Building a Vibrant Academic Community at Robinson 
Dr Scott Annett, Fellow in English and Senior Tutor

As the landscape of higher education changes rapidly, Robinson remains committed to upholding academic excellence by fostering a thriving intellectual community for both students and academics.

Within the undergraduate population, and thanks to a significant collective effort involving academics, staff and students, we have made considerable progress in our widening participation activities, which can be measured in admissions statistics, the academic outcomes of students as they progress through their degrees, and of course the enthusiasm with which those same students engage in College life.  

At the same time, roughly 25% of each undergraduate cohort are international students, demonstrating the extent to which Robinson continues to attract many of the most talented young people from around the world. Over the last two academic years, we have been delighted to launch new initiatives intended to encourage such applicants, including the New Capital Bursaries and the William Waite Scholarship, both of which are intended to assist students from the EU. 

Amongst our postgraduate population, we also support students from extraordinarily varied backgrounds and with diverse research interests, ranging from fulltime students engaged in MPhil or PhD research, through to part-time students reading for degrees such as Social Innovation, Sustainability Leadership, and International Relations.

Innovating Learning

At the heart of our work is a recognition of the unique advantages and pressures of the collegiate system. While the College is charged with delivering undergraduate teaching, it exists in a complex partnership with university departments, which oversee lectures, practicals, and examinations. This dual responsibility requires careful attention to Cambridge’s ‘Tripos’ examination requirements and supervision norms but it also calls for deeper reflection on the role of the College in supporting academic engagement.

Looking to the future, we are working toward appointing a Director for Innovation in Learning, with responsibility for developing a centre focused on educational support. We believe that this new hub would marry traditional academic rigour with cutting-edge technology, such as better understanding the potential of AI within education, or harnessing virtual reality for skills-based training in subjects like medicine, engineering, and archaeology. This centre would not only enhance learning but also help to set Robinson apart to both prospective students and donors, staking its claim as a forward-thinking institution.

Such developments would be intended to complement the activities of the current Wellbeing team, which has worked extremely hard alongside our undergraduate and postgraduate tutors to ensure that all students have access to the help that they need, when they need it. Recent work on neurodiversity and autism have yielded extremely positive results for both students and academic staff as the needs of students are better understood and addressed within the framework of their specific degrees. This landscape is one of the most rapidly evolving within Higher Education and, at Robinson, we are determined to be at the forefront of both excellent practice and innovation.

Fostering Teaching and Research Excellence

Central to any college’s academic life are the teachers who guide and inspire students. At Robinson, we are fortunate to be able to rely on the expertise and experience of our University Teaching Officers (UTOs), complimented by a team of College Teaching Officers (CTOs) and early career researchers.

In the last twelve months, we have been delighted to appoint Dr Ankit Kumar (Engineering), Dr Tom Crawford (Mathematics) and Dr Orsolya Petocz (History and Modern Languages), the latter two of which have been able to join the College thanks to generous donations from our alumni. We are confident that these inspiring early career academics will add dynamism to the teaching and research that takes place within Robinson.

Understanding that outstanding teaching and cutting-edge research go hand-in-hand, we have been striving to add new voices and perspectives to the academic community through our visiting Baxandall Fellowships. Indeed, the kind of interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations that are made possible within a college environment remain a key point of focus within Robinson, as we seek to assist our Fellows in their research and to better facilitate integration of our postgraduate students within the broader research context.

As an example, in October 2024 we were delighted to launch the Dr Teresa Tiffert Research Innovation Awards, which are intended to foster academic inquisitiveness amongst postgraduate students working in Medicine and the Biosciences. The most recent winner of this award was Aniket Dembi, who is working on deep learning models for clinical predictions, including glucose forecasting in diabetes and pneumonia detection from X-rays.

Facing the Future

As Robinson looks towards its 50th year, the College is acutely aware of the need to foster a supportive and inspiring environment, full of opportunities through which individual members of the College can engage with, and learn from, peers and colleagues. With your help, and drawing on our history of doing things differently, we remain committed to welcoming, supporting, and inspiring the next generation of scholars and teachers, for whom college life will be both an anchor and a springboard.