When Jim McDonald became principal of the University of Strathclyde his target was to make it into one of the world’s leading technological universities, ranking alongside Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, California, in the US.
Even though he is only two years in his post, Professor McDonald is well on the way to realising his ambition. “He is not just an expert in energy, he has lots of it too — and leadership,” a government admirer said.
Since taking over the Rolls-Royce chair of Electrical Power Systems at Strathclyde in 1994, he has built the department of electronic and electrical engineering into the largest such department in Europe and one that is regarded as probably the best in Britain.
Eight years spent working for South of Scotland Electricity Board and 15 years with Rolls-Royce at Strathclyde gave him an insight, perhaps unique among university principals, into how better collaboration could profit companies and academics.
He said: “For me, the opportunity was to capitalise on our reforged vision of being a technological university. I concentrated less on asking for donations and more on making a value proposition to our various funders, be they research council, industry or the Scottish government.”
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The department that Professor McDonald enhanced was instrumental in luring investment by SSE, Iberdrola (ScottishPower’s Spanish parent), Mitsubishi of Japan and Gamesa of Spain to locate design and development centres in Glasgow that are expected to employ about 1,200 people by the end of this year.
He believes that Strathclyde University and its private sector partners can transform the city.
He chairs the Glasgow Economic Commission. Of its vision, which will be published next month, he says: “It is about looking at Glasgow and the Greater Glasgow area in a way that would allow us to differentiate and promote what Glasgow is about both nationally and internationally.”