Ross Clark

Ross Clark in office space


Ross Clark and the Robotarium

Creating connections through crisis 

A crisis can often bring out the best in people, from a small act of compassion to breaking down barriers to allow better collaboration.

Ross Clark

As we emerge from the challenges of the last year, I hope we can reflect on the experience and retain some of the positive changes. This could be more flexibility at work or spending more time outdoors, particularly in our own local communities. Although many of these adjustments have come out of necessity rather than design, we should ensure the impact continues to be beneficial. 

A crisis can often bring out the best in people, from a small act of compassion to breaking down barriers to allow better collaboration. Although things have felt overwhelming at times, new connections were still created, and relationships formed. These are things that bring us together. Hopefully, these new online discussions can be reinforced with an in-person coffee soon! 

You can sense the appetite for getting things done in 2021.   

We will see the National Robotarium build momentum across the next year towards our opening in early 2022. The new £22.4M centre is one of the data-driven innovation hubs which are central to the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal and builds on our existing academic expertise and industry partnerships in robotics and artificial intelligence. 

EXPO 2020 Dubai kicks off in October where, as partners at the UK Pavilion, we will showcase the best of what we can offer on a world stage. Our focus on our zero-carbon future and future skills will help shape the conversation. 

The sustainable success of both programmes will be driven by people and the strong stakeholder relationships that have been formed. Opportunities to deliver success are still there – they might look a bit different but that shouldn't stop us identifying common goals amongst our colleagues and partners.