This all reflects one of the advantages of being in Scotland where education is a devolved power. We are small enough to be able to get close to and work with even our most senior politicians. And as I felt on coming into the job of Principal that I would need to become much more politically adept my year of being in the front line with Universities Scotland has been a very useful learning curve.

Readers of this blog will know that I am not a natural when it comes to social media so it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that I have experienced pangs of guilt for not having blogged now for a few weeks. My excuse is that I have been distracted by diary commitments coupled with the fact I do like to give these posts a good deal of attention. This makes it difficult for me to blog on the run so to speak. So I’m making an exception today as I return from meetings in Manchester. In case you want to know I’m on the last leg of that trip; the train from Edinburgh to Leuchars. Incidentally if anyone knows how to get to Manchester in less than 5 hours (legally) let me know; I’ve tried flying, driving myself and trains and they all take 5 hours from home to city centre!

 
From my perspective innovation is a set of processes and insights which put new knowledge and understanding to good use on behalf of society and we are mostly not as good at it as we like to think. Neither curiosity-driven nor applied research is on its own innovative and I believe a key role of universities should be to accelerate the uptake of new knowledge into innovation chains. We can’t do this if we abandon fundamental research, but we must take responsibility for translation in part by handing knowledge to those who are best placed to use it. This is one of the most efficient and effective ways for a university to create impact. When knowledge and expertise are used to create impact they acquire value beyond that of expanding understanding and this is formalised in the term intellectual property (IP). IP in my view should primarily be used to catalyse the uptake of knowledge and this understanding has been critical in Dundee’s innovation success stories. The definition of intellectual property stretches well beyond patents and copyright to include the unique sets of knowledge, skills and know-how found in our research staff and their teams. Its key use is to drive partnership formation between researchers and the users of research and not primarily as a windfall source of profit.

 
Accelerating Impact
There are many examples of how these ideas have been put into practice, but two prominent ones illustrate their relevance across the broadest spectrum of academic activity. The first builds on Dundee’s major expertise in bioscience to drive collaboration with several of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies for more than 15 years, generating £50million of inward investment and founding two spin-in companies. It is the first example I know of in the UK which uses an open innovation model though we didn’t have a name for it when we first started. The second will bring the first branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum outside of London to the banks of the River Tay and an iconic building as the jewel in the crown of Dundee’s riverside development project. This of course builds on the strength of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design which leads in Scotland in terms of the reputation of its research. In terms of the topic in question, global pharmaceutical companies and the V&A have in common the fact that they are users of the knowledge and expertise, i.e. the intellectual property, these two very different parts of our University possess.

 
Embedding Impact
Much as I would prefer to think otherwise these stellar examples of engagement and innovation built on academic excellence are not typical outcomes of the institution’s current culture. To drive this agenda our new strategy identifies three academic pillars of teaching, research and wider impact and assigns equal status to each. In Dundee wider impact combines knowledge exchange and public engagement which in many institutions are seen as extensions of the research agenda. But just as research and teaching enrich one another, it should be our intention that wider impact will sit between research and teaching and that each will enrich the others. Hence our engagement with the world beyond the University will feed back into curricula, provide jobs and internships and, by illustrating the relevance of our research, will create employable, enterprising and even entrepreneurial graduates.

 
If we do this well students who study here will experience the difference and emerge with a better understanding of how they can use the skills they have acquired at university in the outside world. Our universities punch well above their weight in terms of the academic impact of their research, but there is a fundamental weakness in Scotland because our industries spend much less on their own research and innovation than competitors in other countries. As a consequence there is little absorptive capacity for the knowledge our universities create within our national hinterland. Only part of the solution will come from universities working in collaboration with UK businesses. In the long term we need to build this absorptive capacity by ensuring UK employers have access to graduates who will do much more than fill existing jobs. They will create new jobs by innovating within the organisations they work for and by forming entirely new companies at some point in their careers.

Universities are at their best when they teach by example. The effect of our research and translational competence on business innovation is only part of the story. Its effect on our students and their capacity to innovate will be a more lasting legacy. This is why in Dundee we should be determined to make the knowledge exchange agenda an integral part of student experience.

My job was to explain the economic social and cultural value overseas students bring to our campuses and cities, that their intellectual capital is an asset not a drain on our resources, and to call on the politicians to lobby the UK coalition government to remove legitimate overseas students from the national net migration figures. I was in a sense preaching to the converted because immigration is a reserved power and, whilst Scotland has no jurisdiction over the UKBA, all the major political parties in Scotland, including the Scottish Conservatives, support the arguments I was putting forward. But being on the same platform as Vince Cable was not an opportunity to be wasted and it was his influence in Westminster and his close association with David Willetts that was needed.

Dr Cable is no fan of the UKBA, but I was disappointed he equivocated on the issue of the immigration figures. He favours disaggregation of the figures so that the numbers relating to students studying here at any one time are seen separately from the total immigration figure. This would be fine as long as Theresa May and the Home Office are prepared to say it is the explicit goal of the Coalition to see the numbers for overseas students go up. This they are patently not prepared to do and David Cameron’s recent reassurance on his trip to India that ‘there is no cap’ on the number of students we are prepared to admit tells the same story. What we want them to say is how much overseas students are valued and that they are strongly encouraged to come to the UK where they will be welcomed.

The public reaction to cases of child abuse: This was the disturbing and controversial topic of the Saturday Evening Lecture of two weeks ago given by Alyson Leslie. The timing was to coincide with International Women’s Day and the Dundee Women’s Festival. The lecture can be viewed in full by following the links on the University web site, so I don’t want to discuss the details here. What was surprising though was just how uplifting the lecture was for all those who were present. It is a rare talent to be able to speak with warmth and humanity, to convey such genuine understanding and empathy, about such a dark subject. I know only one other person who can pull this off and she gave the vote of thanks which so brilliantly summed up the mood of the audience; if you hadn’t worked it out already that was Sue Black, who somehow brings both humour and dignity to her work on human identification. Two women for this University to be thoroughly proud of.

Open access publishing: Sandwiched between these two events was a trip to London, amongst other things to celebrate the 10 years which Sir Mark Walport has devoted to leading the Wellcome Trust (he is moving on to become the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and the Trust are still looking for his successor). Sir Mark has been an evangelical leader in many respects, taking full advantage of the Trust’s wealth to influence the scientific landscape during his time at the helm. He has, for example, put the full weight of the Trust behind creating an environment where there is full and open access to the results of Trust and publically funded research. This requires journals either to adopt `author pays’ business models or to make their content freely available after a limited period of time with the aim to move eventually fully to the author pays approach. As many will know there are up and down sides to open access publishing and I have similarly waxed and waned in my views on the subject. But more recently I have come down on Walport’s side of the argument. It simply has to be right that publically funded research is freely available and I am rethinking my earlier concern that this idea only works if the whole world follows suit. In the UK we rightly see ourselves as a leading research nation. This brings untold benefits in terms of reputation, opportunities to collaborate and to partner with industry and we should be prepared to lead the world on open access too.

When I go out and about around the University I ask as many people as possible if they get a buzz out of the frequent success stories about us which appear in the press and other media. When this applies to their own area of work, and especially amongst academic staff, the answer is quite often in the affirmative, but less so when it involves other disciplines. And here is the disturbing thing, it appears to be quite rare for many of our support staff to feel this way. Yet celebrating success together is a powerful means of bringing pride, joy and motivation to our work and helps to establish cultural cohesion in large organisations such as ours.

Sometimes this may arise because the impact of our support staff on a particular achievement is indirect, for example the role of Human Resources staff in securing the appointment of a leading scholar. Others are more baffling. It must be obvious that Research Innovation Services staff play vital roles in supporting timely applications for externally funded grants, often meeting impossibly tight deadlines, but many feel dissociated from the moment of relief and celebration when a major grant is funded. I should confess here that I probably did not do enough to thank and include RIS staff in celebrating such successes when I was leading my own research group in the College of Life Sciences so I understand we perhaps all have room for improvement.

The value of ‘working together’ which is highlighted in the University’s new vision for our future development has two aspects. One is to break down the silos of individual disciplines and focus more on the problems we wish to address, drawing together the necessary breadth of skills and expertise. The other is to recognise the contributions of all our staff towards our goal of becoming Scotland’s leading university.

To emphasise this aspect and also, perhaps, to compensate for my own previous shortcomings I recently organised an event at University House to celebrate the successful fundraising campaign which will see the completion and opening of the Centre for Translational and Interdisciplinary Research later this year. Staff from Estates, RIS and the College of Life Sciences were all present, from the most junior administrator to experienced professors and leaders of the project. It proved to be a great way to celebrate and a fitting recognition of all members of the team who made this happen. As I pointed out to those attending the dinner, University House is where we entertain and welcome the University’s most valued guests and there is no better place to start than with our own hard-working and loyal staff.

For my part I have learned the importance of saying thank you to as many people as possible as often as possible and I hope that recognition proves infectious.

Postscript: I know the concerns I express in this blog are not universally applicable so please get in touch via the response box; I’d love to be contradicted by hearing of other positive stories of success that are shared and widely celebrated.

This year also featured presentations from award-winning teachers and the winners of the Stephen Fry Award for Excellence in Public Engagement, the second year in which this particular award has been made. And it was one of the best ever with great talks that were informative, humorous and at times moving, large and enthusiastic audiences throughout the day and lively question and answer sessions which confirmed the speakers had pitched things just right.

The day ended fittingly with a presentation by Calum Colvin and Eddie Small, introduced by Anna Day on behalf of the In Memoriam team, winners of the Stephen Fry Award. ‘In Memoriam’ is a book celebrating the unselfishness of the ‘silent teachers’ who donate their bodies after death to science and in particular to the study of anatomy by our medical, dental and anatomy students.

Discovery Day is not just about excellence in research and teaching. It is an opportunity for celebration and participation that should unite the whole University and connect us to the communities we serve. While presenting our new vision of transformation throughout the University I have tried to emphasise the key value of working together. This encompasses working across disciplines to tackle complex problems, all staff regardless of seniority feeling part of a community whose core purpose is changing lives, and recognising the key roles of support and administrative staff in our academic achievements.

I would therefore like to encourage all staff that Discovery Day is for you and I hope to see even more of you at next year’s event. For this to happen managers at all levels must pass on the message and ensure working arrangements allow as many people as possible to attend at least one session. I also hope to establish other events during the year that function explicitly to bring the University community together in this way. Being able to celebrate success together will also help us to tackle our biggest problems. And I’m sure there will be plenty of those as well in 2013.

Pete Downes, Principal.

Pete Downes, Principal

I had hoped to get away for a few days from the hype of the pre-Christmas period which seems to start earlier and earlier in Scotland. And so I was surprised and dismayed to find Christmas trees everywhere and the same familiar songs being played in every hotel lobby. It rather proves the point that Christmas is nowadays less of a religious ceremony and more a retailing and partying opportunity. I am therefore looking forward to getting back in time for the University Carol Service on Sunday which always marks the start of the Christmas period for me.

But getting back to the subject of China. My visits have been at roughly yearly intervals and have given me a profound sense of the pace of change and especially their investment in higher education. Given the scale of the country and the vast differences in culture from north to south and province to province, this investment has been remarkably consistently and impressively applied. I visited Xiamen in the south, overlooking Taiwan, then Beijing and Tian Jin which are 1200 miles to the north experiencing a balmy seaside with temperatures of 20 centigrade followed by sub-zero temperatures down to minus 8. Our partner universities in Xiamen and Tian Jin are both investing in enormously impressive new campuses. This new infrastructure is not intended to increase student numbers, which already account for about 30% of school leavers, but to expand research capacity and attract top class, mainly Chinese, faculty from abroad. And they in turn are being judged on their ability to produce high quality fundamental and applied research published in journals with the highest impact in their field.

These developments are bringing in a new era, not just in Chinese universities themselves, but also in their expectations of partner institutions abroad. No longer are they simply looking to send many students overseas through articulation agreements with their partners. Partner institutions will need to develop deeper, if not wider, relationships with their Chinese counterparts including joint research programmes and centres of excellence if they wish to sustain them into the future. It is also certain that more and more of our teaching with overseas partners will need to be delivered in country. We should not be daunted by this changing landscape, however, because it provides substantial opportunity as well as obvious threats. Not least of these will be the opportunity to develop fully funded research proposals of scale with our Chinese collaborators.

In the meantime I am looking forward to getting home after an all-night flight, recovering from the jet lag brought on by the 8 hours time difference, and finally, reluctantly, getting into the Christmas spirit.

This value finds its current expression in the University’s commitment to driving regeneration of the city of Dundee; through engagement with industry, attracting inward investment, catalysing cultural growth by developing and creating cultural assets including DCA and V&A at Dundee, and by stimulating social developments such as the work towards establishing a centre studying social deprivation. It has international as well as local implications, for example in our ambitions to develop new treatments for neglected tropical diseases.

This value is also expressed in our new strategy in terms of the integration of three strands of academic endeavour, namely learning and teaching, research and wider impact. Wider impact includes both our knowledge exchange agenda as well as our public engagement work. We are not alone in developing a wider impact strategy, but many universities see this as an extension of the research agenda. But in much the same way that we argue that research and teaching inform and enrich one another, so it is with wider impact. I think it is important that our students are educated in a University which is fully engaged with the needs of society, that they see the fruits of knowledge being used to drive innovation in business – and indeed to drive business formation – and that they are inspired by their University’s commitment to social and cultural development. Seeing at first hand how knowledge and understanding can be applied to solving real problems is likely to be a more useful contribution to employability of our graduates than attempting formally to teach employability skills.

And all this is important because in Scotland there is a woeful lack of investment in research and development by Scottish businesses. This means that there is little capacity for Scotland’s businesses to absorb, and hence benefit from, the acknowledged world class research undertaken by our universities. The long term solution to this problem must be to educate students who will be instinctive innovators. If we succeed, our graduates will not just fill available jobs in the marketplace, they will help to drive economic growth creating new jobs for themselves and those that follow. That would make a difference!