Council of Management

Mrs Anne Lonsdale MA CBE, CARA Chair, was President of New Hall (now Murray Edwards College), Cambridge University from 1996 - 2008, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University from 1998 - 2003 and Deputy Vice-Chancellor 1998 to 2008. She is now Deputy High Steward and since 2010 has been simultaneously Provost of Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. She studied Classics and Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford and later taught Chinese Literature there. She became a university administrator in Oxford and then the Secretary-General of the Central European University in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw and has particular interests in human rights and environmental issues and in Higher Education worldwide, with university experience in Europe, America, China, Africa and the Middle East. She is a Trustee of the European Humanities University in Vilnius (founded in Belarus and exiled in 2004) and of the Open Society Foundation, London. 

Professor Sir Deian Hopkin, CARA Vice-Chair, is the President of the National Library of Wales.  He retired as Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of London South Bank University in 2009 after a 40-year career in higher education following which he was interim Chairman of the Student Loans Company.   He serves on a number of bodies including the Council of Essex University, the Advisory Board of Times Higher Education and the Council of City and Guilds and is a member of the Higher Education Commission in Westminster.  He chairs the Local Economy Policy Unit, is a patron of several charities and is Expert Adviser to the First Minister of Wales on the centenary commemorations of the First World War in  1914-18.

Dr Frances Dow CBE, Honorary Secretary, was until December 2003 a Vice Principal at the University of Edinburgh.   Since then she has held a number of public appointments in the fields of education, immigration and healthcare.   From 2003 to 2008 she was a member of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, from 2003 to 2011 a Trustee of the Immigration Advisory Service, and from 2005 to 2012 a member of the governing body of Queen Margaret University Edinburgh.  From 2007 to 2011 she chaired the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission.  She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1986 and of the Royal Society of Arts in 2008.

Mr David Ure, Honorary Treasurer, retired from Reuters Group after a 36-year career, including a decade on the main Board.  He was also Chairman of the Group's charity arm, the Reuter Foundation.  He has since served as a non-executive chairman or director of several companies.  He is now a trustee of a number of charities.

Professor Robin Baker CMG was Vice Chancellor of Canterbury Christ Church University 2010-2012. He was previously Vice Chancellor of University of Chichester, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Kent and Deputy Director General of the British Council. He joined the British Council in 1984, serving in South Africa, UK, Hungary, Greece and Russia. He was Director of the Council's European Operations (1999-2002) and has served as a member of the University of Kent Council and of the Royal Society International Policy Committee.

Professor Philip Begg is Head of Academic Innovation, Research and Education at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, one of Europe’s largest Acute Hospital and a major trauma centre. It is also the main receiving hospital for the British Armed Forces and home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. He is heading up the Trust’s Academic development, expanding and developing research within the organisation in collaboration with national and international partners, and will be developing more partnerships internationally for the Trust. Professor Begg is also Professor of Clinical Science at the University of Kentucky, USA. He joined CARA’s Council in 2007.

Professor Sir Robert Boyd served as Principal of the St. George's Hospital Medical School, University of London (1996-2003) where he was also Professor of Paediatrics. Other posts include Pro Vice Chancellor of Medicine and Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of London, and Dean of the University of Manchester Medical School. He is currently Chair of the Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales and Director of NHS R&D for Greater Manchester.

Professor Paul Broda was Professor of Applied Molecular Biology at the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology (UMIST) and, until recently, a trustee of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. He joined the SPSL Council in 1981 and was CARA Honorary Secretary and Chair of the Allocations Committee 2003-08.

Professor Ian Goldin has been Director of the Oxford Martin School since September 2006. He is also University of Oxford Professor of Globalisation and Development and a Professorial Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford.  Before moving to Oxford, he was Vice President of the World Bank (2003-2006), having worked earlier as the World Bank’s Director of Development Policy (2001-2003).  From 1996 to 2001 he was Chief Executive and Managing Director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and an advisor to President Nelson Mandela.

Professor Mark Hammond is Chief Executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and visiting Professor in Public Administration at Canterbury Christchurch University.  He was previously Chief Executive of West Sussex County Council (2003-10) and worked in Surrey County Council.  Mark worked in central government at the Department of the Environment including negotiating the UN Climate Change Convention, and for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for four years in Washington DC. 

Professor Margot Light is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics. She has been teaching and writing about the former Soviet Union for the past 35 years. Her recent publications centre on Russian foreign policy. Other areas of interest include problems of democratization and human rights. She is currently involved in two programmes on human rights in Russia and the CIS.

Mrs Mary Manning was Executive Director of the Academy of Medical Sciences from 2000-2008. She recently joined CARA's Council of Management in May 2009 and is a member of both CARA's Finance & General Purposes Committee and Allocations Committee.

Professor Alan McCarthy is Professor of Microbiology at the University of Liverpool, which he joined as a lecturer in 1985. He is also Head of undergraduate admissions for the School of Life Sciences and chairman of the postgraduate selection committee for the Institute of Integrative Biology. He holds a number of external examining, editorial board and research peer review panel appointments in the UK and Europe. Professor McCarthy became Chair of CARA’s UK Grant allocation Committee in August 2008.

Professor Robert Pynsent is Professor of Czech and Slovak Literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, where he also serves as Convenor of the Centre for the Study of Central Europe. Professor Pynsent's research interests include 14th-Century Czech literature, Czech Renaissance prose, nationalism in literature, decadence, contemporary Slovak fiction and Czech women's writing.

Mr Stephan Roman CMG is Director for South Asia at the British Council.  He was previously the British Council's Director for West Europe and North America.

The Reverend Dr Nicholas Sagovsky is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Roehampton University and a Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope.  He was Sub-Dean and Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey and Dean of Clare, College, Cambridge.  He was co-founder of 'Article 26', a Project of the Helena Kennedy Foundation to enable asylum-seeking young people who have been educated in the UK to overcome the barriers they face in taking up the offer of a place at a UK university, and continues to be active in support of refugees and asylum-seekers.

Professor Paul Weindling is Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of Medicine at the School of Humanities, Oxford Brookes University. He also lectures at the University of Oxford. Professor Weindling has compiled a database on medical refugees in the UK, including over four thousand doctors, dental surgeons, medical scientists and biologists, and nurses who came to Britain to escape the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

Professor Michael Worton is Vice-Provost (International) at University College London (UCL) and is responsible for developing and promoting UCL’s International Strategy.  He is Higher Education Advisor to the British Council and he has spoken widely throughout the world on the internationalisation of HE and the purpose and responsibilities of universities in the 21st century.  He was a founding member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.  He is also a member of the Comité International de Consultation en Sciences Humaines et Sociales de l’ANR and of the Advisory Board of the Programme of Artistic Research of the Austrian Research Council (FWF). 

CARA Executive Director

Mr Stephen Wordsworth CMG LVO joined CARA as Executive Director in April 2012, after a long career in the UK Diplomatic Service.  He served abroad in Russia (twice), in Nigeria, in Germany and at NATO.  From the mid-1990s he focussed mainly on crisis management and support for post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction across the Balkan region.  His last diplomatic post was as Ambassador in Belgrade, Serbia (2006-10).