Image: Foreign and Commonwealth Office [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr
Former science minister David Willetts, four university vice-chancellors and the founder of the artificial intelligence firm DeepMind are among the 13 board members of UK Research and Innovation, the government has announced.
The board will support UKRI chief executive Mark Walport on designing the organisation ahead of its launch in April 2018, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said on 28 September. Its broad aim following the launch will be to maximise the impact of UKRI’s budget—the organisation will oversee more than £6 billion in research funding per year.
Four current or former vice-chancellors—Leszek Borysiewicz from the University of Cambridge, Ian Diamond from the University of Aberdeen, Alice Gast from Imperial College London and Max Lu from the University of Surrey—have been appointed to the board. Earlier this year both Borysiewicz and Diamond were thought to be strong candidates to head UKRI. Academia will also be represented by Julia Black, pro-director for research at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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