The HeadingleyLeeds website is awaiting a contribution from the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, Professor Simone Buitendijk. In the mean time, the following are extracts from a recent piece by Professor Buitendijk.
When a crisis is acute, it is normal or even necessary to lose sense of the middle or longer term. When it goes on for a long time, however, it becomes vital to regain a sense of perspective on the future. There are three reasons for this: the first is that the world will be different after a protracted crisis and we need to get prepared; the second is that we need to prioritise our present actions based on what we think will help us to be effective when it is all behind us; the third is that working with conviction on a better future will keep us stable and centred in the present hard times …
[An area which stands out for me] is in reducing inequalities, both locally and globally. We are seeing how the COVID crisis hits less well-off parts of our communities much harder, not just in health outcomes, but in every aspect of life. My university is firmly rooted in our local community and we have always felt a great sense of responsibility both to train regional talent and to use our research and innovation for the betterment of our local society. Through studying the differential impact of COVID, we will know what our role should be in solving inequalities in our region after the crisis.
Also, through international research collaboration in the COVID crisis, we can see how we can better and more collaboratively tackle the world’s main challenges with our research and our teaching. All 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals have the reduction of inequalities at their heart. Incidentally, networked communities is SDG number 17. COVID is showing how the research community can pull together and global competition can decrease. We want to hang onto that.
And we know more than ever before that collaboration rather than competition will make us successful and more fulfilled, and that we need multidisciplinary research and international collaboration to conquer really tough, globally challenging issues. We realise that we need to be an active part of local and global communities in order to truly contribute, and that being kind and caring will improve the quality of our teaching and research.
I will do my best to keep those goals and values firmly at the heart of my university’s strategy, because they can make us even more compassionate and more human-centred than we already are. We owe it to ourselves and to the global population to harness something from our collective hardship for some truly worthwhile long-term goals. That means preserving the positive things that will come out of this crisis. They are the building blocks for a better future.
Professor Simone Buitendijk
Vice-Chancellor, University of Leeds
26 April 2021
For the full text of Professor Buitendijk’s piece, click here.
