HEFCE Annual Conference 2012
Higher education: balancing public benefit and individual reward

Liam Burns, President, National Union of Students

Liam Burns, President of NUS, grew up in Fife. He graduated in Physics at Heriot-Watt University, where he was both the Students' Association Vice-President (Education & Welfare) and subsequently President. He went on to be elected as Depute President and President of NUS Scotland, before subsequently being elected as NUS UK President for 2011-12. Liam has been an Officer within the European Students' Union, and has been involved in quality assurance processes both on a national and European level through the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education and the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education.

As President of NUS, Liam is responsible for leading on the organisation’s Priority campaign, calling for reinvestment of public funding in tertiary education and an end to the current tuition fees regime. NUS itself is a confederation of over 200 students' unions across the UK, and represents over seven million students. It works to promote, defend and extend students’ rights as well as promoting strong and active students' unions.

Frances Cairncross, Rector of Exeter College, University of Oxford

Frances Cairncross became Rector of Exeter College in 2004. Previously she had been on the staff of The Economist for 20 years, most recently as management editor. She was on the staff of The Guardian from 1973 to 1984, and prior to that spent periods on the financial staff of The Times, The Banker and The Observer. She chaired the Economic and Social Research Council for six years until 2007, and was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (2005-06). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Policy, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Frances read Modern History at St Anne's college, Oxford, and holds an MA in Economics from Brown University, Rhode Island. She holds honorary degrees from Trinity College Dublin and the Universities of Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, City, Loughborough and Kingston.

Her latest book, The Company of the Future, was published in 2002 by Harvard Business School Press. In March 2003 she won the Institute of Internal Auditors' annual award for business and management journalism. Frances is also the author of The Death of Distance, a study of the economic and social effects of the global communications revolution, first published in 1997 and re-published in a completely new edition in 2001. She is a non-executive director of Stramongate Ltd, and a regular presenter of BBC Radio Four's Analysis programme. In 2004-05, she held the honorary post of High Sheriff of Greater London.

Professor Lord Winston, Imperial College and the Royal College of Music

Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London, is also Chairman of the Royal College of Music. He is Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, a member of the Council of the University of Surrey and was voted ‘Peer of the Year’ by his fellow Parliamentarians in June 2008.

As the first Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College London, Robert seeks to improve communication and public engagement with science, through a wide range of initiatives aimed at engaging pupils, students, teachers and the public in general, with science. He has won many prestigious awards and has been a visiting professor at a number of American, Australian and European universities. He is committed to scientific education and regularly writes or hosts popular science programmes for the BBC’s main channel and Discovery networks. Robert has published 14 books for lay readership and regularly gives seminars in schools and universities.

Robert speaks regularly in the House of Lords on education, science, medicine and the arts. He was Chairman of the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology 1999-2002, and is currently Vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

His interests include theatre, matters of Jewish interest, classical music, skiing and the wines of Bordeaux, especially Paulliac. Alongside his involvement with a number of UK charities he is on the Board of the Lyric Theatre, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a member of The Athenaeum and The Garrick Clubs, and the MCC.

Professor Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford

Rana has been fascinated by China since he was young, and studied Chinese at Cambridge. He went on to develop a particular interest in the connections between Chinese nationalism and the experience of war and occupation in the 20th century. He has written and edited several books and numerous academic articles on these subjects, and is now Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China and a fellow of St Cross College at Oxford University.

He was named Young Academic Author of the Year by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2005 for his book A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (OUP), which was also runner-up for the Longman History Today Book of the Year, a finalist for the British Academy Book Prize, and named a ‘must-read’ notable book on China by the journal Foreign Affairs. His most recent book is Modern China: A Very Short Introduction. He directs a multi-year interdisciplinary research programme at Oxford funded by the Leverhulme Trust on the experience, legacy and memory of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, and his new book on the subject is due to be published in 2013.

Rana is one of the regular presenters of Night Waves, Radio 3’s arts and ideas magazine. He has also presented The Sunday Feature on Radio 3 on topics including the contemporary legacy of Confucius in China and trends in new Russian cinema, and has contributed to programmes elsewhere on the BBC including The Forum (World Service) and The Moral Maze, Start the Week, and Today (Radio 4).