Speakers

Invited speakers – biographies

Bruce Brown

Chair of RAE2008 Main Panel O, University of Brighton

Bruce Brown is currently the University of Brighton’s Director of Research Development. Before this he was Dean of the University’s Faculty of Arts & Architecture for 16 years. He is also Director of the Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre for Art, Design, Media. Educated as a graphic designer at the Royal College of Art, he has served on, and chaired, many national committees that have included those of the recent HEFCE/AHRC group on research metrics, the UK Council for Graduate Education, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation. He has been an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts since 1971 and was recently elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

Ian Diamond

Chief Executive, ESRC

Ian Diamond joined the ESRC in January 2003 on an initial four-year appointment. He came from the University of Southampton where he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor. He had been at Southampton since 1980 as lecturer, senior lecturer and then Professor. A social statistician, Ian Diamond’s work has crossed many disciplinary boundaries, most notably working in the area of population but also in health, both in the developed and less developed world, in environmental noise and with local authorities. Ian Diamond’s research has involved collaboration with many government departments including the Office for National Statistics, the Department for International Development, the Department of Transport and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Philip Esler

Chief Executive, AHRC

Philip Esler became Chief Executive of the AHRC in September 2005. He took up a position as Reader in New Testament in St Andrews University in October 1992 and was promoted to Professor of Biblical Criticism in September 1995 and more recently Vice-Principal for Research. Before becoming an academic, Philip Esler worked for 10 years as a litigation solicitor and then a barrister in Australia. He was awarded a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1984; his research was on the New Testament and his thesis focused on The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology. He has published very extensively, particularly in the social-scientific analysis of New Testament and other biblical and apocryphal texts, and in New Testament theology. He also has a recent monograph in the area of the Bible and the visual arts co-authored with a British artist.

Suzanne Franks

BBC History Project

Suzanne Franks joined the BBC as a production trainee and spent ten years as a current affairs TV producer on programmes including The Money Programme, Newsnight and Panorama. She left to start an independent company which was then awarded the contract to televise parliament and she continued to run it until 2001. She is currently working on the official history of the BBC (funded by the AHRC) and based at the University of Westminster. She has published several books, including: Dished: the Rise and Fall of BSB (Simon and Schuster) and, Having None of it: Women, Men and the Future of Work (Granta).

Peter Golding

Chair of RAE Sub-Panel 66, Main Panel O, Loughborough University

Peter Golding is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University. He is chair of the RAE sub-panel for communication, cultural and media studies, and was a member of the equivalent panel in 1996 and 2001. He is chair of the European Sociological Association Media Research Network and a co-editor of the European Journal of Communication. Peter is currently undertaking research into news about the EU and the European public sphere, and on the relation between the media and the Olympics.

Cees J Hamelink

University of Amsterdam

Cees J. Hamelink studied philosophy and psychology at the University of Amsterdam where he received his PhD degree in 1975. He worked as journalist, policy adviser and researcher in many different institutions and countries. He founded the People’s Communication Charter, was president of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, was consultant to several intergovernmental organisations and national governments and guest-lectured in some 40 countries. He is emeritus professor at the University of Amsterdam, honorary professor of the University of Queensland in Australia and professor of human rights and public health at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the International Communication Gazette and president of the Dutch Human Rights Federation. He published 17 books on communication issues and numerous other academic writings. His forthcoming book is on Political Ethics and Communication.

Kerensa Jennings

Executive Editor, BBC News

Kerensa Jennings has had a wide-ranging career in news and current affairs. She is currently Executive Editor, News – an editorial and managerial role combining running the BBC’s roadshow, News & Sport on Tour, with being the BBC’s Election Results Editor. She regularly makes special commission films for the BBC. In the past, she has produced and directed numerous documentaries, films and live programmes. She has a strong political background, having spent two years as programme editor of Breakfast with Frost, and two as the Editor of Sunday with Adam Boulton at Sky. She started her career at ITN in 1994. Kerensa won an RTS award for the documentary she made on the police investigation into Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr in the Soham murder case, and won the largest audience for a news programme in recent memory – more than ten million – when she edited last year’s New Year Live show on BBC One with Natasha Kaplinsky.

Francesca Unsworth

Head of Newsgathering, BBC News

Francesca studied drama at Manchester University and has worked for the BBC for most of her career both in radio and television. She started in local radio in Bristol in 1980, before moving to network radio where she worked on a variety of programmes including Radio One’s Newsbeat, The World at One and PM. She spent some months in Washington as the Radio producer during the first Gulf War. She became the BBC’s Home News Editor in 1998, running the department which organises and covers all domestic news stories for BBC News programmes in Britain. In 2000 she became Head of Political Programmes for the BBC, running the Westminster operation, where she was responsible for organising coverage of the 2001 and 2005 UK General Elections. She took up her present job in January 2005.

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