Prestigious research position for Professor

A University of St Andrews Professor has been appointed to an influential position in the organisation which funds most of the UK’s social science research.

Professor William Walker of the Department of International Relations has been appointed to the Economic and Social Research Council’s Research Priorities Board for the period 1 February 2002 to 31 August 2004.

The Research Priorities Board manages the ESRC’s Centres, Networks and Programmes and has responsibility for developing and implementing its research strategy. Professor Walker’s main responsibility will be to chair the commissioning panel for the ESRC’s new “Science in Society” Programme.

Professor Walker was appointed Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews in 1996. He had previously worked for over twenty years at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, latterly as its Director of Research. At St Andrews, he teaches honours courses on international nuclear politics and Asian security at the Department of International Relations whose research and postgraduate activities he currently oversees. The Department was recently awarded a grade 5A in the government’s Research Assessment Exercise, placing it among the top departments in its field in the UK.

Professor Walker is delighted to have been invited to join the ESRC’s principal research board and to be overseeing its allocation of funds to this exciting new research programme, a task which will take up around a month of his time each year.

He said, “Science plays such an important yet troubled part in modern society that it is essential that its role in our lives, and our means of influencing its course, should be well studied”.

ENDS

Issued by Beattie Media on behalf of the University of St Andrews For more information please contact Claire Grainger on 01334 462530, 07730 415 015 or email [email protected] Ref: williamwalker/standrews/chg/5feb200 2