I am currently in Brussels on what will be my last overseas visit as a member of the University's Executive Board. This morning, with two colleagues, I arrived by train from Amsterdam where we had spent yesterday in visits to the University of Amsterdam, with an alumni reception in the evening. Earlier this evening our final engagement was an alumni reception for graduates of the three White Rose universities - Leeds, Sheffield and York. And the evening has been rounded off by a meal of moles et frites with our colleagues from York - for me an excellent final episode to overseas travel in my current role.
Over the last 11 years I count up that I have visited 13 countries on university business - some of them several times. I have been to two countries in the Caribbean (St Lucia and Trinidad), eight in Europe (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria), one in Africa (South Africa), and two in Asia (Hong Kong, and China). There have been graduation ceremonies and alumni reunions, meetings with government officials and the launch of new degree programmes, visits to partner universities, and tours of research centres. There have been conferences with other university leaders, with associated visits to cultural sites for more informal networking (particularly memorable were the tours of the canals of Nanjing by night with a Chinese zither-player providing a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, and a wine tasting visit to the vineyards near Stellenbosch in South Africa). Some of the great benefits of various of these visits have been meeting colleagues from other universities, sharing issues and finding out how they are viewing the challenges of global research themes, or educational development.
What are my conclusions from representing the university overseas? Here are ten points:
What are my conclusions from representing the university overseas? Here are ten points:
1. There is a great fund of goodwill towards Sheffield University - although many people, whilst holding a good opinion of us, don't really know why. Our reputation is rather generalised, and probably sits alongside the reputations of a number of other UK institutions. Pushed for detail, many people (who are not themselves alumni) find it difficult to identify anything specific about us.
2. As Sheffield University, we have a problem with the image of our city. Put simply, it is unknown to many people abroad. We do not have a major football team; we do not have historic sites on a par with, say, York; we do not have an international airport; we are not a port; we are not strongly associated with a major pop group (Liverpool is still known abroad through the Beatles: the Arctic Monkeys are not associated with Sheffield in a similar way). Where there IS recognition of Sheffield it is as an old steel town - and The Full Monty did us no favours, although fortunately memories of the film are starting to fade. A very common question is 'where is Sheffield?' and the answer 'two hours north of London' brings the response 'Oh, halfway to Scotland, then.'
3. We need to work hard on education about who we are and where, and what our associations are. I sat next to the Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott at a lunch in St Lucia and he evinced little interest in us until I mentioned Yorkshire and the fact that Sheffield was in the same county as Heptonstall - I had done my research and knew that Walcott admired, and had been a friend of, the late Ted Hughes. That turned things round and he warmed to us.
4. Our alumni are desperately keen, in many cases, to continue to be connected with us. But they are often diffident in offering their services to us. They still see the relationship as us giving them something, but twenty years after graduation they are often now in a strong position to offer us something - advice, access to their business networks, support for research ideas, or lobbying with multinational interest groups. We need to do more to show them how they can work with us.
5. And some of the alumni who are most proud of their Sheffield connections are actually those who engaged least with us - students who visited Sheffield on Erasmus mobility grants, or who came only for a one year Masters degree, or who studied at City College in Thessaloniki. I guess that most of these alumni had also studied at another institution and are making a comparison with the educational style and the wider student experience elsewhere. Those who only studied in Sheffield have taken for granted the nature of UK higher education and perhaps appreciate it less.
6. Although we might try to run graduation ceremonies abroad in exactly the same way as in Sheffield, local customs inevitably prevail. I have attended ceremonies in a (rather nice) tin hut in St Lucia, in ballrooms in China, in a concert hall in Thessaloniki and elsewhere - and each has taken on surprising local characteristics. And why not? We don't normally have a calypso band at degree ceremonies in Sheffield; and I have never been as photographed in my life as after a ceremony in Beijing.
7. Visits to universities can be wrapped up in various aspects of protocol, but they generally result in vast agendas of possible linkages which ultimately shrink over the following weeks to two or three key action points. Put a mixed group of senior university leaders together and they try to reconstruct the world - pragmatism sets in as others work to consolidate the ideas after the meeting has finished.
8. UK officials abroad are wonderfully welcoming. I am not certain whether this relates to Sheffield per se or is more general. But, among others, the British ambassador in Bucharest, successive Directors of the British Council in Hong Kong, senior UK officials at the European Commission and many others have all appeared genuinely delighted that we have taken the time to come to visit them. Not all universities do.
9. One has to be prepared to eat anything. It can't be easy for vegetarians; and vegans probably need to look for alternative employment.
10. Finally, dealing with foreign media can be particularly challenging. But nothing can quite prepare anyone for a 20 minute live interview on Turkish television on one's views of Turkish universities (with no foreknowledge that that was to be the topic); a succession of Bulgarian newspaper interviews following earlier stories that Bulgarian students could study in the UK and avoid repaying the fee loan; or - most adrenaline-using of all - being interviewed live on Romanian television with the simultaneous interpretation from Romanian to English through an ear piece not functioning.
2. As Sheffield University, we have a problem with the image of our city. Put simply, it is unknown to many people abroad. We do not have a major football team; we do not have historic sites on a par with, say, York; we do not have an international airport; we are not a port; we are not strongly associated with a major pop group (Liverpool is still known abroad through the Beatles: the Arctic Monkeys are not associated with Sheffield in a similar way). Where there IS recognition of Sheffield it is as an old steel town - and The Full Monty did us no favours, although fortunately memories of the film are starting to fade. A very common question is 'where is Sheffield?' and the answer 'two hours north of London' brings the response 'Oh, halfway to Scotland, then.'
3. We need to work hard on education about who we are and where, and what our associations are. I sat next to the Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott at a lunch in St Lucia and he evinced little interest in us until I mentioned Yorkshire and the fact that Sheffield was in the same county as Heptonstall - I had done my research and knew that Walcott admired, and had been a friend of, the late Ted Hughes. That turned things round and he warmed to us.
4. Our alumni are desperately keen, in many cases, to continue to be connected with us. But they are often diffident in offering their services to us. They still see the relationship as us giving them something, but twenty years after graduation they are often now in a strong position to offer us something - advice, access to their business networks, support for research ideas, or lobbying with multinational interest groups. We need to do more to show them how they can work with us.
5. And some of the alumni who are most proud of their Sheffield connections are actually those who engaged least with us - students who visited Sheffield on Erasmus mobility grants, or who came only for a one year Masters degree, or who studied at City College in Thessaloniki. I guess that most of these alumni had also studied at another institution and are making a comparison with the educational style and the wider student experience elsewhere. Those who only studied in Sheffield have taken for granted the nature of UK higher education and perhaps appreciate it less.
6. Although we might try to run graduation ceremonies abroad in exactly the same way as in Sheffield, local customs inevitably prevail. I have attended ceremonies in a (rather nice) tin hut in St Lucia, in ballrooms in China, in a concert hall in Thessaloniki and elsewhere - and each has taken on surprising local characteristics. And why not? We don't normally have a calypso band at degree ceremonies in Sheffield; and I have never been as photographed in my life as after a ceremony in Beijing.
7. Visits to universities can be wrapped up in various aspects of protocol, but they generally result in vast agendas of possible linkages which ultimately shrink over the following weeks to two or three key action points. Put a mixed group of senior university leaders together and they try to reconstruct the world - pragmatism sets in as others work to consolidate the ideas after the meeting has finished.
8. UK officials abroad are wonderfully welcoming. I am not certain whether this relates to Sheffield per se or is more general. But, among others, the British ambassador in Bucharest, successive Directors of the British Council in Hong Kong, senior UK officials at the European Commission and many others have all appeared genuinely delighted that we have taken the time to come to visit them. Not all universities do.
9. One has to be prepared to eat anything. It can't be easy for vegetarians; and vegans probably need to look for alternative employment.
10. Finally, dealing with foreign media can be particularly challenging. But nothing can quite prepare anyone for a 20 minute live interview on Turkish television on one's views of Turkish universities (with no foreknowledge that that was to be the topic); a succession of Bulgarian newspaper interviews following earlier stories that Bulgarian students could study in the UK and avoid repaying the fee loan; or - most adrenaline-using of all - being interviewed live on Romanian television with the simultaneous interpretation from Romanian to English through an ear piece not functioning.
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