News
Professor Susan J Smith to become President of the British Academy in 2025
18 Jul 2024
Professor Susan J Smith is to succeed Professor Julia Black as President of the British Academy, taking up office in July 2025 for a four-year term. Professor Smith will be the Academy’s thirty-second President.
Professor Smith is Emerita Honorary Professor of Social and Economic Geography at the University of Cambridge where she is also a Life Fellow (formerly Mistress) at Girton College. Elected to the British Academy Fellowship in 2008, she has an international reputation for her research, both as a human geographer and in the interdisciplinary world of housing studies.
Experienced in teaching, learning, and research assessment in higher education, Professor Smith was the Ogilvie Professor of Geography at the University of Edinburgh (1990-2004) and a founding co-Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University (2004-9). At Cambridge University, as well as leading one of the larger Colleges (2009-22), she was a Trustee of Gates, Cambridge (2010-2018), a member of the University Council (2014-2018), and an external member of the Faculty of Music, where she played a key role in establishing Cambridge University’s (cross-faculty) Centre for Music Performance.
Professor Smith’s work on the links between housing, inequality, health and wellbeing has been funded by research councils, public bodies and charitable trusts. She held an ESRC Professorial Fellowship (2005-7), gave the Tanner Lectures on Human Values (2010), and is a member of the Royal Geographical Society which awarded her the Victoria Medal in 2014. Over the years, she has enjoyed a variety of visiting positions internationally, for example at the European University Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre, and at RMIT and Curtin Universities in Australia.
On becoming President-elect, Professor Smith said:
“It is a great privilege to succeed Julia Black as the next President of the British Academy. Under her leadership, supported by an active and engaged Fellowship, the Academy has become an increasingly vocal and inclusive advocate for the humanities, arts and social sciences;; significantly strengthened the research base in these disciplines; and supported researchers and educators across all career levels, particularly the next generation of talent.
As President, I will be eager to build on this impressive legacy. At a time of acute difficulty for UK higher education, I am determined to maintain the position of the Academy as a loud and leading voice for the sector, defending our values and harnessing our energies to inform debate and catalyse change.
The humanities and social sciences are a beacon of hope in uncertain times: it is impossible to overstate their capacity to enrich people’s lives and address the pressing issues of our age.
I look forward to working with our Vice-Presidents and Council, our Fellows and wider community of scholars, and our CEO and professional staff, to deliver the Academy’s ambitious strategic vision. This includes raising the profile of our disciplines, resourcing game-changing research, encouraging early-career high-fliers, and ensuring that everything our subjects have to offer makes a difference to more people than ever before.”
The news comes as the British Academy formally welcomed 86 new Fellows earlier today.
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