Principal's Update

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Prof. Ian Diamond

Principal’s Update December 2012

Dear Colleagues

As we approach the Christmas period, I wanted to first and foremost convey my thanks to all of you for all that you have done over the past year – one in which I think we have had much to celebrate.

I will say more about that shortly but the past few weeks have seen a few events which I think are worthy of reminding colleagues about.

Graduations

The Winter Graduation ceremonies were, as ever, inspiring occasions although tinged with a little sadness as they were the last ceremonies that Lord Wilson would preside over before stepping down as Chancellor. Lord Wilson has done so much as Chancellor to promote the good name of the University at home and abroad over the past 15 years and the deep feeling he has for Aberdeen was clear for all to see in the address that he gave at the final ceremony of the week which you can view here

Scholarships Reception

The night before Graduations we held our first Corporate Scholars reception. It was an excellent opportunity for both students and sponsors to network and for us to showcase how important the scholarships are.

Sound Festival

The Sound Festival has been running over the course of this term and Pete Stollery in the School of Education and his colleagues are to be congratulated in pulling together a wonderful series of events where the University has been working with a wide variety of partners in arts and music.

Staying with Music, those of you who are viewers of Songs of Praise will have seen the new piece by Paul Mealor performed at St Machar Cathedral by the National Youth Choir of Scotland, which again was very welcome publicity for the University and our growing strength in Music.

Aberdeen Medico-Chirurgical Society

I spoke recently at the Annual Dinner of this Society for Doctors and Medical Practitioners in the North-East. The Society dates back to 1789 and has close links with the University’s Medical School. Many of its members are, of course, Aberdeen graduates and the Society is an important forum through which our hugely important partnership with the NHS, not only at Foresterhill, but across the North-East is maintained. My theme concerned the innovation and inclusivity which has been a feature of our Medical School for centuries. It is a theme which, I hope, also reflects our University as a whole.

I want to close by repeating the thanks that I began this message with and by reflecting briefly on the past year. There have been so many highlights over the past twelve months across the Colleges and the Administration that it is unfair to highlight any particular area. In terms of University-wide events, however, the opening of the Sir Duncan Rice Library by HM The Queen was a great occasion and one of the most high profile events in the University’s recent history. I was equally proud, however, of the way in which the entire community, academic and non-academic, came together to make the British Science Festival in Aberdeen such a huge success and one that will have lasting benefits for us.

Those were two significant public events that saw the University making its mark on the wider community. However, it is also a year in which we have taken significant steps towards our goals of making Aberdeen an ever greater institution. The way in which our four research themes are developing has been hugely exciting. We are now beginning to see real intellectual benefits across and between disciplines flowing from the themes, as well as material return in terms of research income. Equally exciting has been the investment we have made in intellectual strengthening and the range of world class scholars that have chosen to join us. These are all reasons to feel positive about 2012 and excited about the opportunities that 2013 will offer as new colleagues take up post to add to the outstanding scholars we already have.

Of course, like other universities, we face challenges - the increasingly competitive nature of modern higher education, the forthcoming REF, the expectation of our students and the wider community, and the difficult economic climate. Our response to these must be to continue to think about how we can improve and innovate, to ask ourselves what do we need to do to be a destination of choice for students and faculty? These are questions that we should always be thinking about. But what we can take great confidence from is the stable financial position we are in as evidenced by our 2012 annual accounts, the investment that in turn is enabling us to make in our intellectual capacity and our estate, and, most of all, the undoubted commitment and professionalism of you our staff.

Finally, as a statistician let me end with two pieces of data which reflect excellence in both education and research. In 2012 we are in the top 10 of Universities in the National Student Survey, and in data from Scopus we sit in the top 10 of UK universities for the percentage of publications within the top decile for citations by subject area. This is good news and gives us the base from which to address the challenges ahead.

I wish you and all your families a very Merry Christmas and every good wish for the New Year.

Ian Diamond

Principal and Vice-Chancellor

To read previous Updates please click the links below:

Principal's Update November 2012

Principal's Update October 2012

Principal's Update mid-September 2012

Principal's Update early-September 2012

Principal's Update July 2012

Principal's Update June 2012

Principal's Update May 2012

Principal's Update February 2012