Professor Dame Janet Finch DBE DL AcSS, Vice Chancellor, Keele University
Professor Dame Janet Finch is Vice-Chancellor of Keele University, a post which she took up in September 1995. A Sociologist by background, in 1999 she was named as one of the Founder Academicians of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. She was awarded a CBE in 1999 for services to Social Science, and a DBE in the 2008 for services to Social Science and to Higher Education. Her research expertise lies principally in studies of family relationships, especially relationships across generations and she remains active as a Social Scientist.
Dame Janet has also been involved at national level in a range of policy-making bodies, related to both research and education. For a number of years she has been a member of the Board of Universities UK and has chaired both its Health and Social Care Policy Committee and the Board of the Equality Challenge Unit. Currently she is the independent Co-Chair of the Council for Science and Technology, the government’s most senior advisory body for Science, which reports to the Prime Minister. The other Co-Chair is the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, currently Professor John Beddington.
Dame Janet’s role entails giving leadership to the independent members of the Board, who are all very senior figures drawn from Universities, funding bodies and industry.
In the past, she has held national roles in senior bodies, including on the Council of the Economic and Social Research Council, the Board of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, and the Independent Panel reviewing the Charter of the BBC.
