January 2021 - Lord Chris Smith
I hope it’s not too late to wish everyone a Happy New Year! We are now a couple of weeks into Lent Term, under the difficult circumstances of a new national lockdown, and with most of our students working from home rather than being here in Cambridge. We are however trying to ensure that we can – despite all of this – provide our students with the best possible academic experience. It won’t be the same as it would normally be, alas, but we’re all hoping for better things by the early summer.
Within College we have extra reason to look forward to 2021 – it is the 25th anniversary of the Corporate Partnership Programme. Since its inception in 1996, the programme has evolved and matured to provide bespoke engagement activities for corporate partners wishing to connect with all that the College and wider University has to offer. Our programme has generated benefits for both our partners and the College and exemplifies the power of bringing academia and industry together.
I am particularly delighted that we will be using the programme’s anniversary year to raise our sights on the climate emergency. When I was Chair of the Environment Agency I was acutely aware that we were already beginning to experience the real impact of climate change, with more extremes of weather, more floods and drought, and this has now been happening at an alarming scale across the world. Businesses can help to contribute to the solutions we need to put in place – whether it’s developing zero-carbon products and processes, or reducing waste streams, or becoming more respectful of natural capital – but at the same time businesses must also begin to think about how the impacts of climate change will affect their own future work and profitability. It’ll be both about mitigating climate change but also about adapting to it. These are huge challenges, and I very much hope that the thinking, the knowledge, and the ideas that we develop here in Cambridge can help businesses to meet them.
At the moment our partners are supported individually - I look forward to bringing them together as a cohort for the first time to tackle one of the biggest issues facing humanity. I hope that the Corporate Partnership Programme’s spotlight on climate rescue might bring a focus on what businesses can and should achieve, in response to climate need. We won’t solve all the problems, but we can define the issues and identify practical responses and actions that can be taken – whether it’s by organisations or by individuals.
We are not the only ones focusing our attention on the climate, and with very good reason – many hands collaborating and coordinating will help us all to achieve our goal sooner. The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 will be hosted in Glasgow in November this year under the presidency of the United Kingdom. Closer to home, Cambridge Zero is the University of Cambridge’s response to the climate crisis, harnessing the full range of the University’s research and policy expertise to develop solutions. Cambridge Zero acts as an umbrella for all climate-related activity across the University and connects research groups and institutes, joining up their research and policy knowledge. I am looking forward to working with our colleagues across the buoyant Cambridge ecosystem on this challenge and to demonstrating that a College (and Pembroke in particular with its long experience of working with corporate partners) is a natural multidisciplinary home for academia and businesses to come together to find answers.
Most of all, I hope that all of our College community and connected diaspora will be able to participate in our anniversary activities and that not only will you enjoy being involved, but we can use this opportunity to work together to secure a more resilient future.
Our Corporate Partnership Manager, Kate Parsley, will share more of the programme’s really exciting set of plans to celebrate the 25 years of Corporate Partnerships in next month’s blog.