There is a particular energy on campus this month as we get ready to welcome our new and returning students this weekend. Halls of residence are being prepared, timetables are being finalised, and in a few days, Whiteknights campus will be a whole lot busier.
I love this time of year, the quiet anticipation before a new term. It is also our Centenary year, one hundred years since the University of Reading was granted its Royal Charter. This September feels like more than just the run-up to a new term. It is the start of our next century.
It would be easy to assume that our international research and worldwide partnerships happen “out there” and matter less “in here”, in Reading and Wokingham. In my experience, it is exactly the opposite. Our global work keeps coming back to benefit the community on our doorstep.
Take our Institute of Education, its roots predating the University itself, and now marking its own centenary milestones as part of ours. A recent survey of its alumni found that three-quarters still live and work locally, many now leading Berkshire’s schools. Almost nine in ten remain in education. A large majority said their training here gave them the confidence to walk into a classroom. Every one of those teachers is a direct, local dividend from more than a century of investment in education for all ages.
Or take Professor Vicky Li’s work at Henley Business School. Developed with an eye on global health inequalities, her AI system for predicting missed hospital appointments now runs across all Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust sites, reducing high-risk no-shows by 40% and saving an estimated £250,000 in a single year, freeing up appointments for patients who need them most. That’s global research, tested and proven right here in our local hospital.
Even work that starts furthest from home finds its way back. Our ecologists have spent years helping smallholder farmers in Tamil Nadu, India, grow more food with fewer chemicals by carefully selecting and planting flowers alongside their crops. It is now shaping international policy through the United Nations. That same expertise, built through global collaboration, is part of what makes Reading a world-leading centre for agricultural and environmental science, and why studying and working here can have real impact on food systems around the world.
None of this work happens without the community that has backed us for a hundred years. From the flowerbeds of Tamil Nadu to the wards of the Royal Berkshire Hospital and the classrooms of Berkshire’s schools, our global work only has meaning because it is rooted here first.
As our campuses prepare for the new intake, and returning students get ready to reunite with friends, I hope you will feel proud of what this University does, near and far. It takes a whole community to make a university. Thank you for being a part of that mission as we begin our next hundred years.
Professor Robert van de Noort is Vice Chancellor of the University of Reading
