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Richard Sykes (biochemist)

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Name
  
Richard Sykes


Richard Sykes (biochemist)

Born
  
Richard Brook Sykes 7 August 1942 (age 81) (
1942-08-07
)

Fields
  
Microbiology Antibiotics β-Lactam

Institutions
  
Imperial College London Imperial College Healthcare Glaxo Wellcome Squibb Institute for Medical Research Natural History Museum, London Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew NHS London Brunel University Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Reform think tank

Alma mater
  
Queen Elizabeth College (BSc) University of Bristol (PhD) Brunel University (DSc)

Thesis
  
Studies on the B-lactamases of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (1972)

Known for
  
Aztreonam Attempted merger of UCL and Imperial

Notable awards
  
FRS (1997) Knight Bachelor (1994) FMedSci HonFREng (1942)

Sir Richard Brook Sykes, DSc, FRS, FMedSci, HonFREng (born 7 August 1942) is chairman of the Royal Institution, Imperial College Healthcare and Chancellor of Brunel University. Sykes also chairs the UK Stem Cell Foundation and is Non-executive director of Lonza AG.

Contents

Richard Sykes (biochemist) httpswwwbrunelacuknewsandeventsnewsimag

Education

Sykes was educated at Queen Elizabeth College where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology. He went on to study for a PhD in Microbial Biochemistry at the University of Bristol, graduating in 1972 with thesis on B-lactamases of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Career

Until 2002, Sir Richard Sykes was chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, following a research career in Glaxo and Glaxo Wellcome. He was rector of Imperial College London, UK, from 2001–2008. In October 2008, Sykes accepted Farad Azima's invitation to join the NetScientific Group as the non-executive Chairman. Sir Richard was the Senior Independent Director and non-executive Deputy Chairman and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) until June 2011.

Imperial College

Between January 2001 and July 2008, Sykes was the Rector of Imperial College London.

Sykes's tenure was not without controversy.

  • In 2004 he spearheaded an abortive attempt to merge Imperial College with University College London.
  • He supported the lifting of the £3,000 cap on tuition fees and instead allowing the universities to set fees at anything up to £10,000, a proposal opposed by many student-representing societies. This was long before UK coalition government reforms that allow £9,000 fees to be charged from 2011.
  • His predecessor at Imperial had brokered a merger with the University of London's agricultural college, Wye College. Sykes overturned a promise to keep Agricultural Sciences taught at Wye at the end of 2004. By 2005 Imperial announced plans to create a non-food crops and biomass fuels research centre, anchoring a major housing development on College land. The true extent of these plans, which would have seen the small academic village become a town, were kept secret from the public by Imperial, Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council. Plans collapsed in June 2006 after media leaks and loss of their potential industry partner, and Imperial then renounced all development aspirations for the campus and surrounding land. The Save.Wye campaign described Sykes as "...an avaricious businessman posing as an academic" after the full extent of the plans were revealed. A book by David Hewson details the entire episode.
  • In March 2006 his salary became the centre of attention amongst Imperial College staff and students after the students' union newspaper, FELIX, published a front page article highlighting how much he was paid. Sir Richard received a salary £305,000 a year, the second highest among university principals after Professor Laura Tyson, dean of the London Business School.

    • On 1 July 2008, he was succeeded as Rector of Imperial College by Professor Roy Anderson.

    Other activities

    Sir Richard was chairman of the Advisory Panel of the think-tank Reform. He was a trustee of the Natural History Museum, London from 1996–2005 and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2003–2005. He was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1998–99.

    In September 2008, he was appointed Chair of NHS London, but resigned in May 2010 over the decision of the Cameron Ministry to halt planned hospital reorganisations in London.

    He was a member of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education that published an influential report in 1997. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering.

    He joined Adcurata Cultural Change Advisory Board in September 2012 to advise on the pharmaceutical and healthcare markets.

    Awards and honours

    Sykes holds a number of honorary degrees, including ones from the universities of Birmingham, Brunel, Cranfield, Edinburgh, Hertfordshire, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Madrid, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield Hallam, Sheffield, Strathclyde, Surrey, Warwick and Westminster. He was also appointed as a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2004.

    Sykes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1997. His nominations reads

    Sykes was knighted in the 1994 New Year Honours. In 1999 he was awarded the Singapore National Day Public Service Star Award for his services to the economy of Singapore.

    References

    Richard Sykes (biochemist) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA