No 6800
Wednesday 22 October 2025
Vol clvi No 5
pp. 53–76
24 October, Friday. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m. (see p. 75).
25 October, Saturday. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m. (see p. 75).
1 November, Saturday. All Saints’ Day. Scarlet Day.
2 November, Sunday. Commemoration of Benefactors. Scarlet Day. Preacher before the University at 11.30 a.m., The Revd Dr Valentin Dedji, of Hughes Hall, Minister, Edmonton Methodist Church (Lady Margaret’s Preacher).
4 November, Tuesday. Discussion in the Senate-House at 2 p.m. (see below).
9 November, Sunday. Michaelmas Term divides.
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Discussions (Tuesdays at 2 p.m.) |
Congregations (at 10 a.m. unless otherwise stated) |
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4 November |
24 and 25 October |
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9 December |
29 November |
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 on Tuesday, 4 November 2025. Following a request from the Chair of the Board of Scrutiny, the Council has arranged for the Discussion to take place in person at 2 p.m. in the Senate-House rather than online as originally scheduled.
The following items will be discussed:
1.Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 7 October 2025, on standing and ad hoc Boards of Electors (Reporter, 6798, 2025–26, p. 38).
2.Thirtieth Report of the Board of Scrutiny, dated 16 October 2025 (p. 64).
3.Report of the Council, dated 20 October 2025, on the proposed disposal of land and buildings at 1–3 Hills Road (p. 73).
Attendees should aim to be seated in the Senate‑House by 1.55 p.m. with the Discussion starting promptly at 2 p.m. Matriculated members of the University are requested to wear gowns; a small number of gowns are kept on site and may be borrowed on arrival.
Contributors unable to attend the Discussion in person 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.
For general information on Discussions see the Reporter website at https://www.reporter.admin.cam.ac.uk/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.
Regulation 5 of the Ordinance on the Contributory Pension Scheme (CUACPS) (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 153) and Rule 5 of the CUACPS rules permit those rules to be amended from time to time. Except where the amendment is required to ensure the Scheme’s continued approval by HM Revenue and Customs, such changes require the authority of a Grace.
Rule 5 of the CUACPS rules further provides that the University shall have the power to amend the rules from time to time provided that the changes have been approved by two-thirds of the Scheme’s Trustee, CU Pension Trustee Limited. The proposed changes set out below were considered and approved by the Trustee on 3 September 2025.
The Trustee is intending to transfer some additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) out of the CUACPS to a master trust arrangement authorised under the Pension Schemes Act 2017. In order to facilitate this transfer, Rule 30 of the CUACPS rules needs to be amended to permit a bulk transfer of money purchase AVCs to another pension arrangement without member consent. Such a transfer without consent is permitted by statute provided that the receiving arrangement is an authorised master trust and transferring beneficiaries are given notice of the transfer. Any transfer of money purchase AVCs under the rules (as amended) would be subject to these statutory requirements.
On retirement, members of the Scheme are currently permitted to take a pension commencement lump sum from the Scheme. Members with AVCs often choose to commute their AVCs before any other Scheme benefits, and the Scheme’s Trustee intends to continue to facilitate this following the bulk transfer to the master trust arrangement by amending Rule 29 of the CUACPS rules to expressly allow Members to transfer money purchase AVCs back from the master trust arrangement to provide retirement benefits under the Scheme.
The draft rule change is available at https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2025-26/weekly/6800/CPS-Rule-Changes-2025.pdf. The current rules of the Scheme are available on the Pensions website at https://www.pensions.admin.cam.ac.uk/cps.
The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 2, p. 74) for the approval of this change to the rules of the Scheme.
Following the receipt of requests for ballots on Grace 1 of 30 July 2025 (Injunctions) and Grace 2 of 30 July 2025 (Guild of Benefactors),1 the timetable for voting in both ballots is set out below.
For a fly-sheet to be circulated to members of the Regent House when voting opens, the Director of Governance and Compliance needs to receive the fly-sheet, signed by ten or more members of the Regent House or other authorised groups,2 by 1 p.m. on Friday, 14 November 2025.
The Director of Governance and Compliance will accept fly-sheets:
(a)signed by completing an online form on the Regent House Petitions site or other authorised site by the deadline;3
(b)in hardcopy, signed with wet-ink signatures, with the names of signatories in block capitals, delivered to the Old Schools, or as an email from a University account that includes the text of the fly-sheet sent to Registrary@admin.cam.ac.uk, or as a photo or scan of the document showing the signature sent by email (ideally from a University account) to Registrary@admin.cam.ac.uk, by the deadline.
Those listed on the Roll of the Regent House promulgated on 6 November 20254 will be eligible to vote in this ballot. Online voting will open at 10 a.m. on Monday, 24 November and close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 3 December 2025 (voters will receive an email when voting opens). Hardcopy voting papers and supporting materials will be distributed not later than Monday, 24 November to those who have opted by 31 October 2025 to vote on paper; the last date for the return of voting papers is 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 3 December 2025.
2A fly-sheet is a statement giving views in support of or against the proposals made by the Grace, which aims to persuade members of the Regent House to vote in a particular way in the ballot. A number of authorised groups may issue fly-sheets; for further information see the Council’s Notice on Discussions and Fly-sheets reproduced in Statutes and Ordinances at p. 116.
3For information on sites available to assist the collection of signatures in Regent House ballots, see https://universityofcambridgecloud.sharepoint.com/sites/RegentHouse/SitePages/sites-for-signatures.aspx (University account required).
4The current list of members of the Regent House, available at https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/regent_house_roll, will update when the new Roll is promulgated on 6 November 2025. Access to the Regent House Petitions site will be updated shortly thereafter. The categories of membership of the Regent House are set out in Special Ordinance and Ordinance (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 67 and p. 110); see also Reporter, 2025–26, Special No. 1, p. 6.
The Vice-Chancellor, at the request of the Council, gives notice of an election to fill a vacancy on the Board in class (c)(ii) for a member of the Regent House. This vacancy was not filled during the previous election in July. The deadline for the receipt of nominations and personal statements, ideally by email to Registrary@admin.cam.ac.uk, is 12 noon on Thursday, 13 November 2025. For further information about the Board and the nomination procedure, see the Notice published in June.1 A nomination form is available.2 If the election is contested, voting will take place in accordance with the timetable for the ballots on Graces 1 and 2 of 30 July 2025 (see above).
2A nomination form is available at https://www.reporter.admin.cam.ac.uk/files/scrutiny-nomination-form-2025.pdf.
The Council has added the following to its list of ungraded posts qualifying for membership of the Regent House (see Annex A, Reporter, 6666, 2021–22, p. 643).
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School / NSI |
Institution |
Job title |
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UAS |
Finance Division |
Interim Head of Business Partnering and Financial Planning and Analysis |
This change will take effect from the promulgation of the Roll on 6 November 2025.
The Council, on the advice of the Finance Committee, has approved amendments to the Financial Regulations with immediate effect (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 1056; see also: https://www.finance.admin.cam.ac.uk/policy-and-procedures/financial-regulations).
Regulations 6.2 and 18.3(a) have been amended to add the Chief Financial Officer to those with authority to approve and sign contracts concerning property and give consent not to follow competition procedures for construction or Construction Related Procurement, whether above or below the EU Threshold.
In October 2024, the Council approved and published the terms of reference for a working group to consider matters relating to investments in and research funded by companies belonging to the defence industry.1 The decision to establish a working group to consider these matters was one of several actions agreed in July 2024 following dialogue between students representing those taking part in a protest encampment on King’s Parade and senior officers. In the same month, the Council received a Grace initiated by members of the Regent House raising similar concerns. The Council therefore agreed terms of reference for a working group that covered the matters raised by both the students and the Regent House members.
The Council has now received the Working Group’s report and accepted its recommendations, set out below. It notes that the Working Group has suggested three options concerning the University’s investments in conventional weapons (i.e. those not illegal under English law). There will need to be further discussion, including with the Cambridge University Endowment Trustee Body (CUETB), to agree whether additional exclusions might be adopted. The full report is available at: https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/documents/reports/WGDefenceIndustryReport2025.pdf.
The Council will report on progress with the implementation of the Working Group’s recommendations in its Annual Report.
The Working Group makes eleven recommendations:
Recommendation 1: The University Council should include a statement of the University’s charitable purposes on the web page which describes the University as a charity;
Recommendation 2: The University’s Statement of Investment Responsibility needs to be updated to reflect the University’s policies on fossil fuels and also the other recommendations in our report;
Recommendation 3: We reject the focus of our terms of reference on the Defence Industry. Such a focus is at odds with the national significance of defence and investment in defence, which is widely defined. Rather, the focus should be on investment in companies which manufacture particular, or any, weapons;
Recommendation 4: The University of Cambridge should formally exclude investment of any funds, either directly or indirectly, in any company which manufactures weapons which are illegal by English law, even if these weapons are legal in the country of manufacture, so‑called ‘controversial weapons’. Controversial weapons should be defined as, to the extent that they are illegal by English law, cluster bombs, land mines, depleted uranium weapons, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, blinding laser weapons, non-detectable fragments and incendiary weapons (white phosphorus);
Recommendation 5: CUETB’s Responsible Investment Statement should be updated to exclude investment in controversial weapons;
Recommendation 6: The Council should reflect on whether a new body is required to reflect on ethical investment (or whether the Committee on Benefactions and External and Legal Affairs could discharge this role) and to make recommendations to the Investment Advisory Board and the CUETB, noting that decisions about investment policy will still be made by the CUETB;
Recommendation 7: The implementation of our recommendations and the approach being adopted to investments in companies which manufacture weapons should be reviewed after five years;
Recommendation 8: The University should not prevent researchers from participating in research related to the manufacture of weapons save where the research is illegal under English law;
Recommendation 9: The University should state that it expects, rather than requires, individual researchers not to conduct research which is directly related to the manufacture of weapons which are legal in the country where they are manufactured but would be illegal under English law, so‑called ‘controversial weapons’;
Recommendation 10: A review process should be developed for proposed institutional research funding partnerships between the University of Cambridge and companies which are involved in the manufacture of weapons;
Recommendation 11: The University should review the use of clauses relating to restrictions on the use of research for military purposes, with the view to widening their use, where appropriate, while balancing against the resource and time cost.