HEFCE Annual Conference 2008

Tim Melville-Ross, Chair, HEFCE

Tim Melville-Ross joined the HEFCE Board in January 2008. He was appointed by the Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education to serve as Chair until December 2010.

Until joining HEFCE, Tim Melville-Ross chaired the Council of the University of Essex and continues to chair a number of companies. In addition, he is a member of the Institute of Business Ethics Advisory Council and recently chaired Investors in People UK. Previously, he was the Chief Executive of the Nationwide Building Society and Director General of the Institute of Directors.

Professor David Eastwood, Chief Executive, HEFCE

Professor David Eastwood became Chief Executive of HEFCE on 1 September 2006. He was previously Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Before taking up his position at UEA, Professor Eastwood was Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Board. Previously he held a Chair in Modern History at the University of Wales Swansea, where he was also head of department, dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor. While at Swansea he co-founded the National Centre for Public Policy.

He was fellow and senior tutor of Pembroke College (1988-95), and is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford, from where he graduated in 1980, and of Keble College, Oxford from 2006. Professor Eastwood was made an Honorary D. Litt of the University of the West of England in 2002 and the University of East Anglia in 2006.

Professor Eastwood has served on many national bodies and committees. Since 1991 Professor Eastwood has been a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, serving as its Literary Director from 1994-2000 and as chair of its Studies in History Board from 2000-04.

John Denham MP, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills

John Denham's career before he became a Member of Parliament included working at the British Council, War on Want, Christian Aid, Oxfam and other development agencies. This followed a period as president of the Students' Union at the University of Southampton.

John has served as MP for Southampton Itchen since 1992. Prior to being elected to Parliament John served as a Councillor, first at Hampshire County Council and then at Southampton City Council.

John's Commons career has included a period as Opposition Spokesperson for Social Security, and in government he has held a number of appointments as Under-Secretary and Minister of State. In June 2007, John was appointed by the current Prime Minister Gordon Brown to serve as Secretary of State to the newly formed Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, with overall responsibility for the Department.

John Denham is a Privy Counsellor.

Lord Dearing

Lord Dearing is probably best known for his inquiry into higher education funding. Known as the Dearing Report and published in 1997, the main conclusions were that universities faced serious funding problems, which would lead to a fall in the quality of both teaching and research in higher education if solutions were not found quickly.

He became a Peer in 1998 and last year completed a report for the Government on languages in schools with a recommendation that they become a part of the curriculum from age seven.

Lord Dearing is a graduate of the University of Hull and was a senior civil servant before becoming Chairman and Chief Executive of the Post Office.

Patrick Dunne, Group Communications Director, 3i

Patrick Dunne is responsible for 3i's external and internal communications.

Patrick joined 3i in 1985 and has had a wide and varied career, building up 3i's people programmes internationally and, more recently, as part of the senior team. He is a regular speaker and commentator on boardroom issues, including 'Managing Board Disharmony' and has written several books on the subject.

Before joining 3i he spent time in the chemical industry with Air Products and at Cranfield University getting his MBA. He is a member of the General Council of Warwick University, a Visiting Professor at Cranfield School of Management, a member of the CBI's London Council, and Chairman of Leap Confronting Conflict, the UK's leading charity in the field of conflict resolution for young adults.

Ann Finlayson, Commissioner for Education, Sustainable Development Commission

Ann Finlayson has worked in the environmental field for nearly 30 years, initially in forestry and micro-climate research in upland Britain. After a stint as a countryside ranger in Scotland, she began travelling the world teaching, facilitating and consulting in places such as Papua New Guinea, Australia and Canada.

On returning to the UK, she began work for WWF-UK as Professional Development Officer bringing together her experience of evaluation, learning methodologies, education for sustainable development, facilitation and adult learning. She was responsible for developing the online approaches to workshops, discussions and networks. As head of the Social Change department at WWF-UK from 2002 Ann took responsibility for driving forward strategy development in 'Learning for Sustainability' in the education sector, local government, community and business sectors both in the UK and overseas. She has a working knowledge of formal, informal and non-formal education and a broad global perspective on education. Ann is passionate about the role of learning in sustainability and for it to be about real people, real opportunities and real responsibilities.

Professor Sir Martin Harris CBE, DL, Deputy Chairman, North West Development Agency (NWDA), and Director of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA)

Sir Martin Harris is, in addition to his role as Deputy Chairman of NWDA and Director of OFFA, also Chairman of Manchester: Knowledge Capital and became Chancellor of the University of Salford in April 2005. He has been a Director of Universities Superannuation Scheme since 1 April 1991 and Chairman since 1 April 2006. By background a graduate of Cambridge and London in linguistics and philology, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester from 1992 to 2004 and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex from 1987 to 1992. He served as Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (now Universities UK) from 1997 to 1999. He has chaired a number of national reviews, in particular in the fields of modern languages, careers services and postgraduate education. He has recently been appointed President of Clare Hall, a postgraduate college of the University of Cambridge.

Sir Martin was knighted in the Millennial Honours List. He was made Hon FRCP and Hon FRSEd in 2006.

Gemma Tumelty, NUS President

Gemma Tumelty is President of the National Union of Students (NUS). While working towards her psychology degree at Liverpool John Moores University, she became involved in her students' union. For the last two years of her degree, Gemma was elected as a part-time NUS National Executive Committee member, leading on student housing and volunteering projects. While studying for her finals, she was elected as NUS National Secretary. Gemma was elected NUS President in 2006 and re-elected in 2007.

Gemma is the first NUS President from a post-1992 university to be elected and the seventh woman to be elected in NUS' 85-year history.

Ed Smith

Ed Smith was a governor of the University of North London and a member of the audit committee of the former Further Education Funding Council. In December 2007 he retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was Global Chief Operating Officer and Strategy Leader for Assurance.

Ed Smith chairs the HEFCE Board's Leadership Governance and Management Strategic Advisory Committee. He is also a trustee and the treasurer of The Work Foundation, deputy chair of the Managing Partners Forum and a Board member of Opportunity Now.

William Locke, Assistant Director, Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI)

William Locke is currently managing the UK part of the international study of the Changing Academic Profession and is co-editor of a book (2007) on the nature and extent of the changes experienced by the academic profession in recent years in 14 countries. William is author of several journal articles and reports on higher education and has spoken at national and international conferences.

Previous to working for CHERI he was Deputy Director, Policy Development, at Universities UK where he led on longer term strategy; learning, teaching and assessment; progress files, and personal development planning; student services; widening participation; and employability and careers education.

Line Verbik, Research Manager, Hobsons

Following an undergraduate degree in History and Russian at the University of Copenhagen and an MA in History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, Line Verbik worked as Information and Recruitment Officer at Imperial College London. In 2003, Line joined the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education where she was Deputy Director before taking up her position with Hobsons in 2007. Line's publications include reports on online learning, global trends in transnational higher education, national regulatory frameworks for the import of transnational education, the international branch campus, and international student mobility.