Stephen Fry lauds Dundee Uni at Awards

14 January 2023
The Courier (p.1-3)

Stephen Fry has commended both staff and students at Dundee University for their success in involving the public in their research.

The former university rector congratulated the winners of this year’s Stephen Fry Awards for Excellence in Public Engagement in a video message played at the institution’s annual Discovery Days ceremony in the Dalhousie Building yesterday.

The writer and broadcaster said: “I still can’t quite believe my name is attached to these prestigious and important awards.

“It always gives me pleasure to announce the winners tinged with sadness that I can’t be there with you, which I would love to be.”

A project in collaboration with Hot Chocolate Trust, which sought to reimagine spaces for children who have experienced trauma was named as Public Engagement Project of the Year.

It was led by Linsey McIntosh and Gary Kennedy, from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), with Ellie Harrison, also from DJCAD, winning Engaged Researcher of the Year for her transport project Bus Regulation: The Musical.

Ms Harrison is no stranger to controversy. In 2016, she was paid £15,000 by Creative Scotland to support The Glasgow Effect project, which saw the artist challenge herself to remain within Glasgow’s city boundaries for a year to measure the impact it would have on her artistic career.

The project sparked a debate due to the public grant she receive for it.

Psychology PhD student Vicky Armstrong won the inaugural Early Career Researcher of the Year award for her work in early-years art therapy.

My Fry continued: “At Dundee, we have set ourselves some big challenges – and I say we because I still think of it as my university as those two periods, those tenancies as rector, meant the world to me.

“This year the university received the highest number of applications in the history of the awards and the panel were really impressed by the high quality of all those nominations.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of the university for its outreach to the local community and its deep sense of needing to contribute to what the world really needs, which is a fairer and more equitable playing field for all people.”

Professor Iain Gillespie, principal and vice-chancellor of the university added: “Public engagement is a key element of our strategy to transform lives through the creating of knowledge.

“Involving the public in research brings many benefits for all and is of increasing importance to universities and other public bodies.

“On behalf of the whole university community, I would like to congratulate the winners of the 2023 Stephen Fry Awards and commend all those who are continually enhancing our efforts by listening to and leaning with individuals, communities and organisations.”

Chloe Burrell

2 CommentsComment on Facebook

Ellie Harrison Louise Haigh and Labour say that they will reform the complex fares system to ensure that passengers are confident that they are getting the best fare; confidence that X is the case, and X being the case are not necessarily the same thing. Simplification of fares would have to include the abolition of many fares. The assertion that simplifying the fares structure would reduce travelling costs is based upon a false premise, that being that the complicated-ness of the fares-and-ticketing structure is the reason why fares are expensive, that is not why they are expensive. They are expensive because the base level is too high. If you massively simplify the fares, one might then always be certain of getting the best available fare because there are no obscure cheaper fare hidden away in a Byzantine monolith, but that best fare is likely the best of a bad bunch. Railway fares are complicated, but it is within this myriad complexity that the nuances which facilitate cheaper options lurk; if you take a sledgehammer to the behemoth you bring down the cheaper options which lurk within the behemoth. If there are presently 18 options for doing Thing X, with 15 of those ways being cheap, and 3 of those ways being expensive, if you abolish the 15 cheap options for doing thing X you have massively simplified the paying-to-do-Thing X process because having 3 ways is much simpler than having 18 ways, and you have made it such that one is highly unlikely to not notice the cheapest of the available fares, because one is more likely to notice something when it is one amongst 3 than if it is one amongst 18, but it is nevertheless the case that the person is selecting the cheapest of the 3 most expensive. (i) Being guaranteed to always get the best fare; and (ii). getting cheaper fares are not necessarily the same thing. Be mindful of the actual specific wording of things: both before and after coming into government, Labour has never in actually promised cheaper fares, what Labour has promised is that one will be guaranteed to get the best available fare. The general public, politicians and public-transport campaign organisations alike have been seduced by the word 'simplification'. Simplification is not a virtue in and of itself. Simplification is a neutral concept, neither a good thing nor a bad thing; what is pertinent and important is the nature of the simplification. One can simplify travelling costs upwards. Simplification can simplify out the cheaper options. I deliberately say 'travelling costs', not 'fares', because thinking only terms of fares when it comes to simplification of railway fares and ticketing, and when it comes to Single-Leg Pricing is a proverbial red herring, one should think both in terms of fares AND in terms of travelling costs. Fare decreases do not necessarily mean travelling-cost. LNER is a prime example: with the June of 2023 introduction of Single-Leg Pricing on LNER, and the February of 2024 introduced of the Simpler Fares pilot, travelling costs for using LNER have gone up. Two halved-in-price Singles are more expensive than one Day Return; a fare reduction, but a travelling-cost increase. The changes December of 2023 fares-and-ticketing changes on c2c have many of the same fare-decreases-but-travelling-cost increases as LNER, plus its pay-as-you-go tap-in-tap-out integration with Transport for London (to simplify things) has necessitated the introduction of a weekday early-evening peak period between 4.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., which has numerous knock-on effects which can hugely increase one's travelling costs. The answer is not reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is not simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is to decrease the price of all existing fares. Do not abolish any existing fares. Do not introduce any new types of fare. Just make all existing fares 45% cheaper, and leave it at that.

As the idiom goes: 'Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true'. Reform will only be good if it is good reform. We don't need reform, we need good reform. Some might fear that prices would inevitably be rationalised upwards. Inevitably, the rationalisation would rationalise out the cheaper options. Some might fear that reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, reform travelling costs upwards, and reform out the cheaper options. Some might fear that simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, simplify travelling costs upwards, and simplify out the cheaper options. Just take a look at LNER. Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.

Stephen Fry lauds Dundee Uni at Awards

14 January 2023 The Courier (p.1-3)

Chloe Burrell

14 January 2023
The Courier (p.1-3)