Principal, King's College London and President, Universities UK.

He was Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Social History at the University of Greenwich. An American by birth and undergraduate education, he took his doctorate at Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar and a junior research fellow) before moving in 1979 to a lectureship at the University of Glasgow, where he was later professor, dean and vice-principal. He has published extensively on the composition and impact of urban elites in 19th and 20th century Britain, especially in industrialised urban areas. He has also published on the use of information technology in university teaching, especially in history. Formerly a Council member of the Royal Historical Society and Honorary Secretary of the Economic History Society, Rick is Chair of the Advisory Council of the Institute of Historical Research. Previously chair of the steering committee of the Learning and Teaching Support Network, he now chairs the advisory panel for the individual strand of the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme. A member of the US-UK Fulbright Commission, he is Treasurer of Universities UK, a member of the Committee on Leadership, Governance and Management of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and a member of the board of London Higher. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Academy of the Social Sciences and an honorary fellow of Merton College Oxford and of Trinity College of Music.

Updated 11 January 2008