017 ISSUE 03 Hill Colleges ISSUE 03 2017 DUNELM MAGAZINE 3 It is an exciting time to be part of, or connected to, Durham University. Durham is one of the world’s great universities and one of the most distinctive. Our future is bright. Nevertheless, we can do better and our new University Strategy 2017-2027 includes ambitious proposals to ensure our long-term sustainability and continued world-leading position in research, education and wider student experience. We remain committed to our core values, including The new Ogden Centre for our collegiate system, and will build on our Fundamental Physics strengths. But we are also prepared to make radical changes where needed. For our alumni members, we are committed to building an offer that will match the top performers in the UK, while learning also from the US and around the world. As part of the Dunelm community you will have improved access to the University’s intellectual, cultural and employment-related resources, as well as bespoke products and opportunities for networking. We will ensure that events are held in Durham, London, and around the world. And to allow you to 5 connect with our current students, we will deliver over time a properly resourced system of peer to peer mentoring. Much more information about the Strategy is now available online at www.durham.ac.uk/ strategy2027, including a series of videos and a downloadable PDF of the Strategy summary 12 document. You have been an important part of our story to date. I would like to thank you for this but also to invite you to consider how you might partner with us in future. To deliver our ambitious University Strategy, 2017-2027, we need your support. We can do so much more together. 34 Professor Stuart Corbridge Vice-Chancellor and Warden Editor 26 Kirsten Swanston 4 News 28 Michael Izza Communications Officer A round-up from Durham University Leader of the Accountants Design Curious12 curious12.com 8 Survey Feedback 30 Events Print What you said in our 150 Alumni Survey What’s coming up in 2017 Linney Group linney.com last year Contact 32 Class Notes Alumni Relations Office 12 150th Anniversary Alumni news and Honours The Palatine Centre Celebrations Report Durham University 34 Experience Durham Stockton Road What happened in the 150th year of News from sport, music and drama Durham alumni support in 2016 DH1 3LE 36 Birds and Climate Change t +44 (0) 191 334 6305 17 University Strategy Showing first evidence of the response f +44 (0) 191 334 6073 2017-27 to climate change [email protected] The start of a 10-year plan for Durham www.dunelm.org.uk 39 Honorary Graduates Images 20 Professional Networking 2016’s honorary degrees p2 Ogden Centre, Hefton+Crow Harnessing the Durham networks p6 Lumiere, Lee Dobson 40 Sad Songs p23 Zoe Scheinman, 22 Zoe Scheinman Research on melancholy music and Scott Henrichson The new Chair of Durham’s North p28–29 Michael Izza, its effects twobytwo photography American Development Board 42 International Residential Opinions expressed are those of individual writers. 25 Durham Alumni in Dorset Research Library Requests for reproducing material should be made An introduction to our Dorset group to the Alumni Relations Office, where permission New developments at Ushaw College will normally be given. ©Durham University 2017 26 Saving Primates 43 Vice-Chancellor’s Events Durham research on helping The VC continues to meet alumni CUR/04/15/XXX endangered animals around the world 4 DUNELM MAGAZINE 2017 ISSUE 03 ISSUE 03 2017 DUNELM MAGAZINE 5 NEWS NEWS third in the world, in the first year that QS has DURHAM UNIVERSITY WORTH companies since 1997, supporting nearly 1,000 included rankings in this subject area. innovation, then this new free online course could £1.1 BILLION A YEAR TO jobs. Examples include Kromek, P2i and Archaeology has also increased its global ranking be for you! THE UK ECONOMY Ikon Science. to fourth in the world, up one place on the In today’s world, the development of new products • The University plays a crucial role in the tourism previous year. and services is not confined within one organisation Durham University is worth £1.1 billion a year to sector, attracting 231,270 people to its visitor Geography at Durham maintains a position in the or indeed one country. To succeed, businesses the UK economy, an independent report has attractions, including Palace Green Library, top 10, placed seventh in the world this year. must be willing to work with others, to spot and revealed. A major study undertaken by BiGGAR the Oriental Museum and the Botanic Garden, Anthropology, English, History, Law and Earth develop ideas – a model known as ‘open Economics found that the University generated in 2014-15. Sciences are all placed in the top 50, while a innovation’. £1.1 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) for the UK • Durham University students dedicated 14,000 further six subjects are ranked in the top 100. economy in 2014-15 and supported 13,600 hours a year to volunteering, including in many The achievements in these latest world subject UK jobs. local schools and clubs. Hyolith image courtesy of Danielle Dufault rankings build on Durham’s continued recent Other key findings of the report include: • Research and knowledge transfer activities at league table successes. • For every £1 that Durham University receives the University generated £139.3million GVA for In the overall 2016-17 QS World University in funding, it generates £3.21 for the the UK economy, supporting 2,700 jobs. Rankings, Durham was placed 74th in the world UK economy. Examples include collaborations with Procter & and second in the UK for research citations. • The University has launched 25 spin-out Gamble, IBM and Dong Energy. Durham was also ranked in the top 100 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2016-17. The Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics Durham University has had success in national league tables as well, being placed fourth in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017. HELPING BUSY HEAD TEACHERS LARGEST-EVER GIFT RECEIVED FROM AN ALUMNUS Two-thirds of head teachers in England now use MYSTERIOUS SEA CREATURE Through collaboration between the Principal of Collingwood College and the Development and Alumni the Teaching and Learning Toolkit, developed by PART OF A NEW FAMILY Relations Office, Collingwood has received a gift of £4 million (£5 million with Gift Aid) to establish a Durham University and the Sutton Trust, to inform new 200-seater Arts Centre, a gym extension, a yoga studio, an enlarged JCR, and a Bar conservatory. how best to spend their pupil premium funding, One branch on the tree of life is a bit more crowded This transformational gift has been generously donated by Collingwood alumnus Mark Hillery, according to a recent survey. today as a team of scientists have revealed what a Engineering & Management, Collingwood,1985-88 – an outstanding example of philanthropy from a Professor Steve Higgins from the School of bizarre group of cone-shaped sea creatures loyal and engaged alumnus. This gift follows Mark’s recent donation of £300,000 for the College’s new Education led the team of researchers who actually are, as reported in Nature. multi-use games area (pictured above). produced the toolkit, which has helped to ensure Known as ‘hyoliths’, these extinct marine creatures that billions of pounds worth of education spending were long believed to belong to the same family as is used effectively to support disadvantaged pupils. snails, squids and other molluscs, but the Europe. The research aims to reveal more about Since its introduction in England in 2011, the researchers have shown that they are instead more the trading history of China as far back as the 10th Toolkit has been adopted by authorities in Australia, closely related to brachiopods – a group that has a century AD. has been recommended by Learning Wales, and is rich fossil record but with only a few living species now in the process of being translated into Spanish known today. GLOBAL SCIENCE RESEARCH and Portuguese for schools in Latin America. There The research team involved palaeontologists from PARTNERSHIPS PRAISED is now also a version aimed at Early Years Durham University, the University of Toronto and education, such as nurseries. the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Durham University has been ranked in the top 25 in the world for its strong global research NEW RESEARCH COULD partnerships in a prestigious Nature Index. INCREASE AVAILABILITY OF Durham is ranked 23rd overall in the World Top LIFE-SAVING DRUG 100 Collaborators in the Nature Index 2016 Collaborations supplement, which highlights the An effective treatment for a deadly strain of world’s most fruitful research partnerships and meningitis could become more readily available in ICONIC RESEARCH CENTRE CONFIRMS DURHAM’S DURHAM ENTERS collaborative institutions. less developed nations as a result of research led INTERNATIONAL POSITION IN SPACE SCIENCE PARTNERSHIP WITH ICONIC It is placed as the second-highest UK university in by Professor Graham Sandford of the Department PALACE MUSEUM, BEIJING these latest world rankings, while in Physical of Chemistry. Durham University has reaffirmed its position as a world-leading centre of research in astronomy and Sciences Durham is positioned 18th in the World Cryptococcal Meningitis (CM) is the leading cause cosmology with the opening of the new £11.5million Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics.