
3 minute read
TOP FOR AGRICULTURE, EQUINE AND SPORT
By Ian Mean,
Hartpury University and Hartpury College is becoming something of an educational powerhouse with a clear commercial and business focus for its students.
It's impressive, with an excellent corporate identity and a new Vice-Chancellor, Principal and CEO to match.
Professor Andy Collop, 56, has an engineering background – not the fit you might expect for a man running what is primarily an agricultural and equine training centre with elite sport as part of a great mix of career opportunities for young people.
I put him under the microscope with some key questions:
What does Hartpury stand for and what are its unique selling points?
“One of the things that attracted me to Hartpury was its specialist nature and it does focus in five areas – animal, agriculture, equine, veterinary nursing and sport. We strive to be excellent in those five areas.
“We have tangible USPs. In equine, we are certainly the country’s leading provider of equine training and arguably one of the leading providers in Europe.
“It is equine training in the broadest sense
– whether it’s at degree level and anything from running racecourses to running yards. We are the biggest in the UK, and arguably in Europe, training students in this area.
“The facilities here are outstanding – there is no comparable facility in the UK. There may be one or two in Europe but not many. That puts us in a unique position to positively influence developments in the equine industry.
“There is no other university in the country that students can go and play championship rugby. That dual career pathway for sport is really important to us.
“We don’t focus on every sport – we concentrate on 10 or so areas. But we try and achieve excellence in those 10 areas.
“We focus on football, rugby and rowing and other sports where we can generate that excellence. We want to attract students who want to play at an elite level while appreciating sport can be a fickle area and they may need to have an academic qualification to fall back on.”
Agriculture is a very important sector in Gloucestershire’s economic growth-how can you help enhance that?
“The roots of Hartpury are in agriculture – that’s how it was set up after the war and I think there are some very interesting developments in agritech. I am an engineer and there is a lot of overlap between engineering and agritech.
“We have our own farm which is a fantastic base to allow us to try things and experiment.
“If we can collaborate with other places who may have computer science expertise I can see a lot of potential there.
“So, I think agritech for us and digital farming is going to be one of our USPs. I am quite excited about it.
“I am an engineer and engineering is all about problem solving – it’s a skill set that is quite useful.
“One of the things we can do is bring together some of the different components. A good example of that is our agritech centre which has pulled together a list of hundreds of farms.
“Individually, they might be small but it is easier to talk to them collectively to help them understand.
“This is a challenging sector—it is about the next generation and grasping new technology. One of our greatest strengths is making sure we have work-ready 16-18-year-olds for farming.”
Is there room for more co-operation between Hartpury and the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester?

“We have complementary expertise and should collaborate because no one institution has all the answers to solve the problems,” said Andy.
“It is about where the complementary areas are that you can develop. For me it’s about an opportunity to work together.
“From small seeds you grow these collaborations—I am very happy to find these areas of overlap with the Royal Agricultural University and the University of Gloucestershire.
“What gets me up in the morning is the knowledge that I have the ability to influence education for young people.
“I want to set them on what is hopefully a fruitful path to their future career.
“We are educating tomorrow’s generation”.
• Professor Andy Collop was at Leicester de Montfort University for more than 11 years before becoming Hartpury’s Vice-Chancellor, Principal and Chief Executive Officer.
• He has his own horse, Duffy, that is stabled at the farm, “an opinionated mare”, according to Andy.
• Hartpury has an annual turnover approaching £50 million and 4,600 students.
• Home Farm is 113-hectares with 220 Holstein-Friesian cows as well as the Agritech Centre and Tech Box Par –-part of the Digital Innovation Farm.
• A new £12.75 million university learning hub is being built for undergraduate and post graduate students.