Professor Colin Riordan CBE
ACU Secretary General
As my first full calendar year as Secretary General draws to a close, I have been reflecting on the successes and highlights of 2024. It has been a personal priority to get to know the organisation and understand its membership, and so I made it my business to meet as many of you as possible, either online, in person or indeed both. During 2024 I went to ten Commonwealth countries and visited more than thirty member universities, a process that has been immensely helpful in understanding the issues our members are facing across the board. In addition, I met many member vice-chancellors at the online meetings of our Higher Education Taskforce, which set out the ground for our policy work throughout the year.
I also felt it was important to return to the kind of in-person network-wide get-togethers that used to be the norm for the ACU. In the first event of this kind to be held since 2016, we welcomed over 100 people to London in May, including more than 70 vice-chancellors. We discussed matters of mutual interest across the network including funding, AI and student employability. Our conclusions then helped to inform the meeting of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) that followed immediately afterwards, and ultimately we were able to float the policy recommendations that arose from this meeting and our Higher Education Taskforce at October’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa.
The highlight at CHOGM for us was the event we held with our Patron His Majesty The King to launch the new King’s Commonwealth Fellowship Programme (KCFP). In his speech to Commonwealth Heads of Government, His Majesty explained how he had asked the ACU to devise and run a scholarship programme to support Commonwealth Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to build climate resilience through education and research. Our member universities both in the SIDS and in the wider Commonwealth have responded to this challenge magnificently, contributing time, effort and money to the KCFP, which has benefited from a generous gift from the King himself, and a lead donation from the Khalili Foundation. We are profoundly grateful for both.
These are a few of my personal highlights, but you can find a much fuller account in our Highlights Report 2023-24. It only remains for me to thank you sincerely for your support during 2024 and to wish you a restful and enjoyable festive season.