David Cardwell

DAVID CARDWELL INTERVIEWED BY ALAN MACFARLANE 15TH MAY 2024

[Please note that David Cardwell made substantial alterations to the original transcript, so this transcript does not parallel the filmed interview]

AM
So it's a great pleasure David to have a chance to talk to you. I always start by asking people when and where they were born?
DC
Yes, good question, I can just about remember! 18th November 1960, born in Darley Dale, near Matlock in Derbyshire and then moved to Langley Mill, also in Derbyshire, when I was seven year old with my parents.
AM
Right, Matlock in Derbyshire, right. And then something about your parents, grandparents, how they influenced you. So were any grandparents particularly important?
DC
My grandparents originate from the North-East, moved down to Yorkshire and had my father. I can't remember much about my maternal grandparents, only my paternal grandparents. I was an only child and grew up in Youlgreave in the middle of Derbyshire. My father was a social worker and a huge, very positive influence on my life and basically led me to believe I could do whatever I wanted to do. I had very good parents, excellent role models. But growing up was quite difficult. We lived on a council estate in Langley Mill for much of my life, which was mainly a small mining town. My school year was the first year to go comprehensive (in 1975) so had I been a year older I'd have gone to grammar school. As a result, I found myself at a comprehensive school where they'd never sent anybody to university before - I had to learn the hard way. Fortunately, I played football and that aided my acceptance into a community of children from predominantly relatively low-income mining backgrounds.
AM
Did you take 11+?
DC
I took, and passed, 11+, but that meant I would have to travel three or four hours a day to school, with two or three bus changes. The nearest grammar school taking 11+ students in 1971 was 25 miles from where I lived and then, by the time the 13+ came around, grammar schools had been abolished and it was no longer available. I did have a place at grammar school when I was 11 but my parents took the bold decision to send me to the local comprehensive instead (which turned out to be inspired).
AM
Right, tell me something about your parents, what was their character and what did they do?
DC
My Dad, Bill, was in the Navy during the war, serving as a medical officer. He became an engineer when he was discharged and then, subsequently, a social worker, which he always said was a combination of his engineering skills and what he'd learnt when he was in the Navy. He did a degree when he was aged 42 at Manchester. He'd travel from Youlgeave to Manchester three times a week to do his degree whilst he was being an employed social worker. I remember that time well, I was a young boy, five or six at the time and even then thought it was pretty impressive to work so hard and get a degree whilst coping with all the pressures of a young family and having been out of formal education for so long. He was a very articulate man, and very able in languages. He was a real Germanophile and, before he died in 2014, he had an analogue satellite dish at his house on which he’d German only tv programmes. It seemed that every time we went to his house there'd be a programme on in German, and occasionally he'd speak to us in German and forget that we were actually English and that we didn't understand German!
AM
It's quite interesting given that he must have fought against the Germans.
DC
He did, yes. He and my Mum, Margaret, bought a motorbike and toured Germany after the war (she chose it because of the colour!). They started at the source of the Rhine and followed it along its course and it was a result of that trip that he became a Germanophile.
AM
And your mother?
DC
My mother, also spent her lifetime in social care, mainly residential care. She was a matron at an old people's home in Heanor, Derbyshire, and was very passionate about helping people. It was a pretty selfless life. She was a very determined woman and you probably wouldn't want to cross her. But she made sacrifices to care for other people throughout her life. She was part of a very big family with seven brothers and sisters whereas my Dad was an only child and I ended up being an only child as well. So very different experiences in upbringing. When you're one of eight you don't get much attention from your parents, so I think she become very resourceful and focused out of necessity, which she turned, ultimatey, to the good of others.
AM
When you were say five, six, seven, eight, did you have any particular hobbies or passions?
DC
I was passionate about football, chess and swimming. My Dad's best friend was an accomplished chess player and I spent hours playing chess with him. I did the same with my oldest son, Mark, and now his son, and my grandson, Oliver. He's just seven and is about to beat me at chess for the first time, so there's a legacy there. But my real passion remains to be football and for Derby County, in particular. I don’t care who beats Notts Forest.
AM
And going around the lovely Derbyshire countryside?
DC
Yes, it's hard to leave Derbyshire. I lived close to Lathkill Dale, which is probably one of the most beautiful places on earth - not that I'm biased! My wife, Sharon, is from Derbyshire as well. We met at school, and we speculate that one day we may go back. We've got one remaining relative there and the two best men at our wedding still live where we grew up, although the links are coming a bit more dilute.
AM
Interesting. So when you went to the comprehensive school, you were about 11, is that right?
DC
I was, yes.
AM
And through that school were there any particular teachers who influenced you?
DC
Massively. My English teacher Mr Grout was an extraordinary man. He identified 20 people who should take O-level English a year early. Now bear in mind this school had just turned comprehensive and had never previously offered an O-level at all for anybody, so the year above me were the first students doing O-levels. I was in that very first cohort of students that did O-level Maths and English, but a year younger along with 14 other students. We did both language and literature, which, for me, was liberating. And I remember being slightly in awe of myself, which sounds a very conceited thing to say, but I just couldn't believe I'd actually passed an O-level when I was just over 15. That gave me confidence and set me up to succeed academically.
AM
But you also took maths a year early, so have you always been a good mathematician?
DC
I've always loved maths always. You either have a deep passion for maths or you don't. There's an elegance in the subject that is about as close to an absolute unchallengeable truth as you can possibly get. You can draw a line under a problem and say there you go “QED”. And I still get that kick out of it. Pure maths is probably where it's at, but my maths is more now applied. Maths is a tool to help solve engineering problems with actually only a little bit of mathematics. But that formed me. The big thing that changed during my life was at school I wanted to do a PhD in chemistry. Looking back, it seems ridiculous that I went to a comprehensive school with no experience of sending students to university and had already decided that I wanted to do a PhD by the age of 15 (which was met with some derision I should say). Then I did A-levels in chemistry, maths, physics and further maths where two more teachers, Mr German for Physics and Mr Bailey for Maths, had a profound impact on my studies (both teachers were invited to my wedding in 1982). Mr German was particularly young and vibrant, introduced me to the de Broglie wavelength, by giving a cricket ball a wavelength. I remember it to this day - it blew me away. I thought anything that can take something that's as common as a cricket ball and describe it as a quantum mechanical phenomenon has to be the thing to study. Mr German then challenged me to perform Millikan's experiment, which involves putting an electric charge onto a droplet of oil, which is injected into in an electric field. The field is then increased and the droplet accelerates either upwards or downwards depending on the field direction. There’s effectively a one in two chance of success. If the charge is right, relative to the direction of the applied field, it can be suspended in the field of view (the weight balances exactly the electrostatic force), and the applied voltage can be used to estimate the size of the charge on the droplet. This has to be an integral multiple of the fundamental charge on an electron, so you look for a common denominator in multiple measurements. If you get the direction of the field wrong, the droplet accelerates immediately out of the field of view. I remember spending many lunch breaks in a darkened room first of all trying, and failing, to generate a droplet and then applying a field, by chance, in the right direction. So, the ultimate elation of getting the droplet in view and then instant disappointment on losing it was a real roller-coaster. Eventually, I got it right and I was in awe of a simple droplet of oil hovering in front of my eyes. In the end I was able to measure the field and estimate the charge on the electron to within about twenty percent. Ken German, now lives in Spain - I'm still in contact with him. That experiment certainly motivated me!
AM
At that school, certainly when I went to school about the age of 14-15 I was confirmed into the Church of England and in the subsequent few years was my most religious period. Did you go through any kind of religious thing?
DC
Not really, infrequent attendance at Sunday School from the age of about eight or nine to about nine or ten was as close as I came. But my parents were very open-minded. I was able to make choices throughout my childhood, so I wasn’t pushed. I can't say I was ever particularly religious - my grandparents weren't religious, either, so I think it was ordained fairly early on that I’d be atheist.
AM
And since then you haven't had much interest in?
DC
No. Christian values are important to me, but I'm not a practising Christian.
AM
Were there any other things at that school that you got really involved with like acting or political activities?

DC
No political activities. My school was a comprehensive school. I left at the age of 16 and went directly to sixth form college in another town, which was a completely different environment. All of a sudden I knew relatively few people (most students at my school didn’t go on to take A-levels), whereas before that I knew virtually everyone in my school year group. Playing football for the school and the college played a large part in my life. I did a bit of acting at school but none at college. I passed my driving test when I was 17 and discovered girls and pubs, so things changed for me pretty rapidly at that time.

AM
And then why did you come to Cambridge?

DC
My undergraduate and graduate degrees were both at Warwick.

AM
Oh yes, that's right.

DC
I did my undergraduate degree in Physics and a substantially theoretical PhD, also in Physics. I had a young family by then, two small boys Mark and James, so I needed a job. My PhD supervisor, Malcolm Cooper, advised me to apply for no more than three jobs. I knew better and applied for seven, all of which I got. But it was exhausting (Malcolm was right!). In the end, took a job at Plessey Research (Caswell) in Towcester because we could afford our first house in nearby in Northampton and it paid a relatively good salary. By coincidence, high temperature superconductors were discovered within five months of me joining Plessey and I was given the project to run, part of which was a collaboration with Cambridge. A position soon came available in Cambridge and I was approached, so, after six and a half years in industry, I ended up here as an ADR, an Assistant Director of Research, at Cambridge, which is essentially a lectureship in research, with the promise of a permanent academic position if it went well. Two Heads of Department later, I became a bit nervous but David Newland, the then Head of Department, honoured the promise and the rest as you say is history. I have no idea how I ended up as PVC and Head of Department. I never planned for it. But, clearly, serendipity played its part.

AM

Well going back to Warwick, were there any teachers there who particularly inspired you?

DC

I was fortunate to be taught by many aspirational teachers. By then I’d been on a real learning journey and was completely pro-establishment by the time I arrived at Warwick. When you're in the last years of school or doing A-Level I think there’s a tendency to be a little anti-establishment because everybody seems to be, but by the time you arrive at university you're there because you want to be. My PhD supervisor, Malcolm Cooper, taught the nuclear energy course in my first term at Warwick and was my personal tutor, so I effectively stayed with him for the full six years and my studies, one way or another. He ended up as Head of Department. He finished being Head of Physics at Warwick just as I was promoted to Head of Engineering and I think he took some pride in that. He was a fellow of Clare College, here.

AM
So he was here.

DC
Yes.

AM
And what did you draw from your time at Plessey?

DC
I think my time at Plessey was transformative. I'd gone from a very free PhD academic environment, where I could do virtually what I wanted within reason, to an environment that was then project driven rather than people driven. Companies exist because they make a profit. The option of doing something nice but making a loss is simply not an option. So, all of a sudden, I found myself doing project-driven research and that meant I had no, or at least very little, choice in the field of work. I could choose between the projects available, but I couldn't define them. The project deliverables were always very well-defined. I had to write proposals to raise funds based on market demand, which then was mainly from the Ministry of Defence (RSRE, ironically, where I’d also been offered a job at the end of my PhD). I learned an awful lot during my time in industry. I became a lot more efficient and extremely well organised (almost clinically well-organised), which were the two main things I took into my academic life. If somebody were to ask me my greatest strength, it would be organisation.

AM
What's the secret of your organisation?

DC
I think not putting off anything. I keep a record of everything, from compiling a simple expense claim and tax records as I go using a spreadsheet to more complicated and challenging tasks such as managing a student’s thesis, planning experiments and meeting grant and paper deadlines.

AM
Would you describe yourself as a workaholic?

DC
My wife, Sharon, would.

AM
Yes that's what I was wondering.

DC
Yes, I do work hard, and occasionally to the point of exhaustion, but there is discipline there as well. I take at least one day, a full day, off every week. We have four grandchildren now, and more recently, I've been taking off the entire weekend, even though I seem to be working as hard as ever as PVC. I'm currently transitioning to not being PVC and there's a real potential danger there, a cliff edge in effect, which is why I'm re-establishing my historical interests in Southeast Asia. I'm determined to leave legacies that do good, which perhaps we can talk about later. I’m currently planning for two years sabbatical leave, which will be focused on Southeast Asia and how I can build on what I've been doing over the past 25 years.

AM
Yes, let's come to that in a moment but in terms of your life, the bit about superconductivity and you're probably the person I can ask where how close are we to room temperatures?

DC
That question is probably impossible to answer. But I don't think it's the right question to ask, with all due respect. Although a material can superconduct, it doesn't necessarily mean it has good or useful properties. Although a room temperature superconductor would be an extraordinary breakthrough and might help us understand the theory, from an applied point of view, and specifically the ability to carry electrical current and to generate a large magnetic field, the best materials we have currently are still those that were discovered way back in 1987 (when I was at Plessey). So, although there have been higher temperature superconductors discovered since then, their physical properties are not as good, which means you can't do useful things with them such as magnetic levitation, energy generation and transmission and MRI. It’s as though Nature teases you, but then makes you do with what you already have.

AM
What were those materials?

DC
Rare-earth barium copper oxides (RE-BCO), which are complex cuprates with the properties of ceramics, so they're brittle and break easily. They don't have metallic properties, which is what you want ideally in order to form them into useful shapes, such as wires and tapes. We make large chunks of them, effectively in the form of large, individual grains. We then apply and remove a large magnetic field, which is then effectively trapped in the material when it’s removed. These extraordinary materials require no power input in a steady state following magnetisation to retain their trapped field and simply need only to be kept cold (at liquid nitrogen temperatures of –196°C, so, pretty cold). In fact, my research group holds the world record, set in 2014, for magnetic field trapped by a bulk superconductor of 17.3 tesla. In terms of energy density, weight for weight, that’s more than 10% of that of TNT, which gives you an idea of just how much energy there is just in a small, disc-shaped sample of diameter less than 25 mm (roughly around the same amount of materials you’d find in a golf ball). Bulk superconductors are potentially important, therefore, in the fight against climate change.

AM
Are the rare earth materials found somewhere like China?

DC
Rare earth elements are mined extensively in China, although these constitute typically only one eleventh of the elements in a RE-BCO bulk superconductors, which makes their supply less critical. But rare earth elements are expensive and do contribute significantly to the cost. Platinum's also involved in the processing of bulk superconductors, which is much more expensive and adds to the cost more significantly. So, the issue is really how to eliminate platinum for the processing, rather than substituting for the rare earths.

AM
Will there be any further major breakthroughs in the next five, ten years do you think?

DC
I have to say yes, but those breakthroughs will be in performance of the materials we have rather than the discovery of new materials. As I said, our materials generate at least 10 times the field of a permanent magnet, such as iron. Energy density and levitation force, which are more useful applied measurements, increase as the square of the field, which is 100 times the energy density of iron, for example, which representants considerable potential for new technology that isn’t available by any other means. The breakthroughs will be developments such as the levitation of trains over long distance tracks and improved, cheaper and more widely available MRI that we don't see now. There'll also be applications in detection of microwaves, and, perhaps, quantum computing. Overall, I anticipate steady, incremental progress rather than major breakthroughs, but the next five years are looking good.

AM
You mentioned that you hadn’t planned to become Pro Vice-Chancellor. Did you hesitate before you accepted?

DC
I did, yes. Before becoming PVC I was Head of Engineering. I feel I’ve rather stumbled from one job into another at Cambridge, and sometimes fairly naively, at that. I was admissions tutor at Fitzwilliam College for 13 years, which exposed me to international recruitment, in parallel with running a large research group (I currently published more than 400 papers). The one thing I didn’t have was experience in managing graduates, other than my own PhD students. I remember passing the Head of Department on the corridor and him saying “Oh, by the way, we're looking for a new Deputy Head of Department to look after graduates. I think you would be great - would you consider it?”. Of course, I said I would. It seemed the obvious thing to do to be honest, even though I didn't actually know either what it involved or, indeed, that I’d be paid extra for it! It's a great source of hilarity to people who know me that I only found this out when I received my pay cheque after appointment. I mentioned it to the then Head of Department who told me “It was in the letter”, which I clearly hadn't read properly. I ended up doing two stints as Deputy Head. I'd been on the recruitment panel for Ann Dowling’s appointment who was my predecessor as Head of Department. To my surprise, I wasn’t on the panel to recruit her successor when it was announced. And I remember asking the chair of the appointments committee what I’d done wrong, given my involvement in Ann’s appointment. She tried to explain to me there was a reason why I hadn't been included. In the end, she had to spell out that she thought I’d be a candidate - I was rather shocked that anybody would think I'd make a good Head of Department! What followed was an extraordinary amount of overwhelming support, which really took me by surprise. As a result, I decided to put myself forward and was subsequently appointed. And one of the things I could do in a role like that is action the things that frustrated me as a rank-and-file academic in the Department. One of which was relocating the entire Engineering Department from Trumpington Street to West Cambridge, which had been debated for years and was a huge decision at the time. The legacy of that decision, which we’re still trying to achieve, has been inherited by my successors. I was encouraged to apply for a vacant PVC role during my initial tenure as Head of Department, which I’d resisted given that I was midway through a large and important project. It was shortly afterwards that I agreed to do a second term as Head of Department, however, that a second PVC position became available, and again I was encouraged to apply. This particular role, with responsibility for strategy and planning, seemed to dovetail much better with my experience and expertise, so I decided to apply. I have to say, however, that this did put me in a very difficult position having just agreed to extend my tenure as Head of Department and I did have a sense of letting people down, which weighed rather heavily on me. I was subsequently interviewed for the PVC role and was offered the position. As a result, I had to write to members of the Engineering Department with profound apologies and sorrow but explaining I felt it was time to move on. I don’t regret this decision because, again, I've had the opportunity to address issues in the university that had bothered me as Head of Department. One of them was the financial management of the university, which always made little sense to me. To cut long story short, following six years of formulating a better financial system and changing the culture within financial management right across the university, we're about to transition to enhanced financial transparency (EFT), which is completely sensible and really moves the university forward into the 21st century. Looking back, achieving this was probably against the odds given the resistance to change at Cambridge. But being PVC has enabled me to drive forward the program for financial reform academically. We have an outstanding and impressively able finance division who've done all the hard work, with me as merely the figurehead. But we are now going to deliver that program, which will be a nice legacy. In addition, we have completely overseen and changed how we manage estates over the past five years over which I’ve also been the academic lead. And we’re on the cusp of starting work on two new hospitals in which I've also played a key role. Being PVC has given me a huge opportunity to address a number of major development issues right across the university that, with the help of some very able colleagues, I’ve achieved during my PVC tenure. Looking back, it’s clear that I’ve planned very little in terms of the progression of my career, and here I am having spent the past decade as a senior member of the university in one leadership role or another. It's been an exhausting 10 years, but very rewarding. I certainly don't regret a minute of it.


AM
And how did you get involved with Asia, Southeast Asia?

DC
I became admissions tutor at Fitzwilliam way back in 1999. Given my background of studying at a comprehensive school and a redbrick university, my experience of Cambridge was close to zero. In fact, the only time I'd visited Cambridge before 1987 was to see a football match! Many colleges would not have given me so much responsibility so quickly, but Fitzwilliam make me a fellow and supervisor, a tutor within three years, and admissions tutor within five years. It was clear that Fitz was a unique college but that it struggled to compete with the older and more established colleges for good undergraduate students. As a result, I needed to identify a source of students that would improve the academic performance of the college and the obvious thing was to look overseas. At that time the university had no educational presence in Mainland China whatsoever, absolutely none. Kelvin Bowkett from Christ’s college led a team of interviewers to Singapore and Malaysia each year but not to China. So, I went on a fact-finding mission to the Mainland in 2001, attending education exhibitions in Dalian and Shenyang. An organisation called Ambright, with whom I still work, organised my visit and this was to be the start of a very successful and mutually beneficial collaboration. I was exposed to some extraordinary students during that initial visit, studying mainly at traditional Chinese, Gaokao schools. It was clear to me that the quality and potential for recruitment to Cambridge undergraduate courses was immense. So, I went back the following year with Kelvin Bowkett. I'd agreed to join the interview team in Singapore and Malaysia, with Kelvin, in turn, joining me in China to interview 20 potential engineers as part of the pilot undergraduate recruitment project. Although the standard was variable, there was more than enough evidence that the potential was considerable, confirming the conclusions from my earlier visit. The applications we received at that time were extraordinary for many reasons. Some included swimming certificates from the age of four because students simply didn't know what was required of their applications, and nobody was there to advise them. But what came out of that was four or five extraordinary students. To cut a long story short, we decided that China should be on the main recruitment route, so the Malaysia/Singapore trip was extended. Before Covid-19, we were sending nine interviewers every year to mainland China to interview students for every Tripos and for every college. So the number of students we interviewed in mainland China went from zero to around 1000 over a 10-year period, half of which were studying typically at schools offering international curricular and the other half at traditional Gaokao schools. The relationship with Ambright went from strength to strength. The Gaokao examination, which is designed specifically for entrance into Chinese universities, is not particularly appropriate or suitable for establishing the academic potential of students applying to UK universities, and to Cambridge, in particular. As a result, working with Ambright, we have now developed our own subject based tests in six specific subjects, all of which are based on Gaokao curricular, to give more a reliable, objective and consistent measure of the technical ability of potential undergraduate students from Mainland China. The so-called aptitude scholastic tests (ASTs) are now being used by more than 50 universities worldwide as part of their undergraduate admissions process. Cambridge, itself, received a record number of applicants from students taking the AST’s last year and in due course, made record number of offers to students from traditional Gaokao schools. The one piece of the jigsaw that's missing is funding for these students and I'm in the middle of trying to raise scholarships for 50 students from modest financial backgrounds in China. These funds will be managed entirely through the Cambridge Trust, and entirely independently of me. I'm specifically targeting Hong Kong Chinese citizens who, so far, have been very generous in funding these scholarships anonymously. We call them the China Dragon scholarships and 50 of them will be a game changer. So, not only will these students from challenging financial backgrounds receive good admissions advice through Ambright on how to apply, what's expected from the admissions process how to prepare and an assessment test in which the university has confidence, but they will ultimately be funded as well, which is very satisfying. To go from no funding to 50 fully funded scholarships a year in 25 years would be a significant achievement. Everything I do in China is in the best interest of the students, and particularly in those of limited financial means.

AM
We're coming towards the end of the time and you don't need to answer this next question but I was having lunch with the education secretary from the embassy yesterday and she's very worried about the current British attitude, and as you know the Vice-Chancellor has been summoned in by MI5 to enquire about Chinese influence in universities and so on. Are you worried about the situation?

DC
Personally, I'm not. I've given talks to over 40 schools in China over the past two years, including to schools that offer both international curricular and to traditional Chinese Gaokao curricular. The passion for I’m overseas undergraduate education within those schools is as high as it’s ever been. Of course, either Chinese or UK government intervention could change that fairly rapidly, but my current assessment is that I've never seen more enthusiasm for international study from within China. I should add that my involvement and my presentations at schools are completely non-political. They're done from the premise of helping young people make the best decisions for them, in close collaboration with school teachers and parents. The best decision for a given student may, indeed, be to stay in China and study at a Chinese university. My job is merely to help inform their decision so they take these with their eyes open. Of course, there would be a threat should there be change in either UK or Chinese government policy, but in the meantime I'm going to continue to give what I think is good, unbiased advice in the best interests of young people. And if something changes that's beyond my control, then so be it. But, until it does, I'm continuing on this non-political mission of informing young people to the best of my ability.

AM
Well I think we should stop there but I would like to put on film our gratitude to you for all the work you've done for the University. I've been here even more years than you have and written many books about Cambridge and China and I can see that I just do a tiny bit on the surface, but you've done a great deal. So thank you very much.

DC
Well thank you too. We all do what we can, don't we, and we're all in this together.