David Patterson: Our ambition is to become curiouser as we move ahead
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“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice.
That shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, given that she’d already spotted a talking white rabbit, fallen down a rabbit hole, and found herself shrinking down to 10 inches tall – all at the start of some very curious adventures in Wonderland.
Curiosity is an under-rated virtue.
It might not do our feline friends any favours, but for us as people, as human beings, curiosity is a key thing that helps us become truly ourselves; while the learning, research, and innovation that comes out of all our curiosity is what helps us develop as communities too.
We’ve just had a very curious start to the New Year at UHI Moray, but in a good way.
From Tuesday to Thursday last week, we hosted around 160 research staff and students from across the whole UHI partnership for the UHI Research Conference, the first time this could be held in-person for over four years.
It was a mammoth undertaking for us, but one that has paid big dividends.
Here in Moray, we haven’t always been fully engaged with the university research agenda.
However, I am proud to say that we most certainly are now, and that we’ve been endeavouring to make up for lost time by working with partners across UHI to bring our learning, our research skills and all the opportunities they can unlock, to our community, to our employers and to our wider region.
I managed to take time out of my daily schedule to attend some of the research showcase events where staff and students were giving tasters of their research projects.
Some of these presentations were so clever that, to be honest, they made my brain ache, but many of them also gave us a glimpse of our future in the years to come.
In my welcome speech that was given to the conference, I reminded everyone at the event that we have a very strong sense of place here in Moray, and many of the highlighted projects had a clear practical application to the economy, culture, and health of the region in which we all live and work.
Professor Andrew Rae talked about his significant contributions to sustainable aviation initiatives in Scotland.
This is work which we hope will soon be part of our very ambitious Moray Growth Deal projects here.
Our own Dr Allane Hay also gave insights from her work with local Moray companies looking at sustaining business through ethical and responsible practice.
Again, this is work that we will lead to support enterprise and innovation here through the Growth Deal.
One of the most recent researchers employed here, Chinguzorom Chizaram, updated us all on his work out of Lossiemouth to support achieving sustainability in Scotland’s microbrewery sector.
This kind of work is essential to our community, with so many copper kettles boiling alongside the River Spey, and the high priority for us to create a “just transition” to net zero carbon.
Although UHI’s research is locally very relevant, nearly three quarters of it is also recognised to be world leading or internationally excellent.
We may not have talking rabbits yet in Moray, but our ambition is certainly to become curiouser, and curiouser still.
