By Robert Van de Noort
At this time of year, our Whiteknights campus really comes to life and is looking beautiful.
The cherry blossoms dotted around campus and in our botanical gardens are truly a wonderful sight.
If you haven’t been to our campus recently then please do come and pay us a visit. A walk around the meadows, through the wooded Wilderness, a visit to the Harris botanical garden, or watching the swans, geese and ducks on our lake is a relaxing way to spend an hour or two.
With that in mind, Saturday, May 13, is a date for your diary.
We will be hosting our first ever Community Festival, bringing together everyone in the area, including students, colleagues, alumni and their families, and our neighbours, for a free one-day celebration of what makes Reading great: our diverse and welcoming community.
There will be live music, theatre and performance from local artists, street food and a host of activities to get involved in.
Our museums will be open and there will be many more opportunities to see some of the research that academic colleagues based at the University of Reading are undertaking.
University academics are research leaders in their field, carrying out their own original research, helping us grow and develop as a society.
At Reading we are lucky enough to have hundreds of academic colleagues who could be considered among the best in the world across a vast array of topics – from exploring the forces within molecules, to the meaning behind art and literature, or the workings of the economy. And while researchers can help wider society by advancing knowledge, they can really help the world by sharing what it means with the rest of us.
This became very clear during the pandemic.
When the world was in crisis and our leaders were exhorting us to “follow the science”, many of us turned to academic experts, speaking via the media, to help us understand what was going on.
Trusted research specialists, sharing their knowledge and analysis on the TV or radio, or providing comment on the latest developments in news articles, helped provide much-needed balance and reassurance during a chaotic and worrying time.
We are lucky in Reading and Wokingham to have a University with people striving for knowledge and discovery, as well as a thriving local media scene. We should celebrate and defend both.
To find out more about what we do, and meet the people who work and study here, join us on the 13 May at our Community Festival. I look forward to seeing you there.
Professor Robert Van de Noort is the vice-chancellor of the University of Reading
