David Sweeney
Deputy Chair
Professor David Sweeney is Professor of Research Policy at the University of Birmingham. He was Executive Chair of Research England for five years until 2022. He is also Chair of the Pandemic Institute in Liverpool and Trustee of The Conversation UK.
This followed a ten-year role as Director for Research, Innovation and Skills in the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), working collaboratively with other UK higher education funding bodies to oversee the first Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise. Previously he was Vice-Principal (Research) at Royal Holloway, University of London.
David is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He has honorary Doctorates from Aberdeen and Keele Universities, and was awarded a CBE 2022.
David is a chess enthusiast and a long-standing season ticket-holder at Maidenhead United in the National League. He doesn’t have an ambition to spend his life on a train but it feels like that sometimes.