University of Oxford Annual Review, 2009/10
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For further information please contact: The University of Oxford Public Affairs Directorate University Offices Wellington Square Oxford OX1 2JD Telephone: +44 (0)1865 270010 Facsimile: +44 (0)1865 280535 Annual Review Email: [email protected] Website: www.ox.ac.uk/publicaffairs 2009/10 University of Oxford 2009/10 Review Annual Annual Review 2009/10 The mission of the University of Oxford is to achieve and sustain excellence in every area of its teaching and research, maintaining and developing its historical position as a world-class university, and enriching the international, national and regional communities through the fruits of its research, the skills of its alumni and the publishing of academic and educational materials. www.ox.ac.uk Supplement *1 to Oxford University Gazette, Vol. 141 (January 2011) Annual Review 2009/10 2009/10 Review Annual Contents 1 The Vice-Chancellor’s foreword 20 Environmental sustainability 2 Year in review 22 Honorary degrees 4 Pigeons in flight – lessons to be learned 25 Honours and awards The Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts 26 New heads of house 6 Digital Edition 28 New appointments How radiocarbon dating helps place 8 the Pharaohs in time 30 Giving to Oxford 10 Making a difference – at a stroke 35 Financial review 12 Challenges in wonderland 36 External research funding 14 Reaching out 37 Appendices Pioneering thinking that inspired a 16 Student numbers worldwide campaign response 1. Total students 2. Students by nationality Recognising students' social 3. Undergraduates 18 commitment 4. Postgraduates The Vice-Chancellor's foreword 2009/10 Review Annual As any year draws to a close, there is the opportunity both to reflect on the past 12 months and look ahead to the next. At what is a critical and hugely challenging time for universities in this country, it is important that we recognise our achievements and look clearly to the future. On no issue is this truer than Oxford Thinking, the Campaign for the University of Oxford. Reaching its £1 billion fundraising mark is truly impressive, especially against a forbidding economic backdrop. It includes a remarkable matched-funding initiative from Dr James Martin and also a benefaction of £75 million, represent- ing one of the most generous gifts in Oxford’s 900-year history, from Mr Len Blavatnik to establish the Blavatnik School of Government. While these have been trans- formative contributions to the Campaign, every gift, regardless of its size, has been received with genuine gratitude and a sense of humility. Now it is time to come together across the collegiate University to plan a new phase; a recalibration of the Campaign that will set fresh aspirations for sustaining Oxford’s research and teaching excellence. This Annual Review features several examples of the high-quality academic endeavour which is the bursaries and scholarships – at undergraduate and gradu- rationale for our fundraising campaign. These examples ate level – and for teaching must play a bigger role in demonstrate the huge range of work being carried out our fundraising activity. As we reflect in these pages, our in the University, from groundbreaking research into students too are making a significant contribution to our strokes, through questions about fundamental issues research, to the University’s work in its communities of group living, to radiocarbon dating mapping out an and to our commitment to encourage new generations accurate chronology of the kings of Ancient Egypt. to come to Oxford. Another significant feature of this Review is its focus They will do so at a time of far-reaching changes to on teaching and on our students. In 2009–10 the higher education funding. Both Houses of Parliament University received a record number of applications. have now approved the Government's response to Lord Our admissions staff are developing innovative ways to Browne’s Review of Higher Education Funding and Student deliver on our commitment to attract the most talented Finance. But whatever the external context, we must students, whoever and wherever they are. Promoting together ensure that Oxford remains among the very best equality of opportunity is fundamental to a civilised universities in the world – a centre combining outstand- society. To achieve our ambitions in this area we must ing research and teaching, where the best and brightest ensure that there are no financial barriers to prevent staff and students can develop new understanding and students from coming to Oxford. Support for student knowledge for the benefit of all. Professor Andrew Hamilton, frs 1 Featured here are just some of the many news stories and events which have occurred within the University during the academic year 2009/10 Annual Review 2009/10 2009/10 Review Annual Year in review October On 6 October, at a ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre, Professor Andrew Hamilton was installed as the 271st Vice-Chancellor of the University. Talking in his inaugural address about what had 'bewitched and beguiled' him about Oxford, he said: 'I am here because Oxford over many centuries has committed itself to the development of ideas at the forefront of knowledge and then to the testing of those ideas through analysis, debate and experimentation. I am here because Oxford is committed to excellence in all of these undertakings. Excellence in the standards it sets for scholarship. Excellence in its academic staff, in the lecturers, tutors and researchers, who are crucial to its success. Excellence in the students it chooses for admission. Excellence in the quality it expects of its administration. And excellence in those twin Oxford jewels, the collegiate structure and the tutorial system.' www.admin.ox.ac.uk/vc November Undergraduate applications for entry in 2010 showed a record number of applications at more than 17,000, an increase of 12 per cent on the previous year. Applications from state school candidates have increased by 77 per cent over the past 10 years (compared to 68 per cent from independent schools). Oxford is committed to selecting students with the most academic ability and potential, and works to attract applications from talented students from any background. In the last year the collegiate University has carried out more than 1,500 outreach activities with nearly 2,000 UK schools and colleges taking part in an Oxford-specific event. www.ox.ac.uk/admissions December Her Majesty The Queen officially opened the new Ashmolean Museum on 2 December following a major multi-million pound redevelopment, part of the Oxford Thinking Campaign. The rede- velopment provides the Ashmolean with 100 per cent more display space, comprising 39 new galleries, including four temporary exhibition galleries, a new education centre, state-of-the-art conservation studios and Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant. Since its opening, visitor numbers have quadrupled to 1.2 million, compared to the previous average of 300,000 per annum. www.ashmolean.org February January Professor Dorothy Hodgkin was honoured in a new set of Royal Mail Oxford in snow stamps celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The stamp celebrates the advances in X-ray crystallography Professor Hodgson made at Oxford – she determined the molecular structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insu- lin. In 1964 she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, becoming the only British woman scientist to win a Nobel. Three of the world’s most influential researchers mathemati- cian, Sir Andrew Wiles, physicist, Dr Tim Palmer, and chemist, Carol Robinson, have been appointed Royal Society Professors. 2 March The Bodleian Libraries unveiled plans for the restoration and renovation of the New Bodleian Library with the aim of creating state-of-the-art storage for the library’s Special Collections, the development of the library’s research facilities, and the expansion of public access to its treasures through new exhibition galleries and other facilities. Once completed, it will be renamed the Annual Review 2009/10 Review Annual Weston Library, in honour of the £25 million donation by the Garfield Weston Foundation. The renovation of the New Bodleian is part of an integrated strategy to improve the management of and access to the Bodleian Libraries’ historic collections, as well as improving facilities for researchers and readers while continuing to preserve and enhance these collections. www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/projects April OPTIMA, the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing, celebrated 22 years of research. By collecting information on hundreds of older people, both with and without dementia, the team is able to study the brain and the differences between the two groups. It now holds a unique and growing database of psychological, neurological, biochemical and genetic information and also an extensive biobank of samples that are being used to explore the risk factors or causes of this debilitating condition. It is now building a new cohort, the Longitudinal Early Alzheimer’s Disease (LEAD) cohort consisting of people with early or pre-dementia Alzheimer’s disease, whose main focus is as a platform to allow research on early diagnosis, including biomarkers, imaging and neuropsychology, and facilitate collaboration with industry to help with evaluation of potential new treatments. www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/optima May Oxford finalist Liz Williams was joint winner of the UK Centre for Legal Education's Student Essay Competition, 2010, sharing first place with Sitanta Ni Mathghamhna, of Birkbeck College, University of London. Liz, who was then in her fourth year studying Law with Law Studies in Europe at Christ Church, wrote her essay to answer the question ‘How might a legal education enable students to contribute to the improvement of society?’ Having argued in her essay that legal studies fosters diversely applicable skills, and after graduating with a First, Liz has gone on to pre- sent a paper at the launch of a legal research project in Bonn, and is studying for a Public Relations qualification while also volunteering and exploring opportunities as a freelance writer and artist.