Report of Discussion

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

A Discussion was held in the Senate-House. Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Steve Young was presiding, with the Registrary’s Deputy, the Deputy Senior Proctor, the Deputy Junior Proctor, and two other persons present.

The following Report was discussed:

Second-stage Report of the Council, dated 12 May 2015, on the replacement and rationalization of facilities covered by the University’s Home Office Establishment Licence (Reporter, 6386, 2014–15, p. 535).

Professor P. H. Maxwell (Regius Professor of Physic, and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine), read by the Deputy Senior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the School of Clinical Medicine undertakes research into the treatment of all of the major areas of human health and disease, including cancer, cardio-vascular disease, metabolic disorders and obesity, neuroscience, psychiatry and ageing, and infectious diseases and immunology. In all of these areas, our academic staff work across three main modalities of research: bench-based biology, animal models of disease, and clinical research using human subjects. Our ability to work in these three ways on the same campus is one of the key drivers of our success in the understanding of human health and disease and the development of novel therapies and treatments. However, our facilities are ageing and falling behind the state-of-the-art. It is increasingly difficult to locate new imaging technologies in our existing facilities, for example. Moreover, it is both difficult and costly to refurbish ageing facilities in order to keep pace with developing best practice in animal welfare. Our current facilities are, in short, reaching the end of their lifetimes. The proposed new facilities will be efficient and sustainable and will secure the future in terms of both our research capability and animal welfare.

The University of Cambridge is widely acknowledged for the contributions which it has made to both basic biology and clinical medicine. These have impacted enormously on human health and well-being, not only for patients in Cambridge and the UK, but throughout the world. The proposed new facility on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus will play a critical part in ensuring that the University continues to do so, and there is now some urgency to proceed with this project to replace our current ageing and dispersed facilities.