annual report 2020–2021 Vice-Chancellor’s welcome There have not been many constants in Last spring we felt very fortunate to have the two years since we last met in person. the long Easter break to plan for Trinity It has been a time of ever changing rules, term, never imagining that we would still restrictions, adaptations and guidance. be adapting to the pandemic in Michaelmas, But there have been some constants: your Hilary and another Trinity term. Each unwavering support for our University term has been different. Last Trinity term and the gratitude of my colleagues and I we moved all teaching and assessment for your generosity. online and sent almost all students home. In Michaelmas term we welcomed our Philanthropy has played a pivotal role in largest student cohort ever and taught them the evolution of Oxford over the centuries, both online and in person. Hilary term was as the names on so many of our colleges, different again, with many students here but our programmes, and our buildings very little face to face teaching permitted attest. This has continued throughout the and, as I write, we await guidance on how pandemic. Last spring we announced an many of our students will be permitted extraordinarily generous gift of £80 million to return for Trinity term. Throughout, from the Reuben Foundation which will the colleges and the University have worked One of the many lessons of enable us to create the first new college together like never before, ensuring the in 30 years. Reuben College will be the pandemic is the imperative safety of our students and staff and for graduate students and will help us to the protection of our mission of teaching not to ignore high consequence address the soaring demand for graduate and research. but predictable events. places and the need of our academics for researchers on their teams, without We have also found time to celebrate. — Professor Louise Richardson overcrowding our existing colleges. This year we have celebrated the centenary Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford The work of the college will be organised of the – belated – admission of women around broad themes critical to the future: to full membership of the University with climate change, cellular life and machine events and academic appointments. learning and AI. The highlight was the appointment of Professor Brenda Stevenson as the inaugural One of the many lessons of the holder of the newly endowed Hillary pandemic is the imperative not to ignore Rodham Clinton Chair in Women’s History. Contents high consequence but predictable events. The risk of pandemics is one example, In the pages that follow we provide more another is the growing risk of anti-microbial insight into our activities, most of which Vice-Chancellor’s welcome 1 resistance (AMR). Due largely to the are only possible because of the generous overuse of antibiotics in agriculture, we support of our alumni and friends. Championing the humanities 2 are becoming increasingly resistant to Thank you. antibiotics. Left unchecked this could herald Inspiring the next generation 3 a return to the days before penicillin was first discovered here in Oxford, when The positive impact of video games 4 minor medical treatments regularly led to infections and loss of life. Thanks to the Capturing history in the making 5 remarkable gift of £100 million from Sir Jim Ratcliffe earlier this year, the INEOS The threat of ‘Disease X’ 6 Oxford Institute will be at the vanguard Professor Louise Richardson of global research into AMR. Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford Recognising your support 8 Membership 10 Images © University of Oxford/John Cairns Photography, except the following: Cover © Paopano/Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock.com. Elements of this image furnished by NASA, composite by Nadja Guggi/Messrs Dash & Dare; p. 2 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art; p. 4 © adriaticfoto/Shutterstock.com; p. 5 © Luke Jerram VICE-CHANCELLOR’S CIRCLE 2020–21 1 Being in this environment is an awe-inspiring and holistic experience that goes beyond academic benefits. Studying at Oxford, where I can conduct the most cutting-edge research in my field, means I can pursue my dreams. The scholarship made this possible for me. — Kristýna Rendlová Baillie Gifford-AHRC Scholar (Left) “The Great Abu Sa’ud Teaching Law”, Folio from a Divan of Mahmud ‘Abd-al Baqi, mid-16th century Inspiring the next The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 25.83.9 (Right) A chemistry graduate carrying out research using a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer generation Professor Dame Carol Robinson is Professor Robinson, which works to discover numbered among such pioneers. After novel medicines using mass spectrometry. leaving school at 16, she took an unusual Professor Robinson remains at the forefront route to graduation. While working full of gas phase structural biology, a field she time as a technician, she participated in established and continues to dominate the Royal Society of Chemistry’s graduation worldwide. Her work has attracted scheme and completed her undergraduate numerous awards and prizes, including the studies. It is worthy of note that she Royal Society’s Gold Medal (A) and the subsequently was the President of the Royal Othmer Gold Medal. Professor Robinson I am extremely grateful to Society of Chemistry from 2018 to 2020. is Oxford’s first female professor of have received such generous In a record two years, Professor Robinson chemistry and currently holds the chair support. Holding an endowed completed her PhD at Cambridge University. of the Dr Lee’s Professor of Chemistry. Thereafter she took an eight-year career Recently, the endowment of her chair was Championing the humanities chair enables me to focus break to raise her three children before generously supported by a member of the on my scientific work, while undertaking a postdoctoral position Vice-Chancellor’s Circle and graduate of at Oxford under the late Professor Oxford’s Department of Chemistry. Graduate students in the humanities our research, which is often overlooked Professor Karen O’Brien, Head of the also dedicating important Sir Christopher Dobson – her mentor Inspired by their tutors while a student are pursuing their dreams thanks to but has massive social, political and Humanities Division, says: ‘Talented throughout her career and lifelong friend. time to mentoring female at Oxford, the donor wished to support the generosity of new VCC member cultural impact.’ graduate students are the lifeblood of Professor Robinson now applies the same female academics and encourage the next Baillie Gifford, an investment management a vibrant academic community, and are scientists as part of my goal mentorship principles of encouragement Kristýna Rendlová, also a scholar in generation of pioneering female chemists. firm. Nine DPhil (PhD) scholars are the professors, policy-makers and business and confidence building to her own the first cohort, is studying the pictorial to make science a more The donor gave a generous gift which, already benefiting from the donation, leaders of tomorrow. These scholarships researchers, particularly female academics representation of architecture in 15th combined with match funding from the which has been matched by the Arts and support our students at a critical period accessible career choice. working at all levels in science. and 16th-century Ottoman illustrated Endowment Challenge Fund, made the Humanities Research Council to provide in their academic development.’ manuscripts as part of her scholarship. — Professor Dame Carol Robinson Today, Professor Robinson’s research chair’s endowment possible. fully-funded scholarships to 12 scholars Kristýna explores the range of images As well as funding scholarships, is dedicated to the study of protein by 2023–2024. Dr Lee’s Professor of Chemistry The University is privileged to work with of Persianate, Byzantine, European, Baillie Gifford’s support has also established structure, function and interactions using donors who are passionate about supporting Joana Perrone is one of the first cohort Hijazi and Iraqi origin that co-existed – the Baillie Gifford Writing Partnerships mass spectrometry. In her early experiments In 2020 the University began to celebrate women in science. Their foresight and of Baillie Gifford-AHRC Scholars. She is and occasionally interacted – within Programme, which has paired more than she exploited the capability of electrospray the centenary of women’s right to generosity continue the legacy of Oxford researching femicide – the killing of women Ottoman book painting during its 250 graduate students and postdoctoral mass spectrometry to study individual matriculate and to graduate from Oxford. female pioneers and allow scientists, such because of their gender – in Brazil. She said: formative phase. Kristýna’s research researchers in the humanities with a partner proteins. Studying protein structures is This milestone has been an opportunity to as Professor Robinson, to inspire the next ‘I have developed a dataset that contains sheds new light on the processes of for regular writing meet-ups. The programme key to understanding many diseases and recognise the multiple ways in which women generation of female scientists. all femicide cases reported to the Brazilian artistic exchange and the understanding has become even more popular during to the development of treatments. In 2018, have contributed to the University and the media since January 2019, and I am of images as they were framed by diverse lockdown as researchers seek guidance and the group discovered a lipid which regulates world, as well as to commemorate those who drawing very interesting data from the cultural-historical, ideological and peer support to overcome the challenges the coupling of G-protein coupled provided the impetus for this change. These reports. I want to thank Baillie Gifford creative forces within the early modern of isolation and anxiety caused by the receptors, the target of more than 40% of pioneering figures are a source of inspiration for supporting humanities scholars and Ottoman Empire.