Despite the use of Hebdomadal Council to illustrate the definition of the word `hebdomadal' in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, it has not met weekly for some years now. The General Board has continued to do so and has worked assiduously to oversee the academic business of the University, that is to say its core activity. Throughout their history—and I can say from personal experience that these last few years have been no different—both of these bodies have been composed of intelligent, clear-minded and public spirited men and women who have devoted themselves to the service of the University and have made decisions (often difficult decisions) about its well-being and that of its several parts drawing upon all the impartiality, wisdom and strength of purpose available to them collectively. The University with its complexities is an exacting taskmaster. The responsibilities which these men and women have shouldered have been considerable and should not be made light of foolishly. We, as members of the University, owe a great debt to them accumulated over the years and, as I say, no less to those who now demit office in favour of the new bodies than to their predecessors.
More especially at this time, I should express gratitude to two people in particular. First, I should thank Dr Ralph Walker, who agreed to take on the apparently thankless task of Chairman of the General Board at a time when it had only one year of existence in front of it. He has vigorously led it in its business and has kept it motivated and focused right through to its last meeting. Transitions easily enervate outgoing bodies; it is to the considerable credit of Dr Walker and the current members of the General Board that there has been no faltering in the conduct of our academic business. Second, I should pay tribute to the President of St John's who has been a really most able chairman of the Curators of the Chest since 1992. Here again, we have good reason to be thankful for the special skill and scrupulous judgement with which recent curators no less than those in the past have attended to the financial matters of the University. Under the new arrangements, the attributions of the previous Curators have been somewhat reorganised, but many of them as individuals continue in the new structure. Indeed, I am happy to say that both the President of St John's and Dr Walker will go on playing active roles in the governance of the University—the former as chairman of the Investment Committee and the latter as the Head of the Division of the Humanities.
Members of the University will know, but I note here for the record, that henceforth the functions of Hebdomadal Council and General Board will be merged into a University Council with much of the ordinary business undertaken by its four major committees: Planning and Resource Allocation, Educational Policy and Standards, Personnel, and General Purposes. Faculties and departments have been grouped into five large Divisions. Libraries, museums and other academic services are gathered into their own group. The Gazette will shortly carry a useful summary description so that all members of the University may be able to find their way round the new system.
Elections and appointments to the new bodies and posts have been completed during this past year. I am grateful in particular to those who have agreed to take on the functions of Head of Divisions: Dr Walker (Humanities), Mr Hay (Social Sciences), Professor Cantor (Mathematical and Physical Sciences), Professor Newell (Life and Environmental Sciences), and Dr Fleming (Medical Sciences). I should also express my personal gratitude to those who have accepted appointment as functional Pro-Vice-Chancellors: Professor Iversen (Planning and Resource Allocation), Dr Black (Academic), the Principal of Linacre (Academic Services), and Sir Anthony Kenny who has agreed to continue to lead Development. As for myself, like Guy Fawkes, who hatched his plot in a Balliol-owned tavern, I am to be stretched on the rack.
Lord Franks said that the reform proposals of his Commission of Inquiry (published in 1966) gave the University 30 years before further changes would be necessary. Well, we have now reached—or, rather, slightly overshot—that deadline and we have put in place further changes. We shall all have to learn this year how to use the new arrangements effectively and appropriately. I have no doubt that there will be a few points and moments of uncertainty. Nonetheless, as I said in last year's Oration, the fact that the reform has been carried through by the members of the University without serious controversy does offer the new system an auspicious beginning.
The operating principles are clear and they are derived from those stated by the Commission of Inquiry. The new University Council is, as the Commission recommended, the strategic body designed to bring together the oversight of academic work and resource allocation within the formulation of general strategy. The divisional boards correspond to the academic boards identified by the Commission. In the conduct of business, the first principle is to delegate to their appropriate level decisions that do not have significant effects beyond the remit of the body to which they are delegated, and to put resources there for them. The second principle is that this delegation is enfolded within a process of resource allocation against operating plans. We need freedom for individual areas to develop in the ways most suitable to them; at the same time, it is essential to preserve the University and the general coherence and ethos of the whole community and the general task and values towards which we are by our nature bent. The planning and resource allocation cycle is a crucial mechanism for the preservation of the coherence of the University. But, during this transition, we need all of us to remember that we do belong to a whole University, whose general health and reputation both sustains and is sustained by the health and reputation of its several parts.
The Report of our Commission of Inquiry also stressed that account should be taken of the interests of the colleges in the University's decision-making processes. Representatives of the colleges are now incorporated at central and divisional level. This year, the Conference of Colleges has also moved to reorganise its structures in what appears to me to be a most timely and appropriate fashion. We have, I think, a new opportunity for discussion between the University narrowly defined and the colleges, leading I hope to a better sense of policy for the collegiate university as a whole. We know that in practice it is not always easy to reconcile all the interests. Indeed, it would be strange and perhaps unhealthy if there were no disagreements—any anthropologist or sociologist will tell you that a society is a field of both tension and co-operation. However, if we fail to reconcile interests on a large scale, it is damaging for all of us in the long term.
A large institution like ours is of course a society, composed of parts that have quite distinct identities. Indeed, seen from the outside, this does seem to some to be a curious assemblage, not to say impenetrable (and I shall revert to that point). However, that is not only the way we are—which is a poor argument—but, more important, our originality, verve and vitality derive in good measure from that particular assemblage. We do not conform in organisation to the standard model of the later twentieth-century university. There is absolutely no good reason for us to take an axe to the core substance of our internal relationships in order so to conform, especially since we are now entering a new century and the future funding of universities in this century is a matter of so much current debate and uncertainty. In respect of the colleges, if the intention was (and I have no evidence to suppose that it was) to reduce the colleges to being pensioners of the University by paying the sum representing the ex-college fee to the University, then that is not in the longer-term interests of the whole University. We all need the colleges to be lively intellectual communities of actively participating senior members, research students and undergraduates from the whole range of the study we undertake here. If the colleges were to descend towards being grand halls of residence and lunch clubs for dons, we would after a time see some of our central relationships drained of meaning and our energy and coherence compromised.
It was for these reasons that Hebdomadal Council agreed that the University budget should bear a good proportion of the reduction that will progressively affect the sum transferred from HEFCE in lieu of the previous college fees. This is not a conclusion rooted in conservative inertia. On the contrary, it must follow from all this that relationships between the colleges and the University will evolve over time. Hebdomadal Council believed that this decision coupled with the new elements in governance, to which I have alluded, will provide the basis for evolving relationships in the operation of the whole University towards general goals in a good spirit of mutuality. At the same time, one of the most powerful arguments advanced by the colleges in this matter was that if colleges bore the whole reduction, they would make changes individually and in an essentially random manner. The outcome adopted means that the University will make the necessary changes in light of overall strategies. The effects on the colleges will therefore derive from an outcome which they themselves have desired. We do all of us in Oxford need to understand that we belong to a common project in which we are mutually dependent.
Let me return for a moment to our governance changes. The principles upon which they are based do require a greater transparency in the identification and handling of our financial flows. The RAWP formula was designed to deal with the quite difficult consequences of the QR shift and we should be grateful to those who designed it for its success in achieving that objective. However, as I indicated in last year's Oration, the time has come for a new resource allocation model and one which, among other things, will allow Council from time to time to put incentives behind agreed strategic objectives. As I also indicated last year, we are impelled in the same direction by the Transparency Review of Research, which the Treasury instituted in the earlier Comprehensive Spending Review. This University will have to implement the accounting models agreed for this purpose by the end of the coming academic year and colleagues in departments and faculties have already this year come into contact with some of the elements of the new system. The discussion of a new resource allocation model is now with the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee and I do hope that we shall have a model operational at the end of next academic year. There are difficult decisions of balance to be made here and I do not doubt that we shall over time refine the model in the light of practical experience.
I am very conscious that this year has, and next year will, put very considerable pressure upon the University's administrative staff. The University has traditionally maintained a lean administrative establishment. The administration has had this year both to service the existing machinery and business of governance and also to carry through the legislation for the new structure as well as remodelling itself to conform to that arrangement. Added pressure has come from the work on the Transparency Review in tandem with trying to draw up ab novo a resource allocation model as well as carry through the discussions about the issues arising out of the college fee settlement. Indeed, this work has demonstrated clearly the need to bring in new systems for the management of our financial and other data and we shall be moving to do that. This too will, of course, add to the burdens shouldered by the administration in the near future and I should not forget the demands of the RAE this year and next. It is greatly to the credit of our staff that these many tasks have been accomplished so competently and so uncomplainingly. The academic university is serviced throughout, from top to bottom, by a most hard-working and professional administrative staff, men and women of high calibre. We should acknowledge here our debt to them, especially in the present circumstances of change.
The Year 2000 began for me with a telephone call at 6 a.m.: `Vice-Chancellor, I'm afraid we have lost a Cézanne'. I am not a believer in the power of omens. Indeed, this academic year has seen many initiatives and successes. So, perhaps the most appropriate beginning might be to record the acquisition of Titian's Portrait of Giacomo Doria by the Ashmolean Museum with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund. We hope that the C‚zanne may be recovered to join it as promptly as possible. The Pitt Rivers Museum has reopened, intriguing as ever but re-roofed and refurbished; the Museum of Natural History has acquired new displays of dinosaurs; the public access and outreach programmes of all our museums are vigorous and developing our commitment to the community.
Our colleagues continue to be elected in good numbers as Fellows of the British Academy and of the Royal Society. They continue to gain prestigious fellowships in the Humanities as in other disciplines. They also continue to be appointed to national positions. Thus, Professor Sir Bob May will take up the Presidency of the Royal Society in the coming year; Professor Sir Keith O'Nions has become the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Defence; Professor Sir John Krebs is now chairman of the new Food Standards Agency; Dr Gordon Marshall has been appointed to be chief executive of the ESRC; Christopher Allsopp had joined the Bank of England's monetary committee; and Professor John Vickers has just taken up post as head of the Office of Fair Trading.
In a busy and diverse university, it is always difficult to strike an equitable balance between parts of the University and different types of activity when one seeks the few illustrations of this year's record that alone can be fitted into the space of the Oration. Among the academic initiatives in the University this year, let me note first the establishment of the new Department of Sociology, following that of Economics last year and that of Politics at the beginning of the coming year. Further, I welcome the establishment of a Centre for Portugese Studies in association with the Instituto Camoes. Council and General Board also established this year the Institute for the Advancement of University Learning. This responds to our growing sense that we have an almost unique environment for learning in Oxford, but that in order better to represent it to the outside world and also to identify, protect and enhance its essential characteristics, we need to understand better how very gifted students learn within this environment. We need also to understand better how and to what extent new techniques and technologies can be beneficial to teaching within our particular environment. Finally, we need to put all that into a firmer focus on helping to improve our teaching skills and, by the same token, providing ourselves with a means to avoid having normative benchmarks thrust upon us by an external agency.
The University has had remarkable success in JIF bids this year. More particularly, the reprovision of the Chemistry laboratories has received the largest grant so far awarded to a single project. Among others, we have had large grants for a new Trials and Epidemiology Building and for a new Centre for Gene Function. An Institute for Particle Astrophysics has been established through a significant grant from the Leverhulme Trust. We opened this year the new Henry Wellcome Centre for Genomic Medicine and the Martin Wood Lecture Theatre in Physics. We should welcome the news of the second phase of development at Magdalen's Oxford Science Park, which heralds further growth of Oxford's general reputation and emphasises the University's centrality to the dynamism of the new economy in this region. Meanwhile, Lord Sainsbury, the Minister for Science, opened the Begbroke site. As for the humanities and the social sciences, Economics took possession of its new building on the St Cross site, despite a `shaky glass situation' as the students in my previous American incarnation might have termed it. I look forward to recording in my next Oration the opening of substantial new buildings such as the Rothermere American Institute and the Sackler Library. We have also received significant additional funding from HEFCE for Chinese studies, which will, I hope, lead in turn to substantial further developments in the study of modern China. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in research grants to Lit. Hum.
We should congratulate the Botanic Garden for their success in gaining once more a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. Among the other activities in the sciences and their applications, I select for mention here only the most unusual one, to my eyes at least. The Millennium Dome has not found much public favour. However, I should record that its heart—the Virtual Heart in the Body Zone—has been generated by a team led by Professor Noble with international collaboration. It is indeed a striking illustration of the very serious science involved in complex modelling on supercomputers to explore heart diseases and their treatment. Perhaps the Dome's real misfortune is to have only a virtual body. More generally in the sciences, I should say that the government's decision to locate the new synchrotron at Rutherford- Appleton provides a very great opportunity for Oxford and I look forward to seeing initiatives come to fruition.
Let me record also the energy and breadth of achievement of our junior members, once again in brief and selective reference. Their engagement in starting up dot-coms has accelerated noticeably this year. One of our women postgraduates has been among those bringing members of the House of Commons up to speed on science research. Two other women students have won national awards, one for journalism and the other for Law (in which another Oxford student gained third prize). OUDS has toured Japan to spectacular reviews. As for what is, I hope, the relatively light-hearted deadly sporting rivalry with Cambridge, it is encouraging to know that Oxford won about 70 per cent of encounters this year, most visibly of course in the Boat Race and in Rugby in both of which an uncongenial trend was arrested. This is not to ignore the successes in all but one of the races around the Boat Race, in soccer, in women's rugby, the record-breaking fifteenth successive win in Boxing, etc. This is perhaps the appropriate point at which to record that, thanks to the subscriptions of the colleges, the generosity of the Rhodes Trust and of individual donors, and the sterling efforts of volunteers, the University has this year finally secured one of its more elderly ambitions—a University swimming pool.
I laid out in last year's Oration some of the challenges that exist for us in the changing context of higher education around the world and the broad areas of action that we needed to address as a condition of protecting ourselves as an international university. I have no need to repeat here the detail of that reasoning. I should, however, report on the first steps that we have taken this year in that direction. In the first place, Hebdomadal Council has approved the establishment of an alliance for distance learning with Yale, Princeton and Stanford, and this has been announced very recently. The Council attached considerable strategic importance to this initiative, which it regarded as a prudent measure to situate us to advantage within the beneficial possibilities of the changing world of higher education without opening the door to the identifiable dangers or to those unseen in a fast-changing situation where the appearance of decisive action may simply be a poorly informed gamble. This alliance joins us with universities whose interests, requirements and reputation are entirely compatible with ours. It reflects our international character. It is closely confined in nature and scope. It does not involve the delivery of anything leading to a diploma or a degree. It concerns only the joint delivery of single elements or courses to our joint alumni body. This means that we are dealing with people whose areas of interest and quality of attainment are broadly known to us and broadly homogeneous. During the initial two-to-three years of the project before review, these universities can therefore develop their collective skills at this work with an audience who can see this as an extension of their own university education. This confined objective allows us all to escape the loss of control implied by the large capitalisation required for any initiative in the broad arena of electronic university work, such as the consortia that some universities have entered clearly imply. Initially, at the Oxford end, the project will be related to the work of the TALL unit in the Department for Continuing Education. The alliance will be overseen by a board of two members nominated by each participating university, in our case Sir Anthony Kenny as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Mr Edward Barry, recently retired as President of OUP New York.
Among the other objectives that I sketched last year were investment in our infrastructure and the need to sustain the international character of our student body. On the first of these, we have of course done well in the first three rounds of JIF with a significant effect on our science infrastructure. It is therefore good news that the Spending Review announced this summer confirmed that the scheme would continue for a further period though quite substantially modified. One of the modifications is that projects will only be funded up to 75 per cent and so we would have to find the remainder elsewhere. Not only in this does government infrastructural support not meet all our predictable needs. Funding has not been available for infrastructure in the arts as it has in the sciences. Furthermore, the outcome of next year's review of the funding of university museums remains uncertain. In my last Oration, I referred to the adjusted financial relationship with the Press, while stating the University's pleasure that the efforts of those who work in the Press had made this outcome possible. I am glad to say that Hebdomadal Council decided to attribute one part of the transfer to a capital fund to support investment in the academic infrastructure. As for investment in the international character of the junior member body, Hebdomadal Council decided to use the other Press income to establish the Clarendon Fund for financial aid to overseas postgraduate students. The Rhodes Scholarships remain a great and generous supporter of overseas graduates, but we need to provide for the countries that they do not cover and we need to provide a flexible system adapted to the needs of students with partial funding.
Hebdomadal Council also sought this year to address in some degree the third issue I identified in last year's Oration: how the work of members of the University is rewarded—a subject made all the more complex by the fact that there has still been no clear determination on the Bett Report. Council put out for consultation some proposals within our limited means. These proposals have not been universally favoured, though it is equally clear from the responses that there is agreement on the nature of the problem. It is possible that this summer's announcement of £50m for recruitment and retention in the whole sector may bring some greater flexibility, but we do not yet know what the terms will be nor whether the University's share will be locally significant. Moreover, it does appear to me that an important part of the issue for many colleagues is the question of burdens. This matter was addressed in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry and Council identified it as one of the two central issues of that Report. A working party on joint appointments under successive Chairmen of the General Board has grappled with the intricate problems involved. Subject areas have now all done some time-consuming but necessary preparatory work, setting out what the optimal teaching arrangements in each discipline might be. I very much hope that on the basis of these proposals swift general conclusions can be drawn about broad new frameworks for joint appointments and academic duties. Against that background, it would then be the business of departments and faculties on the one hand, and colleges on the other, to agree detailed arrangements for co-ordinated teaching which fully meet the needs of undergraduate and graduate students while reducing the burdens on academic staff to much more sensible levels.
I have referred several times in this Oration to the government's initiatives in funding for the sciences. When one considers the situation in some other countries with comparable systems, one must recognise that the government has made a serious effort to support science. It has understood that if it is to see innovation in science as a prime driver of the economy (and I commented on the implications of that notion last year), then it must invest in it. The announcements in the Science and Innovation White Paper and other outcomes of the Spending Review 2000 confirm the commitment to this: a Science Research Investment Fund of £1bn in succession to JIF, a Higher Education Innovation Fund of £140m over three years, another round of University Challenge, funds for the recruitment of researchers, an improvement in the stipends of science research students. We must welcome this. At the same time, however, my concerns remain unabated at what appear to me to be both actual and potential distortions that derive from these policies. I will address here only three of a number of issues.
In the first place, I am concerned that an overemphasis on the applicability of science innovation in pursuit of a single sense of the economic function of universities may distort the balance of science research, tilting rewards and reputation away from what is termed (with a tint of revealingly disparaging reductionism) `curiosity research' towards shorter horizons and tangible outcomes. Of course, this is not inevitable. The two co-exist happily in major North American universities, though as in so much else American experience is not necessarily transferable. Curiosity, the pure desire to understand the true nature of things, is the very beginning of innovation. To deprecate it because one cannot immediately espy its application is eventually to impoverish the applicable innovation that governments so desire. It is important for us to assert in Oxford the unity of research and to persuade government that pure research is research whose applicability is simply delayed and whose impact is no more uncertain in reality than that of the applied variety.
In the second place, we must be conscious that the emphasis on getting universities into partnership funding arrangements with other funders (such as is implied by the obligation now to find 25 per cent of the cost of projects under the new Science Research Investment Fund) does potentially open the door to stresses between different cultures and objectives, and to unhealthily mixed motives. We shall have to be attentive to manage this and to understand clearly that our function is research, not development. There is here, as throughout current funding arrangements, the potential for a slide towards rent-seeking and norm-conformity.
In the third place, I fear a palpable ghettoisation of the social sciences and even more so of the humanities. The disparity in funding available between science and arts far outstrips the real disparity in costs; I have already pointed out that JIF funding does not touch the arts; the whole rhetoric of government on the function of universities has consistently marginalised the arts. This can only damage the coherence of universities. We must defend the reality that within our University we are all engaged upon the same fundamental purpose, that we sustain each other mutually, and that the future vitality of the whole body depends upon each part cleaving to the academic principles and values which undergird our common endeavour.
At all events, the general funding level of universities remains highly problematic. We continue to face the automatic application of a 1 per cent cut (`efficiency gain') to the annual block grant increase pegged to RPI, which in turn is below the basket of goods and services appropriate to universities. (There have been informal suggestions that the Spending Review announced in the summer will halt that cut. However, it is much too early to tell and the Review related only to the single year 2001–2.) The uniform pricing of the four bands of the unit of resource across the whole sector continues to ignore real differences in the cost of delivering quality. The cumulative effect of national funding policies is now showing. Almost all the universities with which we compare ourselves will clearly have a difficult financial year, as we will. One or two are budgeting for significant deficits. In our case, pressure comes from several sources. There is the disparity between our increase in income and the salary increase that we must deliver for equity and institutional self-interest. Though our outside grant income has risen, the increase has slowed down to below projections based upon earlier years of excellent growth. The General Board has invested, rightly, in the release of more posts in the perspective of the impending RAE, although we can know neither the outcome of the assessments nor the amounts of revenue that will be attached to each level of assessment.
The coming year will be marked by serious constraints on expenditure costs. We must do this now so as to avoid accumulating a more difficult situation in the near future. However, it is essential that we manage this process in such a way that we do not do lasting damage to the core academic activities of the University and that we do not lose the will to embark on new initiatives. This implies some very hard decisions. The Planning and Resource Allocation Committee with the Divisions will be attentive to these objectives during the coming year. At the same time, it is imperative that the University begin a deliberate process of growing its income, multiplying and diversifying its sources, and establishing more effective overhead recovery. For a period this year, there was considerable and ill-informed media speculation about self-funding student fees, which reflected discussions at CVCP and other groups—themselves in turn a reflection of a growing realisation of the financial situation I have just described. In reality, this is a highly complex issue and it is also, rightly, an emotive one. I believe that it is true to say that no one in this University would wish to see any arrangements that would prevent any talented person going to the university of their choice and willing to admit them, irrespective of their ability to pay. At the same time, we must seek to ensure that future students have the same quality of learning experience in an ambitious academic context that current and earlier generations have had, rather than submit to a slow asphyxia of that environment. It does not appear to me that any of the analyses offered this year have captured the complexity of the issue, nor examined the range of possibilities, nor offered a convincing programme for action. Much more thought needs to go into this.
It is dispiriting to have to return once again in the Oration to the question of access, upon which I spoke in detail last year. Earlier this year, an admissions decision at Magdalen College drew wholly unwarranted accusations of bias from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had been entirely misinformed about the strict national controls on numbers in Medicine, about the profile of those who had been given places to read Medicine, and about our ongoing initiatives over access. I must express here the University's sympathy with and support for the President and Fellows of Magdalen. This has not been a matter for Magdalen alone. Other voices in government, if not the Chancellor's directly, as well as the media speedily generalised the issue to the whole University. Indeed, I was subsequently called to appear before the House of Commons Education Sub-Committee to give evidence about Oxford admissions. In parentheses, I should thank Ms Jane Minto (Secretary to the Admissions Office), Mr Ed Peel (Admissions Tutor at Keble), and the Principal of Mansfield for their able support at the hearing. I may note also, in passing, that the University of Durham is the only other university to have been called by itself to give substantial evidence on matters of access. Finally, I should also record that the Secretary of State for Education has remained throughout firm in his recognition of our quality and supportive of our initiatives over access, visiting one of our summer schools with Mr Lampl this summer.
I believe that Magdalen and the University were able to demonstrate speedily and successfully in the media both the facts of this matter and the reality of our access initiatives. HEFCE's published adjusted sector benchmarks, which are the most reliable indicators, show that for 1997–8 (the last year currently at hand) Oxford's performance mostly compares well with that of a group of Russell Group universities in the matters generally held against us. Indeed, this event would have been merely silly if it had not been for the authority of the source. There must be a danger that the highest authority appears to have been given to the most stereotyped caricatures among those potential candidates whom we are actively seeking to encourage. Equally, travelling abroad this summer, I have discovered that the story as initially reported is widely known among important constituencies of ours, who have been puzzled as to what this signifies about us; I have similar reports and correspondence from elsewhere. Like it or not, Oxford is one of the great brand names that carry the reputation of British Higher Education abroad. At a time when the government is seeking to benefit from that reputation in order to increase the flow of overseas students, this seems an extraordinary way to go about things. I wonder what would have been the reaction if, mutatis mutandis, the same things had been said—and left without correction of errors of fact at least—about a major export company in the private sector?
But we ought not to dismiss all this without reaching for its central meaning. We must set it in the context of fifteen to twenty years of transition (not confined certainly to this country or to a particular political party) by which governments have retreated from high taxation and the provision of collective services towards low taxation and increasing freedom of individual choice in what used to be basic public provision. In exchange, the role of government has become to act on behalf of stakeholders in order to guarantee that the nature of the choice is clear and to secure the quality of outcome. This is achieved by government regulation. Higher Education in this country is a classic example of this, and the Dearing Report was a classic expression of it. In these circumstances, governments are bound to be suspicious of corporate bodies, particularly those that are complex in organisation, and their claims to professional judgement in the regulation of themselves and their business. They appear to lack the transparency that governments require in order to fulfil their need to guarantee fair outcomes to the stakeholders. Essentially, this is where the Chancellor was coming from.
Now, we should not simply reject all of this out of hand. In the first place, the improvement of access is in our own interest because it is in our interest to recruit as students the most talented young people we can find, irrespective of social or school background, ethnicity or gender. If the newly-announced fund for widening access initiatives can help to do this, then it is welcome though I think that now we should look quite carefully at the terms on which it is offered. Nor is the demand for transparency in admissions unreasonable. We should be clear about how and why we select students; if we can improve our methods of differentiating between many talented candidates for few places and add new methods, then we should do so. What we cannot do is to abandon our independence of judgement and the methods which, after mature inspection, we know serve to secure its validity. We cannot compromise on quality at admissions. Indeed, of all the elements in this affair, the most troubling is the claim by a minister to know that a specific candidate was worthy of admission. This claim invades the core independence of a university. Academics, not ministers, make academic judgements about students.
Finally, let me turn to individual colleagues in the University. I begin by expressing my gratitude to Sir Anthony Kenny for taking over from me as President of the Development Programme on his retirement as Warden of Rhodes House at the beginning of this year. I am glad also that Mr Mike Smithson has joined us as Director of the Development Office from a similar position at the University of Cambridge.
I am pleased to be able to welcome three new Heads of House. Professor Paul Langford succeeds Mr Eric Anderson as Rector of Lincoln College; Sir Tim Lankester will take office as President of Corpus Christi College in January next in succession to Sir Keith Thomas; and at about the same time Sir Gareth Roberts will join Wolfson College following Sir David Smith.
This past year has also seen the retirement of colleagues who have given distinguished service to the University. I should mention in particular: Professor J.W. Burrow, Professor of European Thought; Professor D. Dew-Hughes, Professor of Engineering Science; Professor D.T. Edmonds, Professor of Physics; Professor D.G. Grahame-Smith, Rhodes Professor of Clinical Pharmacology; Professor J.P. Griffin, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy; Professor A. Jones, Professor of Classical Arabic; Professor R.H. Lonsdale, Professor of English Literature; Professor G. Lowe, Professor of Biological Chemistry; Professor F.M.B. Reynolds, Professor of Law; Professor P.G.H. Sandars, Professor of Experimental Physics; Professor M.P. Vessey, Professor of Public Health; and Professor Sir David Weatherall, Regius Professor of Medicine.
Many others have retired from their academic posts after long service to the University: Dr J.D. Bell, Dr R. Currie, Dr R.L. Davies, Dr D. Hopwood, Dr O.L.R. Jacobs, Dr H.D. Johnstone, Mr M.H. Keen, Mr C.A. Kirwan, Dr M.J.M. Leask, Dr D.J. McFarland, Dr W.D.M. Rae, Mr D.S. Richards, Dr D.I. Scargill, Dr A.M. Segar, Dr P.B. Whalley, and from senior administrative posts: Ms C. Blundell, Mr D.R. Bradley, Mrs V.H. Cooper, Mr M.J. Day, Mr G.W.J. Drew, Mrs M. Fletcher, Mr A.R. Holmes, Mr D.L.L. Howells, Mr A.D. Hyder, Mr A.B. Knox, Mr J.F. Langdon, Mrs J.R. Leggatt, Dr P. Leggate, Mr B. McGregor, Mr W.A. Platts, Mr R.T. Rowley, Mr B.G. Silcock, Dr D.T. Smith, Ms L.E. Williamson, Mrs P.A. Woodward, Mr W.G. Wooster. I should also mention the retirement, at the end of last year, of John Dobson, the University Verger, who at that time was the longest serving University Officer, first appointed in 1967.
I wish to record our gratitude for the lives and service of our colleagues who have died in office during the past year: Professor H.C.G. Matthew, and Dr D.P. Fowler. We have also lost former colleagues in retirement: Mr Donald Boalch, Mrs Marjorie Booth, Dr Vera Daniel, Mr William Davies, Dr Richard Fargher, Professor Francis Haskell, Miss Philippa Hesketh-Williams, Professor William Hamilton, Mr John Hinton, Dr Geoffrey Lewis, the Reverend Professor William McHardy, Mr Harry Pitt, the Reverend Crewdson Lloyd, Professor Leighton Reynolds, Dr Alastair Robb-Smith, Mr Geoffrey de Sainte Croix.
In conclusion, let me record that the Prime Minister gave the Romanes Lecture last December on the theme of education and human capital in the coming century. Later this month, the Romanes Lecture will be given by Mr William Bowen, president of the Mellon Foundation and former president of Princeton University, on the research university in a digitised, commercialised age. Doubtless, Mr Bowen's remarks will provide an interesting commentary on the Prime Minister's vision, as well as being especially pertinent to some of the themes in this Oration.