About PLuS Alliance

Sir Malcolm Grant was President and Provost of UCL for 10 years from 2003. He was previously Pro Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, where he was the Professor and Head of Department of Land Economy and Professorial Fellow of Clare College. In 2011 he was appointed by the Prime Minister to be the founding chairman of NHS England, where he served a 7-year term, and was also a director of Genomics England Ltd. He is currently Chancellor of the University of York, President of the Council for At-risk Academics (CARA) and a senior adviser on higher education reform to the governments of France and Russia. He is a barrister and Bencher of Middle Temple. He has previously served as chairman of the Russell Group, the Local Government Commission for England and the UK Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission. He was appointed CBE in 2003 and knighted in 2013.

Professor Edward Byrne AC is the President & Principal of King’s College London. He joined King’s from Monash University, the largest university in Australia, where he was President and Vice-Chancellor. Professor Byrne held that role from 2009. Professor Byrne is a neuroscientist and clinician by background. Professor Byrne has held many prestigious clinical and research positions in Australia and the UK, as well as advisory roles for a number of charitable bodies relating to his clinical and scientific expertise.

Michael M. Crow, PhD, became the 16th President of Arizona State University in 2002. An academic leader and educator, designer of knowledge enterprises, and science and technology policy scholar, Professor Crow is guiding the transformation of ASU into one of the nation’s leading public metropolitan research universities, an institution that combines the highest levels of academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact—a model he terms the “New American University.” Under his leadership, ASU has established more than a dozen new transdisciplinary schools and large-scale research initiatives, nearly tripled its research expenditures, and completed an unprecedented infrastructure expansion.

Professor Ian Jacobs BA, MA, MBBS, MD, FRCOG is President and Vice-Chancellor of UNSW Sydney Professor Jacobs came to Australia from the UK, where he had a distinguished career as a leading researcher in the area of women’s health and cancer and in university leadership. Immediately prior to joining UNSW he was Vice President and Dean at the University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, a partnership linking the University with six healthcare organisations involving over 36,000 staff. He was previously at University College London, where he created and led the Institute for Women’s Health, was Research Director of UCL Partners and Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences.  Professor Jacobs is the Principal Investigator for the Cancer Research UK and Eve Appeal funded PROMISE (Prediction of Risk of Ovarian Malignancy Screening and Early Detection) programme and on several large multicentre clinical trials including the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening involving 202,000 participants in 13 collaborating UK centres and the UK Familial Ovarian Cancer Screening Study. In 2005 Professor Jacobs established the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative, which he still chairs and which conducts a series of projects in Uganda including a cervical screening programme. He has been President of the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (2001-2004) and of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (2005-2007). He is Medical Advisor to the Eve Appeal charity (also known as the Gynaecology Cancer Research Fund) which he founded in 1985, a Patron of Safehands for Mothers, founder and non-Executive Director of Abcodia Ltd and patent holder of the ROCA (Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm).

Chris Mottershead is Senior Vice President (Quality, Strategy & Innovation). He joined King’s College London in 2009 after retiring from BP, where he worked for 30 years, most recently as their Global Advisor on Energy Security and Climate Change.

Prior to this he was Technology Vice President for the Global Gas, Power and Renewables businesses, and was also the technical manager for its North Sea exploration and production activities.

He has an Applied Physics degree, an MSc in Cybernetics, is a Chartered Electrical engineer, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

As well as his College accountabilities for research, innovation, diversity & inclusion and sustainability, he is a non-Executive Director of Johnson Matthey.

Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, Executive Vice President, Knowledge Enterprise, Chief Research and Innovation Officer, leads the knowledge enterprise at Arizona State University, which advances research, innovation, strategic partnerships, entrepreneurship, global and economic development at ASU. His leadership has led to many accomplishments at ASU, including quintupling research performance over the last decade (to over $635M in 2018) placing it as the fastest-growing research university in the United States. ASU has also been ranked as the most innovative university in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for the last five years, ahead of Stanford and MIT.

Mark Searle is executive vice president and university provost at Arizona State University. He holds the rank of professor in the School of Community Resources and Development in the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. Professor Searle coordinates the university’s international efforts, governing board relations, strategic goal setting, and other initiatives across the university. Prior to this current administrative appointment, Professor Searle served as interim provost, deputy provost and chief of staff, vice president for academic personnel, vice provost for academic affairs, founding dean of the College of Human Services, and as vice president and provost of ASU’s West campus. Professor Searle joined ASU after an extensive career in Canada where he was the founding director of the multidisciplinary Health, Leisure, and Human Performance Research Institute and head of an academic program in Recreation Studies at the University of Manitoba. Prior to his university appointment, Professor Searle served in various management positions within municipal and provincial government. The Provincial Government of Manitoba, the National Therapeutic Recreation Society and the University of Manitoba have honoured Professor Searle for his achievements. He has been elected as a fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences and the Academy for Park and Recreation Administration. Professor Searle is widely published on the relationship between leisure behaviour and the psychological wellbeing of older adults.

In this role Nick provides strategic leadership and support to the Vice-Chancellor in generating external research income and improving UNSW’s overall research performance, including higher degree research students.Nick is a clinical scientist whose research is in developmental biology and maternal-fetal medicine.He chairs the Steering Committee of the Association of Academic Health Centers International and sits on the Board of SPHERE (Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research & Enterprise). Past roles include President of the International Fetal Medicine and Surgery Society and Chair of the Go8 Deans of Medicine Committee.

With leadership experience in multi-stakeholder environments, notably in the communications and higher education sectors, Paul leads the development and implementation of strategic research and education initiatives for the Alliance, working closely with a Governance Board and Advisory Board. Flagship initiatives are in collaborative research, technology-enabled learning and engineering education, with dozens of researchers, academics, students and professional staff collaborating in new ways and reaching out to work with industry and government partners. Prior to joining the Alliance, Paul was the founding Director of the Australia-Indonesia Centre at Monash University, which brings together four Australian and seven Indonesian universities. He is a former Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University, a Leadership Fellow in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California San Diego, and a former Editor-in-Chief of The Age, one of Australia’s leading multi-media publishers. Paul has a passion for life-long learning and for building global networks of influence.