David Kynaston’s superb book on the post-war years, Austerity Britain provides some stark reminders of just what it was like. There were no teabags, and no sliced bread. The war may have been over, but sweets, chocolate, sugar and meat were all still rationed. There were no dishwashers or automatic washing machines. There were no…

In the week leading up to Easter and Passover, I took leave and we headed off to France – train to London and then onto Paris and Avignon. We arrived in France the evening before the first round of the French presidential election. We spent the rest of the week exploring Provencal villages. They all…

I have written before in this blog about the conversations I have with the bereaved families of deceased students and colleagues – some of the most difficult conversations I have as the university’s leader. There is a particular challenge in having those conversations when the deceased has died by suicide. I always feel, when I…

The University published a formal statement on the Russian invasion of Ukraine last Thursday. Like other universities, we expressed our horror at the invasion and the suffering it is causing, our support for the Ukrainian people and our apprehension about what might happen next. This feels simultaneously like a very old and very new war.…

On February 21st, pretty much as this blog is published, the government will effectively abandon all pandemic-related restrictions in England, just a few weeks short of what will be the second anniversary of the first restrictions being imposed. It has been a long haul, and there remain widely differing views on the speed with which…

I am sitting writing this blog in the strikingly refurbished atrium at the heart of City campus, which was completed just in time to be a Christmas present for the University. The refurbishment was necessary – the old glass roof had begun to spring leaks, and patching them was becoming an operational and financial challenge.…

In many ways it’s hard to believe that an entire year has passed since my last Christmas blog. So much has happened in 2021 – the campus has come alive again as students returned to campus and we all adapted to new, hybrid ways of working; we’ve Graduated both the Class of 2020 and 2021;…

If CO2 were coloured, the sky would have changed hue in our lifetime. That’s striking enough, but perhaps more striking is the inevitable next question: would we have noticed?  After all, any number of other major environmental changes have occurred in the last fifty years. The transformation has been remarkable, on the global scale the…

The UK Social Mobility Awards (SOMO) are a cross-society set of awards “established to recognise and encourage action that will promote and increase social mobility within Britain’s companies and institutions. These awards…recognise best practice and innovation and celebrate excellence and achievement and elevate social mobility as a cause equal to the level of other diversity…

Around the country, children have returned to school and students are returning – or starting – university. The pandemic may not be over, but many semblances of normality are returning. It’s been a long time for all of us, but if you are a young person, the last eighteen months has been a huge proportion…