David Price (mineral physicist)

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David Price in 2016 LCN Event - David Price (29907061316).jpg
David Price in 2016

Geoffrey David Price OBE FGS (born January 12, 1956 [1] ) is a British earth scientist. He has been Vice-Provost (Research) of UCL (University College London) since 2007 and Professor of Mineral Physics in the UCL Department of Earth Sciences since 1991. Price has been responsible for promoting, supporting and facilitating UCL research, including securing the highest-quality research outputs across UCL, and leading the development and implementation of the UCL Research Strategy.

Contents

As a scientist, Price was one of the first to establish the now major field of computational mineral physics, and has published more than 250 research papers/chapters. His work has attracted over 13,000 citations, and has “Hirsch Index” of 66. [2]

Education and early career

Price is the son of the geologist, Neville J. Price. In 1974, prior to going to university, Price was an Assistant Scientific Officer at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, UK, researching dispersive Fourier transform spectroscopy. At the University of Cambridge, Price read Natural Sciences and graduated with a 1st Class Honours Bachelor of Arts from Clare College in 1977.

From 1977 to 1980, he was a Natural Environment Research Council Research Student at the University of Cambridge, and received a PhD in 1981; his doctoral thesis was entitled Aspects of Transformation Behavior in Olivine, Pyroxenes and Titanomagnetites. From 1980 to 1981, Price was a Fulbright-Hayes Scholar and Research Associate at the University of Chicago’s Department of the Geophysical Sciences, and, from 1981 to 1983, a Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge and Natural Environment Research Council Research Fellow, University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences.

In 1983, Price became a Royal Society University Research Fellow at UCL, where he has since held a variety of academic and management positions. He discovered the mineral Wadsleyite, [3] which is believed to make up part of the transition zone of the Earth’s mantle, from a depth of 400 km to 550 km. [4]

As UCL Vice-Provost (Research)

As UCL Vice-Provost (Research), Price is responsible to the UCL President and Provost for: promoting, supporting and facilitating UCL's research performance; leading the implementation of UCL's research strategy; leading UCL's preparation for future research assessment exercises; and the implementation of full economic costing for research and subsequently teaching. [5]

Other current appointments

Price's other current appointments include:

Honours

Price was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to science and research. [8]

Price has been elected to:

Price's other honours and awards include:

Previous UCL appointments

Price's implementation of the UCL Research Strategy

Price has led the development of three iterations of the UCL Research Strategy, in 2008, 2011 and 2019.

2008

In 2008, Price devised and introduced the first-ever UCL research strategy, Maximizing Impact and Influence Globally. It stated: “Universities are places “of light, of liberty and of learning”. They have the privilege of being able to play a central role in changing the world. Arguably, in the recent past, universities have not been seen major forces for social change. UCL’s new research strategy will help realise the radical vision of its founders, who, following [Jeremy] Bentham, believed that education, and hence universities, were the key to reform. … With its unique strengths and position, UCL has an opportunity and an obligation to develop and disseminate original knowledge to help provide solutions to the grand challenges faced by the world today and tomorrow.” [16]

The strategy's basis was that the collective expertise of the whole of UCL is greater than the sum of its subject-specific parts. By collaborating across disciplines, therefore, the university could address major problems most effectively.

2011

After publication of the 2011 version of the UCL Research Strategy, Times Higher Education described Price as asserting that, "since the Thatcher era, universities had adopted the prevailing political view of them as "the engines of the knowledge economy," leading them to neglect wisdom, which he defined as "the judicious application of knowledge for the good of humanity". He cited the huge increase in maize prices prompted by the staple food crop's use as a source of biofuel as a "classic case of the application of very clever knowledge without developing a wise way of introducing it". The problem, he said, was that few universities possessed the breadth of top researchers necessary to generate wisdom, which required the "synthesizing and contrasting of the knowledge, perspectives and methodologies of different disciplines"." [17]

The Times Higher Education article noted: "Another key concept in the research strategy is "leadership", which Professor Price distinguished from excellence on the grounds that it was active rather than passive. As well as being eminent researchers, their leadership obligations would also require senior UCL academics to "be putting back into their discipline by doing professional service, and into the institution by managing and developing strategic areas in their own departments and leading career development of younger colleagues". Younger academics, for their part, should be "developing their leading position in their subject and nurturing students". [17]

Price distinguished cross-disciplinarily – "between experts in different disciplines, transcending subject boundaries" – from "interdisciplinary generalism". [18] The Times Higher Education article stated: "Cross-disciplinary collaboration did not necessarily happen "naturally", and this was where Professor Price's office justified its existence - by organizing symposia, offering seed funding and even establishing cross-disciplinary institutes. "Some universities believe that just having excellence and enough people together [means] it will all happen. I believe excellence is a key thing, but you need also to give people a framework...to refer back to," he said. He said his approach was not "dirigisme", but that he hoped to create an ethos of collegiality in which collaboration became the norm. … "I am very happy to leave excellent people to get on alone, but we are providing them with an opportunity to do more." This was an opportunity that increasing numbers of UCL academics were taking up". [17]

Price instituted pan-institutional research themes, relevant across disciplinary boundaries, in order to facilitate cross-disciplinary community-building and collaboration. [19] He further enhanced UCL's cross-disciplinary capability by facilitating the foundation of thematic centres and networks, each bringing together a variety subject-specific expertise in order to address major problems with more sophistication. These included the UCL Computational Life & Medical Sciences Network, the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, the UCL Energy Institute, the UCL Environment Institute, the UCL European Institute, the UCL Genetics Institute, the UCL Institute for Global Health, the UCL Institute of Origins, the UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, UCL Systems Biology and the UCL Urban Laboratory. [20]

Price also conceived the UCL Grand Challenges – Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing – through which concentrations of specialist expertise are brought together to address aspects of the world's key problems. [21] The following were flagship UCL Grand Challenges initiatives:

2019

In the foreword to the 2019 UCL Research Strategy, Price wrote: “Regrettably, the key question for our generation of researchers has become: ‘How will society survive to the 22nd century?’ By survival, we do not mean simply the continued existence of the human race, but also of the environments, institutions, structures and values that underpin and enhance society and enable humanity to thrive. We also recognize the profound imperative to tackle the persistent injustices and inequalities in society today, and to help to deliver a more equitable future for all of humanity. … UCL is well-positioned to make major contributions to help humanity survive and prosper. This is due not least to our distinctive ability to sustain a breadth, depth and diversity of expertise and research across disciplines and methods. The purpose of this strategy is to enable UCL’s individual researchers and our research community as a whole to maximize their contribution to public good. I believe this also requires us to consider: how our research environment supports our researchers, both as individuals and collectively; the cultural and structural barriers we may need to overcome to achieve our ambitions; and how we can redefine traditional concepts of leadership, collaboration and research impact to reflect, enable and drive the vision, aims and objectives set out in this strategy." [32]

The strategy sets out a number of objectives in support of an overall aspiration: "We want to stimulate disruptive thinking across and beyond our university to transform knowledge and understanding, and to tackle complex societal problems. We wish to help to enable society not only to survive to the next century – an urgent challenge requiring unprecedented collective action and partnership – but also to thrive, so that the lives of future generations are worth living: prosperous, secure, engaged, empowered, fair, healthy, stimulating and fulfilling. As a community of scholars and those who support them, we must each focus our efforts, based on our founding values and driven by our intellectual curiosity, to be a force for positive social change. … This strategy seeks to enable and empower all our researchers to thrive as research leaders, providing opportunities for engagement and impact, while ensuring that they retain the freedom to steer their own course, experiment and develop in unique ways. We see this as crucial in order to maintain the richness and diversity of research at UCL." [32]

The strategy advocates three strategic aims:

These three strategic aims are reinforced by three cross-cutting themes:

Research policy

Price has advocated higher education policy reforms, including:

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References

  1. ↑ PRICE, Prof. (Geoffrey) David, Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012; online edn, Nov 2012 accessed 28 Sept 2013
  2. ↑ "Geoffrey David Price - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.co.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  3. ↑ "Mindat.org".
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Professor David Price CV" (PDF). UCL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  5. ↑ "Professor David Price – Vice-Provost (Research)". UCL. Archived from the original on 29 December 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  6. ↑ England, Higher Funding Council of. "Panel membership - REF 2021". Higher Education Funding Council for England. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  7. ↑ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/541338/ind-16-9-ref-stern-review.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  8. ↑ "No. 63918". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2022. p. N15.
  9. ↑ "AGU Fellows". AGU. Archived from the original on 2 February 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  10. ↑ "Directory of members as at June 2010" (PDF). Academia Europaea. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 February 2012.
  11. ↑ "Fellows list". MSA. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  12. ↑ "Louis Néel Medal". EGU. Archived from the original on 21 November 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  13. ↑ "Top 10 British Geologists". Independent on Sunday. 10 August 2003.
  14. ↑ "Murchison Medal". GSL. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  15. ↑ "Mineralogical Society - Schlumberger Medal". Mineralogical Society. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  16. ↑ "Maximising Impact and Influence Globally" (PDF). UCL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Jump, Paul (26 January 2012). "Renaissance man's word to the wise". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
  18. ↑ "Delivering a Culture of Wisdom: The 2011 UCL Research Strategy" (PDF). UCL.[ permanent dead link ]
  19. ↑ "UCL IRIS Research Themes". UCL. Archived from the original on 29 January 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  20. ↑ "UCL Academic Structure and Partnerships". UCL. Archived from the original on 26 November 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  21. ↑ "UCL Grand Challenges". UCL. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  22. ↑ "UCL Population Footprints". UCL. Archived from the original on 4 January 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  23. ↑ "Managing the health effects of climate change". The Lancet. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  24. ↑ "Sustainability and the Megalopolis: Facing the urban reality of the 21st century" (PDF). UCL Environment Institute. Retrieved 6 December 2011.[ permanent dead link ]
  25. ↑ "UCL Global Migration Symposia Series". UCL. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  26. ↑ "UCL Migration Week". UCL. Archived from the original on 18 March 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  27. ↑ "UCL Early Modern Exchanges". UCL. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  28. ↑ "UCL Institute for Human Rights". UCL. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  29. ↑ "UCL European Institute".
  30. ↑ "The Future of Healthcare in Europe". UCL. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  31. ↑ "Literature, Welfare and Wellbeing: The poetics of the Scandinavian welfare state". UCL. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  32. 1 2 3 "2019 UCL Research Strategy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 June 2020.
  33. ↑ Price, David (24 May 2011). "Research funding should reward excellence". London: Guardian Higher Education Network.
  34. ↑ Price, David (25 March 2011). "The case for research collaboration". UCL News. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  35. ↑ Price, David; Stephen Caddick (5 August 2010). "How to stay on top". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  36. ↑ Price, David (14 July 2011). "The secret to saving our universities". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  37. ↑ Cook, Chris. "cachef.ft.com/cms/s/0/463eb064-c759-11df-aeb1-Research 'treadmill' under attack". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
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