SENIOR ADVISORY COUNCIL
John Wood is the Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities. He has doctorates from Cambridge and Sheffield Universities and has held academic posts at several leading universities including Nottingham (Dean of Engineering), The Open University and Imperial College London (Principal of the Faculty of Engineering, Senior International Adviser), where he is currently visiting professor and is an honorary professor of nanotechnology at UCL. He was chief executive of the Research Council responsible for large and international science facilities.
He is chair of Research Information Network, INASP and was formerly on the advisory board of the British Library and on the board of the Joint Information Services Committee. A founding member of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures, he became chair in 2004. He became the first chair of the European Research Area Board in 2008, responsible for high-level advice to the European Commission. He subsequently became chair of the European Research Area Board and represents Europe on the Global Research Data Alliance as co-chair.
John was elected as a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1999 and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2007 for ‘services to science’. He was made an officer of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for bringing the international negotiations for the European X-ray Free Electron Laser to fruition.
