Autumn Meeting of the General Council: Saturday 30 November 2024

University Address by Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Sally Mapstone FRSE

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. As ever we greatly appreciate your attending the General Council.

It may interest you to know that I started this week in Abuja, Nigeria, and finished it in Birmingham, getting back here late last night in time for this meeting and for graduation. That is because next week will be once again a time of joy and celebration for many St Andrews students and their families and friends as more than 1,000 students from over 70 countries will graduate across the four ceremonies over which I will be presiding.

Next week we are also celebrating 50 years since the reconstitution, in 1974, of St Leonard’s College as a postgraduate community. The celebrations will feature a public lecture entitled ‘Why evidence matters’ on Monday by the distinguished biologist Professor Dame Anne Glover FRS, who will also receive an honorary DSc during next week’s graduation ceremonies. The lecture will take place in the Booth Lecture Theatre located in the Medical Sciences Building on the North Haugh from 5.30pm to 6.30pm and is open to all, and I do hope some of you may be able to attend.

The core of my address today will consist of an update on our current activities under the pillars of our University Strategy for 2022 to 2027, but will also include material on our Making Waves fundraising campaign, which was successfully launched at the end of September. Robert Fleming, Director of Development, will then give a fuller presentation on the Making Waves campaign.

As you know, the UK higher education sector is encountering severe financial headwinds due to long-term stagnation of government-sanctioned fee levels in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, a drop in enrolments by overseas students, particularly at postgraduate taught level, and sustained inflationary pressures. All universities, including our own, have been making substantial efficiency savings, but the risk now is that the quality of what the sector can produce may be at stake.

In my work as President of Universities UK I visit institutions right across the country and I can tell you, with no pleasure I might add, that many are in a far more parlous and perilous state than our institution, which continues to run a tight and prudent budget and to be a popular institution for recruitment, particularly at undergraduate level.

We are this year adjusting our approach to staffing recruitment and vacancy filling to bring back a projected deficit of £4.4 million to break even. Nonetheless our approach is not one of saving our way out of a deficit. We are committed to continue to invest strategically in people and areas of our activity fundamental to our goals, or areas which have the ability to generate new income and are consonant with the University’s values and plans.

Indeed, we are making ambitious plans to improve our estate and to consolidate our research and teaching excellence when others are contracting. I will say more about this shortly, but first I’d like to give you an update on the most recent league tables rankings.

In September we were named University of the Year for Student Experience in the new Daily Mail University Guide off the back of this year’s outstanding results in the National Student Survey, which is open to all final year students. Over 16 of the last 18 years, and every year while I have been Principal, we have been top of this table, so the message is crystal clear – the University of St Andrews offers one of the very best student environments in the country, both academically and extra-curricularly.

In the Guardian University Guide, also published in September, we are ranked in second place. Oxford squeezed just ahead of us, while The Times and Sunday Times University Guide, also published in September, again ranked us in second place, ahead of both Oxford and Cambridge. We are also ranked Scottish University of the Year, and UK University of the Year for Student Experience.

Five years ago, the Guardian led its front page with the news that St Andrews had split the Oxbridge duopoly in a remarkable first. Now the fact that we split or beat both of the big two from south of the border with some regularity is barely worthy of mention. In the public prints, St Andrews, Oxford and Cambridge, or Stoxbridge if you prefer it, are regarded as an oligopoly, a steady state in which the component parts occasionally swap places with each other, a measure of how far our University has travelled in half a decade.

St Andrews is also placed within the top 7% of universities worldwide in the QS World Rankings, a very strong rating that places us alongside some of the finest institutions in the world.

These are once again excellent results, but we are never complacent and are already preparing ourselves for the future. It is very much in this spirit, and to enhance our global impact, that, after a successful quiet phase in which we have raised more than £120 million thanks to the incredible generosity of our supporters, we launched our ambitious £300 million Making Waves campaign at the end of September in St Andrews.

The campaign strategically focuses on providing outstanding modern facilities for our researchers and students and will support the creation of New College, in South Street, which will bring together the School of International Relations and our New Business School, also officially launched at the end of September, and the Digital Nexus building, on the North Haugh, a new home for the School of Computer Science.

The campaign also includes a call to endow academic chairs and a renewed call to support scholarships and bursaries for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The official unveiling of the Making Waves campaign at the end of September took place in a glass-topped marquee located in the heart of what will be New College, the stunning quadrangle of the former Madras College, on South Street. Standing there was, quite simply, exhilarating. Just by looking around, it was obvious that this site has enormous potential, that it will bring our University to the next level and, on top of that, it will also offer something wonderful to the community.

As we embark on these transformational projects for our University and our town, we want the feedback of the entire community. The first planning consultation session for the Digital Nexus development was held on Thursday 7 November and the second will take place on Wednesday 11 December. The first New College planning consultation was held last week, with the second scheduled for Wednesday 15 January. The Capital Projects Development page on the University website provides details and a showcase for plans during the consultation period.

After the official launch of the Making Waves campaign in St Andrews, we have embarked on a Campaign Impact Event tour that has taken us to New York City, Washington DC, London, Berlin and Frankfurt, and an Impact Event in India is in preparation for next year. It is really important to profile our achievements and aspirations to our global distribution of alumni and supporters.

But let me say to our local alumni, I know that many of you are already donors to the University; for those of you who may not yet be, I hope you will think about joining our community of donors. Every contribution, no matter how small (or indeed how large) makes a real impact on what we can achieve as an institution. Without your support we are not in a position to renew our estate, and to recruit and nurture our staff and students as we – and you – would wish. Now more than ever we need your tangible assistance, and may I express our gratitude to those of you who do already support us in this way, and our encouragement and anticipatory gratitude to those of you who may be thinking about it.

Despite the global ambitions of the Making Waves campaign, we have not lost sight of the positive impact that we can have at the local level, for our town and our region. The University continues to support local community groups and charities through our Community Fund.

The Community Fund panel has recently considered some 30 applications from the region. Successful applications include Tayport Community Centre, who have been awarded £1000 to run a new Repair Café initiative; Homelands Trust, based in Lundin Links, who provide accessible holiday accommodation for people with a range of disabilities, and have been awarded £1,500 to upgrade their reclined seating to support those who are less mobile; and Seescape, also known as the Fife Society for the Blind, based in Glenrothes, awarded £1,500 for transportation costs for participants to get to their regular meetings as well as special outings.

To date, the fund has supported more than 160 different organisations and projects from across Fife, investing £270,000.

Our University also continues to enrich the cultural life of St Andrews. In July our award-winning Laidlaw Music Centre, opened in 2020 with the vital support of Lord Laidlaw, hosted, for the first time, the long-established Scottish Classical Guitar Retreat with over 60 participants and tutors from all over Europe. The culmination of this was the inaugural final of the Gallery of Guitar international competition.

The Laidlaw Music Centre also hosted a sequence of intensive summer schools in conducting, early music, organ, vocal pedagogy, and the inaugural course ‘The Art of Recording and Production’. In total the courses were attended by around 160 participants, with public events associated with them attracting over 500 listeners. I hope that some of you here will have enjoyed a number of these wonderful musical opportunities.

The Music Centre was also the venue for Diva Opera’s phenomenal performance of the Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, the first event in the launch of our Making Waves fundraising campaign. It was a wonderful evening of music and the perfect start to our Making Waves campaign. Again, the performance was generously supported by Lord Laidlaw.

As a University, we value making our work accessible to the community. To this effect, a hugely successful community-focused event, the Mind and Matter Research Discovery Day, was held at the North Haugh in October. Over 2,500 visitors came to see the immense diversity, inspiration and even fun that research offers, with our academic community leading on more than 40 activities, exhibits and shows. There was something for all ages to engage with, from DNA origami to simulations of the northern lights.

We continue to develop the Digital pillar of our University Strategy 2022-2027 by broadening our digital education offer. The recent launch of two new courses, Digital Art History and Global Digital Humanities, has strengthened the portfolio of PGT and short courses.

The first St Andrews online non-credit-bearing courses launched in October and, again, covered topics in Data Science. The portfolio is now being developed and encompasses topics in Art History and FinTech, and further courses in International Relations, History, and an Introduction to Studying in the UK are being created. A business case for a new digital PGT programme in Quantitative Finance is under development. If approved, delivery is expected to commence in January 2025 and it is anticipated that internships and scholarships for under-represented groups, funded by industry, will be included in the offer.

In financial terms, the development of digital programmes is on track to cover its costs from next year. In terms of target numbers, we are aiming to achieve between 25 and 50 FTE per programme depending on the subject area. As for revenue, each programme is achieving a fee level of £18,000 over three years with Quantitative Finance achieving a fee level of £24,000 over the same duration. However, a proportion of those students will wish to study at an accelerated pace, which will yield a quicker return. For short courses, we are planning to run four cohorts each year, with prices ranging from £350 to £1,800 per course. We are looking to recruit ten learners for each cohort.

I am giving you this amount of detail because this is something new that we are undertaking. It is both market researched and necessarily experimental because learners come from different backgrounds and study in different ways and at different paces. Our emphasis is on quality and on building these courses ourselves rather than with a third party provider. My own judgement of where we are at present is so far so good, but still quite a long way to go.

Progress also continues towards our goal to reach Net Zero by 2035. In September, we announced an innovative 100-year partnership between the University and Corrour, a highland estate near Fort William. The partnership provides opportunities for research on nature-based solutions to the climate crisis, developing land management techniques and peatland restoration.

Through the restoration of peatland and the creation of naturally regenerated native woodland at Corrour, the carbon benefits of this long-term partnership are estimated to be 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for St Andrews. Going beyond sequestering carbon, the partnership also offers a significant opportunity for investment in world-leading research and sustainable land management, all of which will facilitate both carbon sequestration and emissions reduction. Bringing the talent of the University’s exceptional academics to the partnership, researchers will identify opportunities to maintain and develop biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and future solutions to the ongoing climate emergency.

We are also working with our long-term partners and renewable specialists Vital Energi to assess the suitability of 65 University buildings for solar installations. The University already heats the North Haugh, the sports centre and more than 3,000 student bedrooms through our well-known and award-winning green energy biomass plant, which pumps hot water to St Andrews from four miles away at Eden Campus in Guardbridge. The solar project is the next stage in a plan to cut all of our potentially harmful emissions to zero. It’s estimated that this project, which will fit rooftops with solar panels, will save 200 tonnes of carbon per year, while effectively future-proofing the University’s energy security.

The University’s first Sustainability Week, themed From Local to Global, took place at the end of October. It was a week richly packed with events showcasing how our researchers from across the whole institution are working for a green future: from panel discussions about sustainability in organisations and waste management to talks about sustainability in medicine, to group discussions about the philosophy of climate science. Along with events showcasing our research, there were also opportunities throughout the week to take part in practical activities such as beach cleaning, bird watching walks, wildflower sowing, and tree planting.

The Sustainability Week was held in conjunction with the final of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment. The winner of the 26th St Andrews Prize for the Environment was the Kham River Restoration Mission, for their work to restore a seasonal river flowing through the historic city of Aurangabad in India. They will receive a $100,000 cash prize to further their efforts. Two runners-up, Northwoods Rewilding Network, a Scotland-wide chain of landholdings committed to nature recovery, and Washbox, a company that is addressing the pervasive issue of pollution generated by construction activities, will each receive $25,000 to enable them to scale and expand their work.

November has marked two years since the forging of the partnership between the University of St Andrews and bus operator Stagecoach. Introduced as a cost-of-living measure with carbon-cutting benefits, the 75% off bus discount scheme proved so successful it was also extended to include local bus operator Moffat & Williamson last year.

Two years on from its inception, the discount has recorded its highest level of ticket sales and new sign-ups, while the incentive for staff and students to take the bus has cut carbon emissions by an estimated 1,325 tonnes, over a third (34%) compared to equivalent car journeys. Since the scheme began bus users have travelled 22 million kilometres, made over 670,000 journeys, and purchased almost 50,000 tickets.

Meanwhile, the Eden Campus at Guardbridge continues to be a dynamic hub for innovation, applied research and knowledge transfer with a focus on social responsibility and sustainability. One year ago, Scottish Brain Sciences, a team of scientific experts founded in 2022, moved into a special lab where researchers will carry out the first ‘biomarker’ blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages in Scotland. This initiative has been supported by our own Mackenzie Institute for Early Diagnosis.

Scottish Brain Sciences believes the new technology could offer a game-changing approach to diagnostic testing for the proteins that indicate the build-up of amyloid in the brain, an early step in the development of Alzheimer’s. In addition to the lab, Scottish Brain Sciences hopes, in the long term, to make brain health more accessible by opening its third participation and patient-facing clinical site in Scotland with a full clinical team onsite.

The University has also partnered with two aquaculture specialists working to make significant advances in global food security as well as contributing to the circular economy and carbon reduction. Sustainable marine farming firm Aquanzo uses food and agricultural waste to develop proteins used as sustainable fish feed, while Rastech is involved in the production of king prawns in tanks on the banks of the Eden estuary. Rastech aims to deliver sustainably produced, clean, high-quality and affordable food not only benefitting local businesses but transferring the onshore fish farming model to the global south. This will enable the creation of sustainable food sources and employment in rural communities across the global south and lessen the impact of fishing on our oceans.

All of these companies, as well as the new visitor centre at the Eden Mill distillery due to open in Spring next year, benefit from the green energy and power produced by the site’s one-megawatt solar array.

The Entrepreneurship Centre also continues to build on its suite of programmes, events and outreach to Schools and Professional Services Units, looking to encourage and nurture entrepreneurial thinking across the whole University community. This semester, the centre has run four programmes: Accelerate, Changemakers, Design Thinking, and Startup Launchpad.

I am also very pleased to report that, after achieving an institutional Athena Swan Silver award in March, the University has been successful in its application for the Race Equality Charter (REC), a national scheme aimed at improving the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education. The University has achieved a Race Equality Charter (REC) Bronze Award in recognition of St Andrews’ work to advance race equality. As with Athena Swan, this award represents the culmination of a detailed self-assessment, including data analysis, survey work and focus groups.

REC accreditation marks the start of the next phase of our race equality work, delivery of our REC Action Plan. The REC action plan sets out a series of actions to advance race equality organised around priorities such as strengthening race equality leadership, reforming recruitment, and bolstering antiracist pedagogy.

I am also pleased to report that, since my last update, the School of Chemistry has received an Athena Swan Silver award and the Schools of Classics and of History have both received an Athen Swan Bronze Award. Moreover, the School of Psychology and Neuroscience has received an Athena Swan Gold Award, making it the second School to hold the highest Athena Swan accreditation. All our academic Schools now have an Athena Swan award: 11 Schools hold an Athena Swan Bronze, five Schools hold an Athena Swan Silver, and two Schools hold an Athena Swan Gold.

Before I conclude my remarks, I would like to update you on some important forthcoming changes to the Principal’s Office and senior management teams.

From 1 January 2025, the Quaestor & Factor and Chief Operating Officer, Derek Watson, will be seconded for an initial period of three years to be Chief Executive of St Andrews Innovation, the University’s strategic business development and spin-out vehicle. Ester Ruskuc, currently Vice-Principal (Strategy, Policy and Planning), will become the University’s Chief Operating Officer on an interim basis from 1 January 2025, taking on the majority of Derek Watson’s responsibilities and direct reports. Ester will retain the role of Vice-Principal (Strategy) during her secondment.

To supplement senior management’s financial experience during Derek Watson’s secondment, Adrian Greer, a former Chief Operating Officer of the British Council, former member of University Court and a St Andrews alumnus, will join the Principal’s Office from the beginning of January for two years on a part-time basis as Strategic Adviser (Finance). Laura Knox, currently Director of Planning, will be seconded into our senior management team as Assistant Vice-Principal for Strategy and Planning for a three-year period.

This summer we also welcomed some new members to our University Court: alumnus Lord Mark Sedwill, Non-Executive Member; alumnus, Ronnie Bowie, Non-Executive Member; Romi Arman, Non-Executive Member; Margaret Connolly, Senate Assessor; and Allan Watson, Senate Assessor.

As I close my remarks, I would like to thank you for your attention today. I am, as ever, happy to respond to any questions or comments.