Academics do not withdraw into universities to think deep thoughts: they deepen those thoughts by constant engagement with others and with the challenge of real-world problems such as poverty
-The Vice-Chancellor
Delivering Monash University's annual Richard Larkins Oration to a distinguished audience at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, last week, he argued that "universities' contribution to the alleviation of poverty, disease and malnutrition is seriously undervalued and misunderstood, including by universities themselves".
"I argue that the advancement of health, wealth and nutrition in low-income countries is, firstly, a wholly legitimate target as well as a major academic challenge for the world's top universities, and secondly that universities are in fact uniquely well placed to make a difference".
He cited universities' strength as "the last great integrators of knowledge" over disciplines from the humanities and social sciences to biomedical sciences, and the relevance of that breadth to the multi-faceted problem of poverty. "The reason polio is not yet globally eradicated is not because we don't understand how the disease or the vaccine works - the biomedical solution exists... Addressing this problem requires every academic discipline from religious studies to supply chain dynamics and sociology to health services research".
Universities could also act as honest brokers, he said, working with governments, NGOs and the private sector: "universities can knock on doors that are not opened to governments".
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Image: Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz,
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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