{"id":96,"date":"2014-12-01T11:52:14","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T11:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/athenaswan-news\/?p=96"},"modified":"2014-12-01T11:52:14","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T11:52:14","slug":"dame-julia-goodfellow-to-be-the-first-female-universities-uk-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/athenaswan-news\/?p=96","title":{"rendered":"Dame Julia Goodfellow to be the first female Universities UK President"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow has been elected President of Universities UK (UUK) for 2015 \u2013 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Gary Hughes<\/p>\n

Dame Julia was elected following a ballot of UUK members. She will succeed the current President, Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey, on 1 August 2015 and will hold the post for two years until July 2017.<\/p>\n

Dame Julia has been Vice-Chancellor of Kent since 2007. She is a board member ofUUK <\/i><\/a>, and was appointed to both the Science and Technology Facilities Council <\/i><\/a>and Prime Minister\u2019s Council for Science and Technology <\/i><\/a> in 2011.<\/p>\n

Before joining Kent, Dame Julia was Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) which she joined from Birkbeck College where she had been Professor of Biomolecular Science, and Vice-Master. She was the first woman to become Chief Executive of any of the UK Research Councils.<\/p>\n

Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of UUK, said: \u2018Julia is widely respected both in her academic field, and as successful university leader who brings with her a wealth of knowledge about the higher education sector. We look forward to working with her during what promises to be a challenging two years following the general election. Further public spending cuts, immigration, membership of the European Union and student funding and fees are all likely to be high on the political agenda and will have an impact on universities.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dame Julia said: \u2018I am honoured to have been elected as the next president of UUK.\u00a0 I look forward to working with all the university sector to ensure that its strengths are recognised.\u00a0 This is a time of\u00a0 unprecedented change and UUK needs to play a key role in ensuring that the value of the sector is recognised.\u00a0 It will be a pleasure to work with Nicola and her colleagues.\u2019<\/p>\n