Welcome
I hope that you all are continuing to stay safe and well; may I also wish you all a happy and prosperous 2022.
At Exeter, the last year has been exciting in terms of institutional developments and academic activity but also challenging, with the COVID pandemic continuing to require changes to our daily lives and impacting our students’ experiences.
Despite these difficult times we have continued to innovate, and I am very proud of the way everyone at Exeter has responded to the challenges. Last year we were ranked as one of the top 150 universities in the world by the QS rankings for the first time, and then also made the top 150 for the Times Higher Education global rankings.
Welcome
I hope that you all are continuing to stay safe and well; may I also wish you all a happy and prosperous 2022.
At Exeter, the last year has been exciting in terms of institutional developments and academic activity but also challenging, with the COVID pandemic continuing to require changes to our daily lives and impacting our students’ experiences.
Despite these difficult times we have continued to innovate, and I am very proud of the way everyone at Exeter has responded to the challenges. Last year we were ranked as one of the top 150 universities in the world by the QS rankings for the first time, and then also made the top 150 for the Times Higher Education global rankings.
We launched our Green Futures campaign to drive action on the environment and climate emergency ahead of the G7 in Cornwall and COP26 in Glasgow, and organised a programme of activity around these events to showcase the immense expertise, breadth and quality of our research and how we are developing solutions to this major challenge.
We are continuing to collaborate with business, influence national and international policy and work with communities who are being impacted by climate change. You can read more about a little of our research in this magazine, and also visit our Green Futures website.
Towards the end of 2021 we launched our new 10-year strategy, “Together we create the possible”. This has been the product of a huge amount of hard work from everyone in our community, engaging with ideas, sharing opinions and making suggestions about where the University, higher education, and the world is going in the next decade, and what part the University of Exeter can play.
During the process we heard directly from more than 4,000 people, including many alumni. Together you shared nearly 85,000 contributions – a combination of ideas, comments and votes. Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences and expertise with us, it is invaluable to hear from our graduates and be able to involve you in our plans. You can read more about our Strategy 2030 later in this magazine and I would also encourage you to take a look at the website to learn more about where we want Exeter to be in 10 years.
I am delighted to have been able to meet a small number of you in the past year and hope that I will have the chance to host more events soon so that I can meet even more of you in person. It was also wonderful to be able to celebrate the end of the 'Making the Exceptional Happen' Campaign. It was Exeter’s most ambitious philanthropy drive ever and raised more than £71 million. In addition, you donated well in excess of 100,000 hours of your time to support initiatives such as mentoring, careers talks, social and professional networking events all around the world.
Our alumni community have been instrumental in the success of Exeter to date and I hope that you will continue to support us over the next decade, in whatever way you can.
I am incredibly proud to be Vice- Chancellor of your great university and I am excited to share the next stage of our journey with you as we shape the next ten years.
Professor Lisa Roberts, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, University of Exeter