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Director, ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society
Professor Michael Keith has taken up the position of Director of the ESRC
Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS).
Formerly Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London,
and Director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research, he has also
been a politician in the East End of London for 20 years . At various times he has
served as leader of the Council in Tower Hamlets, chair of the Thames Gateway
London Partnership (2000–6) and Commissioner on the National Commission on
Integration and Cohesion (2006–7). His research interests focus on the interface between culture,
urbanism and migration and he is currently researching the politics of multiculturalism in relation to
changes in contemporary China.
BT Professor of Major Programme Management
Bent Flyvbjerg, Professor of Planning at the Department of Development and
Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark, and Chair in Infrastructure Policy and
Planning at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, has been appointed
to this post with effect from 1 April. He will also become a Fellow of St Anne’s
College.
Professor Flyvbjerg holds higher doctorates in engineering and in science from
Aalborg University and a PhD in Urban Geography and Planning from Aarhus
University, Denmark. He has twice visited the US as a Fulbright Scholar, working at UCLA, Berkeley
and Harvard. His main research interest is major programme management and planning, especially
causes and cures for the many problems that bedevil major programmes, for instance cost
overruns and benefit shortfalls. He also researches the philosophy of social science, where he has
pioneered a research methodology known as phronetic social science. He has worked as a policy
advisor to more than 40 public and private organisations including the EU, the UN, government,
auditors general, major banks and private corporations. His work covers both developed and
developing nations.
New Year
Honours
Four Oxford University
academics were recognised
in the New Year Honours,
announced on 31 December.
Duncan Gallie, Professor of
Sociology and Official Fellow
of Nuffield
College,
was made
a CBE for
services
to social
science.
Tony Venables, BP Professor
of Economics, Director of the
Oxford Centre for the Analysis
of Resource Rich Economies
and Fellow of
New College,
was also
made a CBE.
He is the
former Chief
Economist at
the Department for International
Development.
8
Professor of Botany and Sherardian Professor-elect
Liam Dolan, Project Leader in Cellular Development and Evolution in Plants, at
the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich,
and Honorary Professor of Biology, University of East Anglia, has been appointed
Professor of Botany with effect from 1 September. On the retirement of Professor
HG Dickinson, he will assume the Sherardian Professorship of Botany. He will
also be a Fellow of Magdalen College.
Following degrees in Botany at University College, Dublin, Liam Dolan gained
a PhD and undertook postgraduate research at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. In 1991 he
joined the John Innes Centre where his research has focused on deciphering the genetic basis of cell
differentiation in plants. This work has identified the evolutionary mechanisms that have moulded the
bodies of land plants since they first appeared on the planet 460 million years ago.
Professor Dolan’s work has made a major contribution to our understanding of how developmental
mechanisms operate in plants and in 2001 he was awarded the President’s Medal of the Society of
Experimental Biology. He is currently a visiting professor at both Comenius University in the Slovak
Republic and University College, Dublin.
ECI Director to advise US government
Professor Diana Liverman,
Director of the Environmental
Change Institute, has been
advise the US government on
responses to climate change.
The committee will bring
will coordinate four panels to
study global climate change,
including the science and
appointed to the new committee together 21 distinguished technology challenges involved
on ‘America’s Climate Choices’
convened
by the US
National
Academies at
scientists, political, civic and
business leaders to examine
the challenges of climate
change and provide advice on
the most effective steps and
in reducing emissions and
adapting to climate change.
Professor Liverman will be
Vice-Chair of the panel on
‘Informing effective decisions
Phil Sayer
Blueprint January 2009
the request of most promising strategies that and actions related to climate
Congress to can be taken to respond. It change’.
Mrs Rosemary Thorp, Reader
Emeritus in the Economics of
Latin America and Emeritus
Fellow of
St Antony’s
College, is
also made
a CBE. Mrs
Thorp was
Director of
Queen Elizabeth House, the
University’s Department of
International Development, in
2003–4.
Professor Arthur Stockwin,
the founding Director of the
Nissan Institute for Japanese
Studies, received an OBE for
services to
academic
excellence
and the
promotion
of UK–
Japanese
understanding. He is an
Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s
College.