Council of Management

Sir John Ashworth, CARA President, recently retired as Chair of Barts and the London NHS Trust. Other posts held include Chairman of the British Library Board; Director, London School of Economics & Political Science (1990-96); Vice Chancellor, University of Salford (1981-90); and Chief Scientist to the Cabinet Office Central Policy Review Staff (1976-81).

Mrs Anne Lonsdale MA, CBE, CARA Chair has been President of New Hall, Cambridge University since 1996. She was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University from 1998 – 2003 and is now a Deputy Vice-Chancellor. 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 environmental issues and in Higher Education worldwide with university experience in Europe, America, China, Africa and the Middle East. 

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  2014-18.

Mr Mark Wellby, CARA Honorary Treasurer, was The British Academy's Finance Manager and a Chartered Accountant until his retirement in July 2008. He has been CARA Honorary Treasurer since 2002.

Dr. Robin Baker is Vice Chancellor of the Canterbury Christ Church University. 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 Phil Begg is Associate Dean for Primary Healthcare, School of Health, from the University of Wolverhampton, and Visiting Professor of Clinical Science at the University of Kentucky. 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.

Dr. Michael Brophy, OBE, is Director of the Africa Educational Trust. Under his leadership, the AET has undertaken a number of educational programmes in East Africa, Somalia, Southern Africa, South Africa, Swaziland, and Uganda. He also served as a lead researcher on a Department for International Development policy project, studying flexible working approaches to education in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr Peter Brown, CBE, joined The British Aacdemy in 1975, holding the post of Secretary from 2006 to 2007. He was formerly at the School of Oriental & African Studies. He has taught classics at several UK and overseas institutions, and served on the Committees of Management for the Institute of Archaeology, the Institute of Classical Studies, and the Warburg Institute, University of London. He received an Order of Merit (Poland) in 1995, and has been a CARA Council Member since 1997.

Mr Stephen Cox CVO has served as Royal Society Executive Secretary since 1997. He was appointed Director General of the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1991 and, during the early 1980s, worked as the British Embassy Education Attaché in Washington DC. He joined the Royal Society in 1985 to run the International Office.

Dr. Frances Dow retired as University of Edinburgh Vice Principal in 2005. She was previously Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of History. Dr Dow is a Member of the Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Excellence and a lay member of the Lothian Health Research Ethics Sub-Committee. She is also a Trustee of the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) and a former member of the UK Marshall Commission.

Professor Lewis Elton is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester, Honorary Professor of Higher Education at University College London, and Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at the University of Surrey. He is also a Fellow of the American Institute of Physics and of the Society for Research into Higher Education, and an Honorary Life Member of the Staff and Educational Development Association. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Kent, Canterbury, and the University of Gloucestershire. Professor Lewis Elton's involvement with CARA began when his father was assisted with a grant from the Society for Protection of Science & Learning (now CARA) in the 1930s. 

Professor Hamid Ghodse is Professor of psychiatry and international drug policy at St George’s Medical School, University of London and also heads its International Centre for Drug Policy (ICDP). In May 2010, he was elected president of the global drug law body the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (F.R.C.P.), London (1992); Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (F.R.C.P.E.), Edinburgh (1997); Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine (F.F.P.H.), United Kingdom (1997).

Sir Martin Harris is President of Clare Hall, Cambridge, has served as Chancellor of the University of Salford, Vice-Chancellor of two universities - Essex and Manchester - and as Chairman of the Committee for Vice Chancellors and Principals (CVCP), now Universities UK. Sir Martin has also served on many national bodies, including as a member of the University Grants Committee, Chairman of the Clinical Standards Advisory Group, Commissioner for Health Improvement and Deputy Chairman of the North West Regional Development Agency. He is currently Chairman of the Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited (USS) and Director of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). His services to the Biomedical Sciences were acknowledged in 2005 by the award of an Honorary FRCP. He was knighted in the Millennium Honours List.

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 Comittee and Allocations Committee.

Professor Shula Marks, OBE, FBA is Professor Emeritus of Southern African History at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. Professor Marks is among the world's leading historians of South Africa. She has published on African resistance to colonial rule and a history of healthcare, of race and of gender. Professor Marks was Chair of CARA's Council from 1993 to 2004.

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.

Baroness Onora O'Neill was President of the British Academy from 2005 to July of 2009. She writes on ethics and political philosophy, with particular interests in international justice, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and in bioethics. She chaired the Nuffield Foundation from 1998-2010, was formerly Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge and is an emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She was created a Life Peer in 1999 (Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve), sits as a crossbencher, and has served on House of Lords Select Committees dealing with BBC Charter Review and with a range of topics in Science and Technology.

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.

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.

Mr. David Ure retired from Reuters Group in 2004, but continues to represent the company on the Independent Television News board. He also chaired the Reuters Foundation, the Group's charitable arm. He was non-executive Director of Woolwich Plc (1998-2000), a role he has also held on the Blackwell Publishing Ltd Board since January 2004. In October 2004, he became Chairman of Iris Financial Solutions, and has recently retired as a non-executive Director of Blackwell Publishing, Independent Television News (ITN) and Neteconomy, a Dutch company owned by Cazenove Private Equity.

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 (Research & International) at University College London (UCL) responsible for developing and promoting UCL’s international strategy. He is Fielden Professor of French Language and Literature and has written extensively on modern French Literature and on issues in critical theory and on gender theory. Michael directs the UCL Mellon Programme.

Professor Michael Yudkin is Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the Microbiology Unit, University of Oxford. He has been a Fellow of Kellogg College since 1993. He was formerly a Fellow and Tutor in Biochemistry at University College, Oxford for twenty eight years and has published more than eighty papers in various scientific journals, and several books.

CARA Executive Director

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).