Sir George Peter Scott FAcSS (born 1 August 1946) [1] [2] is a British educationalist and the former Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University in Kingston upon Thames in southwest London.
Scott studied modern history as an undergraduate at Merton College, Oxford and was a visiting scholar and at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Public Policy under a Harkness Fellowship. [3] He then worked as a leader writer for The Times , [4] and began writing for the Times Higher Education Supplement in 1971. He went on to serve as its editor from 1976 until 1992 when he was appointed Professor of Education at the University of Leeds and Director the university's Centre for Policy Studies in Education. [5] He also served as the university's Pro Vice-Chancellor from 1995 to 1997. He concurrently served on the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct from 1994 to 2000, and later was the vice-chairman (and acting chairman during the interregnum between the resignation of Lord Steyn and the appointment of Lord Nicholls, both Law Lords). [6] [5]
Scott was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University in 1997 and took up his post there in January of the following year. [7] He holds strong views about the need for administrators rather than academics to govern the activities of universities, calling administrators the "key profession" in higher education in his April 2009 speech to the annual conference of the Association of University Administrators. [8] In May of that same year the World Intellectual Property Organization rejected a complaint by Scott that an internet domain name—sirpeterscott.com—registered by a former Kingston University lecturer constituted a trademark owned by him (Scott) and that the lecturer did not have the right to use it. [9] [10] The lecturer was subsequently convicted of harassing Scott via the website; [11] the conviction was later set aside, and he was acquitted in a re-trial. [12] [13] [14]
Scott stepped down as Vice-Chancellor of Kingston at the end of 2010 (six months before he was due to retire) to become Professor of Higher Education Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London. [15] [6] He also writes on educational issues for The Guardian . [16]
Peter Scott was knighted in 2007 for "services to education". [17] He is a member of Academia Europaea [18] and the Academy of Social Sciences, [19] and has received the following honorary degrees:
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont, a Fellow of Trinity College at University of Cambridge, in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after Oxford University Professor, Author John Ruskin in 2005. Ruskin gave the inauguration speech of the Cambridge School of Art in 1858. It is one of the "post-1992 universities". The motto of the university is in Latin Excellentia per societatem, in English Excellence through partnership.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a 320-acre (130-hectare) campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution for 2021–22 was £295 million, of which £30 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £370 million, and had an undergraduate offer rate of 85% in 2021.
The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 1926 by royal charter from King George V and was the only university to receive such a charter between the two world wars. The university is usually categorised as a red brick university, reflecting its original foundation in the 19th century.
Sir Colin Renshaw Lucas, is a British historian and university administrator. From 1997 to 2004, he was the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. In May 2006, he was appointed Chair of the Board of the British Library for a four-year term ending 2010.
MillionPlus, formerly known as million+, the Campaign for Mainstream Universities, and the Coalition of Modern Universities (CMU), is a membership organisation, which aims to promote the role of "modern universities" in the UK higher education system; it describes itself as "The Association for Modern Universities in the UK". MillionPlus is not for profit and funded by subscriptions from its members, currently 23 UK universities. While all of the member institutions are "new" universities, many have long histories as colleges and polytechnics.
Sir John Peebles Arbuthnott, PPRSE, FRCPSG, FMedSci, FRCPath was a Scottish microbiologist, and was Principal of the University of Strathclyde. He succeeded Lord Wilson of Tillyorn as President of The Royal Society of Edinburgh in October 2011 and was succeeded by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell in October 2014.
Sir Howard Joseph Newby is a British sociologist. He was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2008 and retired in December 2014. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton from 1994 to 2001. He was appointed as the vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England (UWE), from March 2006. After 15 months at UWE he moved to the University of Liverpool and was almost immediately put on "gardening leave" at UWE for the duration of his year-long notice period, with the then deputy vice-chancellor, Steve West, acting up to the VC role before his subsequent substantive appointment. On 11 February 2014, it was announced that Newby would retire from his role as vice-chancellor of Liverpool in 2015.
Sir James Drummond Bone, FRSE, FRSA, is a Byron scholar and was Master of Balliol College at the University of Oxford until April 2018. He previously served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 2002 to 2008, and Principal of Royal Holloway, University of London, from 2000 to 2002.
Roderick Watkins, DL is a composer and the Vice Chancellor at Anglia Ruskin University, England. He was appointed to the University in 2014 and served briefly as Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences. He was appointed as Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Anglia Ruskin in 2015 before becoming Vice Chancellor in 2019. He was previously Professor of Composition and Contemporary Music at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, England from 2005 to July 2014, where he was Programme Director for undergraduate Music and taught composition and contemporary music.
Sir David Stephen Eastwood,, is a British academic and long serving university leader who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham between 13 April 2009 and December 2021.
Sir Alan Howard Cottrell, FRS was an English metallurgist and physicist. He was also former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and vice-chancellor of Cambridge University 1977–1979.
Dame Elizabeth Anne Loosemore Esteve-Coll is a British academic and former museum director and librarian.
Sir Ronald Urwick Cooke, FRGS DL is a professor of geography and geomorphology who was vice-Chancellor of the University of York from 1993 to 2002.
John Stuart Archer was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Heriot-Watt University from 1997 to 2006.
David John Drewry is a glaciologist and geophysicist who was described in the conferring of an honorary degree by Anglia Ruskin University in 1998 as having an "outstanding reputation as an eminent scientist of international repute". Drewry has also received several awards for his work. Since 1 July 2015 he is the vice-president of the European University Association.
Kingston University London is a public research university located within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, in South West London, England. Its roots go back to the Kingston Technical Institute, founded in 1899. It received university status in 1992, before which the institution was known as Kingston Polytechnic.
Ray Hudson, FBA, FAcSS is a British academic. He holds the degrees of PhD and DSc from Bristol University and. DLitt from Durham University. He was Professor of Geography and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Durham University. From 2014–2015 he was acting Vice-Chancellor and Warden of Durham University. Currently he remains as Emeritus Professor of Geography.
Sir David Melville, is a British physicist, academic, academic administrator, and public servant. He was Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University from 1991 to 1996, Chief executive of the Further Education Funding Council for England from 1996 to 2001, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kent from 2001 to 2007.
John Scott Davidson is a British legal scholar and academic administrator. He has served as Vice-chancellor of Newman University Birmingham since 1 January 2017.