The University of Bath plans to become more entrepreneurial while expanding.
Glynis Breakwell, former pro vice-chancellor for research and enterprise at the University of Surrey, will start as Bath's new vice-chancellor next week. Her 20 years at Surrey coincided with its blossoming into one of the country's richest universities, with an impressive science park.
Professor Breakwell told The THES : "We need to make sure the University of Bath's success continues and to recruit excellent students and excellent staff. To do that, we have to consider our financial robustness. It is important that we have very strong exploitation of intellectual property.
"We recognise that the university will need to be relatively large to be financially viable. We are unable to develop more on the Claverton Down campus as we are starved of land. We need somewhere else."
Earlier this year, the university opened a campus in Swindon. The site, Oakfield, offers a community education programme and some postgraduate qualifications. Bath plans to establish a business incubator and to set up research centres on the site.
Professor Breakwell said: "Swindon has a commercial and healthcare base, and we can offer courses in health education, design aspects of engineering, and areas of law and creative arts such as music and its interface with technology. We have amazing opportunities to develop in Swindon. Oakfield is a campus of this university, and I hope there will be more."
Professor Breakwell joined Surrey from the University of Oxford in 1981 as a lecturer in social psychiatry. She rose to become pro vice-chancellor in 1995. As vice-chancellor of Bath, she becomes the second female vice-chancellor of a pre-1992 university. Her predecessor, David VandeLinde, was the 15th highest paid institutional head in the most recent survey by The THES .