Our academics continue to receive recognition for their research. In the King’s Birthday Honours, our Senior Research Fellow Professor Rajesh Thakker was made an OBE for services to Medical Science and to People with Hereditary and Rare Disorders. Two of Somerville’s Senior Research Fellows, Professor Sir Marc Feldmann and Professor Tony Bell, received Royal Society medals in recognition of their contributions to the fields of immunology and high energy astrophysics, respectively. Professor Julie Dickson, meanwhile, was awarded the Alice Tay Book Prize for Excellence in Legal Theory for her book, Elucidating Law (Oxford University Press, 2022). Further congratulations are due to our Lord and Lady MacNair Early Career Fellow in Law, Dr Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil, who co-authored a report on academic freedom across the Global South which was presented to the UN’s Human PROFESSOR NOA ZILBERMAN (L) WITH HER DOCTORAL STUDENT Rights Council in June 2024. We are also proud of former SAWSAN EL ZAHR AND UNIQ+ STUDENT OZLEM KESGIN JRF Dr Shobhana Nagraj, whose campaign for tackling child food poverty across Oxfordshire, which has involved many Somerville colleagues, received a Community Partnership Award achievement, Sam said, "My degree result was proof that I can at this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Awards. thrive whilst embracing every part of my culture and identity.” Finally, in discussing our SCR, I must take a moment to recall Another great initiative Somerville is working with is the our celebrations for International Women’s Day, which this year University of Oxford’s new Astrophoria Foundation Year fell on the same date as the Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture Programme, which seeks to equip students with academic in the sixtieth anniversary year of Dorothy Hodgkin receiving potential who have experienced severe personal disadvantage her Nobel prize. We marked this special occasion with a lecture with the skills and self-belief to study at Oxford. Last year, by Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of the University, Somerville was one of ten participating colleges in Astrophoria’s and a delightful commemorative film featuring Somerville’s inaugural year, and welcomed two students to the foundation biochemists past, present and future, which you can view on programme in History and PPE. We will welcome another two the Somerville College YouTube page. The SCR also benefitted students to the programme in the coming academic year. in 2024 from the arrival of our new Professorial Fellow in Linguistics, Professor Colin Phillips, whose inaugural lecture was One of the key means by which Somerville creates equality of the first to be held at Somerville in several years. opportunity is through scholarships. The Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust was established in 2013 to create a living Our academic policy, led by Senior Tutor Dr Steve Rayner, is legacy for Britain’s first woman prime minister by offering geared both to releasing the potential of Somerville students scholarships to the best students from around the world, and widening the opportunities for access to the University, irrespective of ideology, discipline or background. In this its particularly among underrepresented communities. Clear tenth year, the Trust was able to appoint its fiftieth scholar progress is being made in this work, with 73.4% of our thanks to the continued, transformative support of its patrons, admissions coming from state schools in the years 2021-23, donors and friends, some of whom I was able to catch up with compared to the university average of 68%. We recognise, during a visit to South East Asia earlier this year. The meeting however, that school type is an imperfect marker for was a happy reminder that, with every year that passes, the disadvantage, which is the key focus our access work seeks to MTST realises more fully its founding vision of creating a body redress. As such, our Access team remains focused on finding of scholars that will go into board rooms, courts, governments new ways to attract students with the highest academic and universities, to change the world for the better. potential from Minority Ethnic and non-traditional backgrounds, Free School Meal students and those from regions of low The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development has also progression to university. gone from strength to strength this year. Like the MTST, it appointed its fiftieth scholar in 2023-24, and we are currently Among several new Access initiatives focused on these student in the process of inaugurating several new scholarships, groups is the introduction of open days events curated for including an exciting gift agreement with Amee Parikh of specific minority audiences, such as Young Carers and BAME Amansa Capital that will bring four new scholars into the students. These have provided a valuable addition to our OICSD. Alongside the exceptional research our OICSD scholars existing strategies, including our work with Somerville’s regional produce, these ever-expanding partnerships are a token of the link areas and partnerships with outreach organisations such enduring bond between Somerville and India. That connection as Target Oxbridge, which works with Black and mixed-race received a particularly joyful boost in December, when the students with Black heritage to increase their chances of Somerville College Choir embarked on a tour of India. I was getting into Oxford and Cambridge. This year, I am delighted to fortunate to watch (and hear!) as our Choir wowed audiences say, one of our Target Oxbridge students, Sam Ajakaiye (2020, in Delhi, Goa and Mumbai with recitals of traditional Christmas History and French), achieved a First. Speaking about his music alongside several workshops for local children’s charities. 11