Place Matters
For years I have resisted the seduction of capital-led planning. I argued that people were the most important ingredient in any institution and, after all, many great discoveries like penicillin were made in primitive conditions. But this is an old fashioned point of view, unsustainable in the modern world.
In an increasingly competitive world the recruitment and retention of talented staff and students remains a prerequisite for academic and economic success but place also matters. People need challenge in their professional lives but they also want to live in safe communities with good schools, accessible healthcare and high quality affordable housing. They want to enjoy the natural environment and find interest, stimulation and cultural diversity in their city. And they want to work in state of the art facilities with modern, reliable equipment.
The further development of the city and the University of Dundee are inextricably linked - a successful, attractive, forward looking city and university mutually support each other. The university must have good social, cultural and physical links into the city and the surrounding area and the opportunities for joint planning must be grasped by both parties. In Dundee, the city and the university have come a very long way in recent years with strong support from Scottish Enterprise Tayside but there is still more to do.
Plans to redevelop the main campus provide new opportunities for an integrated approach (see diagram below) and the university court is on the brink of approving two new landmark buildings for life sciences and applied computing. The buildings reinforce our commitment to excellence in learning and teaching and help to create the right environment for world class research.
They will generate new income and provide the pre-competitive research needed to expand local industries and fuel economic development - we will be very well placed to take advantage of the new Intermediary Technology Institutes in life sciences and communications/digital media. Both of these projects are made possible by the combined use of money from public, industrial and charitable sources and this provides the main way forward in a tight financial environment where higher education is likely to remain well down the pecking order of public spending priorities.
These new buildings will also mark the beginning of an ambitious programme of transformation that will include a new home for education and social work, improved facilities and a new locus for arts and social sciences, further developments in engineering and physical sciences and teaching, recreation and residential facilities that are fit for the students of the 21st century.
There will also be parallel developments in the teaching and research accommodation at Ninewells and the Kirkcaldy Campus will be maintained to a high standard.
This programme will not be easy to achieve - it is the central challenge facing the university court over the next few years and it will require determination, tough choices and probably some calculated risks. But "do nothing" is not an option - attracting the right talent to ensure academic and economic competitiveness will depend on the attractiveness of our city, the availability of leading edge facilities in our university and a creative relationship between the two. Place matters more than ever before.
I wish all students and staff of the University happiness and success in 2003.