Tomorrow's Cambridge

　　Visit Cambridge late in the 21st century and you will find it both the same and very different. The colleges will remain a huge strength, bringing together students and researchers from all disciplines and all parts of the world, and guaranteeing a human scale of values within a big university.

　　Other core values will endure as well: excellence in teaching and research; a criticaltemperament that emphasises rigour and independence of mind; a stress on the interplay between disciplines, on small-group teaching and the centrality of social interaction in education; and a hope that shared experience of Cambridge will make alumni feel part of the University's extended family for life.

　　Above everything else will still rise the questioning, tough-minded hunger for learning, for pushing the boundaries of knowledge ever outwards, that has characterised this university from the first.

　　Physically, though, much needs to change if we are to have faculty buildings equal to these challenges. Not in the heart of the city: the colleges,the Backs, the river and the commons and meadows that cluster around it.The profound sense of place that everyone values will at all costs be protected. But visit in fifty years and you'll find what are now windswept hedgeless fields on the edge of Cambridge transformed into two new campuses: for the physical sciences and technology to the west, and for the biomedical sciences to the south.

　　The fact that our computer network is so advanced will also soon give us the opportunity to share our teaching expertise with local companies and even other universities; a dedicated centre for distance learning is already under discussion. We will increasingly use internet-based computer courses, to enhance our own teaching and also to reach students outside the University. That doesn't mean computer terminals will displace people; students are always going to need advice and high-quality tuition on the spot. But it does mean we can refine our teaching courses over time and make them available in the manner of textbooks.

　　Within the university itself, access is going to remain our key priority. We're striving to demystify Cambridge and increase the proportion of state school students we take. We want to ensure that ethnic minority, overseas and disabled applicants are encouraged and supported. We want to secure women's full participation in the University and increase their representation in top academic posts.We want to encourage alumni to take more interest in Cambridge so we can draw ontheir expertise and experience.

　　And we want to keep winning the Boat Race