Chris BRINK

Professor Chris Brink served as Vice-Chancellor (President) of Newcastle University in the UK from 2007 till 2016, as Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch University in South Africa from 2002 until 2007, and as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) of the University of Wollongong in Australia from 1999 until 2001.  Before that he was Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town, and served as the University’s Coordinator of Strategic Planning. Other positions include a Senior Research Fellowship at the Australian National University in the 1980s. Before moving into management he held the prestigious A-rating of the National Research Foundation, which ranked him as one of South Africa’s leading scientists.

Chris Brink is known as a champion of the idea of a civic university, which he has articulated in two key questions: ‘What are we good at?’ and ‘What are we good for?’. For his work with the city he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. During his tenure as Vice-Chancellor, Newcastle University twice won the national THELMA (the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Award), as well as the Athena SWAN Silver Award for the advancement of gender equality. He is the author of The Soul of a University: Why excellence is not enough (Bristol University Press, 2018) and the editor of The Responsive University and the Crisis in South Africa (Brill/Sense Publishers, 2021).

Currently he serves on the University Grants Committee in Hong Kong, where he convened the sector-wide 2020 Research Assessment Exercise. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg and a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa. He has served in an advisory or assessment capacity for various universities and organisations.