No 6780
Thursday 24 April 2025
Vol clv No 29
pp. 494–527
24 April, Thursday. First ordinary issue of the Reporter in the Easter Term.
29 April, Tuesday. Full Term begins. Discussion by videoconference at 2 p.m. (see below). Mere’s Commemoration Sermon in St Benedict’s Church at 11.45 a.m. Preacher, The Revd Professor Andrew Davison, former Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, University of Oxford.
3 May, Saturday. Congregation of the Regent House at 9.30 a.m.
4 May, Sunday. End of first quarter of Easter Term.
6 May, Tuesday. Ballot of the Regent House, voting opens at 10 a.m.
The Vice‑Chancellor invites members of the Regent House, University and College employees, registered students and others qualified under the regulations for Discussions (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 111) to attend a Discussion by videoconference on Tuesday, 29 April 2025 at 2 p.m. The following item will be discussed:
1. Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 17 March 2025, on a change of name for the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute (Reporter, 6776, 2024–25, p. 421).
Those wishing to join the Discussion by videoconference should email UniversityDraftsman@admin.cam.ac.uk from their University email account, providing their CRSid (if a member of the collegiate University), by 10 a.m. on the date of the Discussion to receive joining instructions. Alternatively contributors may email their remarks to contact@proctors.cam.ac.uk, copying ReporterEditor@admin.cam.ac.uk, by no later than 10 a.m. on the day of the Discussion for reading out by the Proctors,1 or may ask someone else who is attending to read the remarks on their behalf.
In accordance with the regulations for Discussions, the Chair of the Board of Scrutiny or any ten members of the Regent House2 may request that the Council arrange for one or more of the items listed for discussion to be discussed in person (usually in the Senate-House). Requests should be made to the Registrary, on paper or by email to UniversityDraftsman@admin.cam.ac.uk from addresses within the cam.ac.uk domain, by no later than 9 a.m. on the day of the Discussion. Any changes to the Discussion schedule will be confirmed in the Reporter at the earliest opportunity.
General information on Discussions is provided on the University Governance site at https://www.governance.cam.ac.uk/governance/decision-making/discussions/.
1Any comments sent by email should please begin with the name and title of the contributor as they wish it to be read out and include at the start a note of any College and/or Departmental affiliations held.
2https://www.scrutiny.cam.ac.uk/ and https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/regent_house_roll/section1.shtml.
The Vice-Chancellor gives notice that she has accepted with gratitude the following benefactions:
(a)£4.2m as endowment from the trustees of The Kidani Memorial Trust, payable over two years, to support a Professorship, to be named the Kidani Professorship of Integrated Cancer Medicine;
(b)£3.6m as endowment from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland, to support a Professorship of Irish History, to be named the Childers Professorship of Irish History in honour of Robert Erskine Childers and Erskine Hamilton Childers, both distinguished alumni of the University and the latter the fourth President of Ireland;
(c)£1.25m following a bequest under the will of Mrs Beryl Pamela Saich, £1.17m as endowment to support Ph.D. studentships for students studying climate change solutions unrelated to fossil fuels, to be called the Saich‑Powney Studentships, and £80k to support the Centre for Climate Repair’s general costs, in memory of Mrs Saich (née Powney) and her husband Mr Michael John Saich. The University has agreed to contribute £390k in matched funding to the endowment;
(d)£1,248,323 as endowment from Ms Meijie Cai to support Ph.D. studentships at Cambridge Judge Business School, to be called The Cai Meijie Ph.D. Scholarships. The University has agreed to contribute £400k in matched funding to the endowment;
(e)£477,000 as endowment from Mr Andrew Neubauer, together with gift aid of £119,250, to support Ph.D. studentships for students studying in any area of the Mathematical Sciences (including pure mathematics, mathematical statistics, applied mathematics and theoretical physics, excluding string theory), to be called the Neubauer Scholarships. The University has agreed to contribute £198,750 in matched funding to the endowment.
The General Board is proposing the establishment of the two Professorships (p. 498). The Council is submitting Graces (Graces 1–4, p. 505 and 6–8, p. 507) to establish the Professorships and the related endowment funds.
Further to the Notice published on 5 March 2025 (Reporter, 6774, 2024–25 p. 395), the Vice-Chancellor gives notice that the following persons, appointed in the manner prescribed by Ordinance, are now expected to preach during the next academic year:
Michaelmas Term 2025
12 October 2025, The Revd Dr Kate Bruce, Chaplain, Royal Air Force (Select Preacher)
2 November 2025, The Revd Dr Valentin Dedji, of Hughes Hall, Minister, Edmonton Methodist Church (Lady Margaret’s Preacher, Commemoration of Benefactors)
Lent Term 2026
25 January 2026, The Rt Revd Dr Dagmar Winter, Bishop of Huntingdon and acting Bishop of Ely (Select Preacher)
22 February 2026, Professor Robin Osborne, Fellow of King’s College, Emeritus Professor of Ancient History (Hulsean Preacher)
Easter Term 2026
31 May 2026, The Rt Revd Dr Paul Swarup, of Clare College, Bishop of Delhi, Church of North India (Ramsden Preacher)
These University Sermons will be delivered in Great St Mary’s, the University Church, at 11.30 a.m. on the Sundays stated. Members of the University are reminded that they should wear academic dress in the University Church when attending University Sermons and that 2 November 2025 and 31 May 2026 are ‘Scarlet Days’ for Doctors. All are welcome and those present will be invited to take refreshments with the Preacher afterwards.
Further to the Notice published on 18 July 2024, (Reporter, 6750, 2023–24, p. 805), the General Board and the Council have approved an amended version of the Email Address Allocation and Retention Policy. This policy helps to improve cyber security at the University by setting out the criteria for the allocation of University email addresses.
The amended policy is available at: https://help.uis.cam.ac.uk/service/email/address-allocation-policy. The policy will take general effect from 1 May 2025.
Minor amendments have been made to the section of the policy governing retention of email addresses for individuals leaving the University who will continue to contribute actively to the University’s mission. The amendments do not change eligibility criteria for complete retention of an email address but do simplify the application process.
These amendments were recommended by the Information Services Committee (ISC) in response to data from a pilot of the policy (see https://help.uis.cam.ac.uk/service/email/address-allocation-policy/all-university-consultation-email-allocation-updates). The pilot ran for 18 months, in Downing and Selwyn Colleges and the institutions that use the Clinical School Computing Service, and involved nearly 1,000 individuals.
The ISC also recommended:
•removing an automatic mail forwarding service for those who have left the University. There was no demand for this service during the pilot, and so the service introduced unnecessary costs and risks;
•extending the standard grace period for continued use of email addresses for postdoctoral researchers, to support early career transitions;
•making it clear that an individual who feels disadvantaged as a result of an apparent misapplication can raise a complaint or grievance.
The policy will be implemented for new leavers from 1 May. From that date, University Information Services (UIS) will also work with institutions in tranches to identify existing retirees impacted by the policy and advise them of the options available to them.
The Council and the General Board, on the recommendation of the Estates Committee, have approved changes to the Estates Committee’s terms of reference. The changes enable co‑option of up to two members with relevant expertise.
Paragraph 17 now reads as follows:
[17.] The membership of the Committee comprises up to thirteen members appointed for up to two consecutive terms of four years:
[(a) – (h) are unchanged]
(i)not more than two persons co-opted by the Committee to provide additional expertise in an area within the Committee’s remit, with no obligation for the Committee to co-opt any person or persons