It was around 10 years ago that the early conversations about bringing the V&A to Dundee started to turn into something more substantial.
Now we see Kengo Kuma’s stunning building for the UK’s first Museum of Design outside of London rising on the banks of the Tay, capturing the attention of all who arrive in the city by train at the new station or by car over the Tay Road Bridge.
Those conversations regarding the V&A – which is due to open in 2018 – took place at the university, which drove the initial stages of the project, helping bring together local partners and hosting symposiums and conferences, building political support for the idea, and engaging with places around the world such as Bilbao, which had experienced cultural and economic regeneration.
It was at the annual Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Degree Show at the university that supermodel Erin O’Connor, a trustee of the V&A, could be found on the catwalk in 2009.
On her visit she bought a jacket from emerging designer Hayley Scanlan, one of that year’s textile design graduates, and described the experience as `bonkers and brilliant!’.
The V&A project is changing the face of Dundee.
It is just one example of how Dundee University has continued to make a huge impact in the last decade.
It has continued to build a formidable reputation in forensic sciences, where it is one of the world’s renowned centres of excellent in research.
Life sciences has continued to expand and deliver advances in human and animal health, notably producing a candidate drug in 2015 that could lead to revolutionary new lifesaving treatment for malaria, one of the developing world’s most devastating diseases.
Dundee has become an unlikely centre for space technology research and development – many of the satellites and shuttles launched into orbit have operate with SpaceWire circuitry designed and built here, the work of Professor Stephen Parkes and colleagues now commercialised in the shape of STAR Dundee, a Courier Business of the Year.
The university has helped stimulate debate around Scotland’s constitutional and policy landscape – the `Five Million Questions’ series of events was one of the country’s key forums in the lead up to the independence referendum.
Dundee has done more than any other university in Scotland in enabling those from deprived backgrounds to grasp the transformational opportunities offered by a university education.
From Turner Prize winners to political leaders, activists for social change to captains of industry, the university’s graduates are transforming the world and the way we look at it.
Last year, Reuters issued their list of `Europe’s Most Innovative Universities’.
Dundee was 18th, the highest ranked in Scotland and behind only Imperial, Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester in the UK.
That put Dundee in lofty company and the story has been the same across the many league tables, rankings and surveys which report on universities and student life.
It has been ranked the best young university in the UK and in the top 20 worldwide (`young’ in university terms means 50 years or less).
It is one of five Scottish universities in the world’s top 200 – a hugely impressive number that shows Scotland effectively punching well above its weight – and has been named Scottish University of the Year for the past two years.
Over the past 10 years Dundee has also been consistently named as providing one of the best student experiences to be found anywhere, in the UK and beyond.
That is testament not just to the quality of the education on offer but life on campus and in the city. Students who come here not only love the university, they love Dundee and all it and Scotland offers.
