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Honouring UK science

What a year it’s been for Adrian Smith: the current director-general for knowledge and innovation at the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has just been knighted.

Earlier this year it looked like Smith might be about to experience at first hand the government’s new plans for encouraging the unemployed to work. In November it emerged that the job of director general of science and research that he then held had been abolished, triggering a minor flap among UK science policy wonks (see: UK science shake-up stirs passions).

But it quickly transpired that Smith was appointed to the newly created director-general for knowledge and innovation role, much to the relief of said wonks, who had muttered darkly about it being given to a career civil servant (the implication being that such a person wouldn’t understand the importance of research).

Now the 2011 honours list confirms that ‘Professor Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith, FRS’ has been given a knighthood! Congratulations!

Others honoured for services to science:

Rory Edwards Collins, co-director of the University of Oxford’s Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (knighted). [Corrected – 04/01]

The Earl of Selborne, John Palmer, “the embodiment of the green great and good” (Independent) (OBE).

Muffy Calder, computer scientist, University of Glasgow (OBE).

Hugh Godfray, entomologist, University of Oxford (CBE).

Stephen Holgate, pharmacologist, University of Southampton (CBE).

Ronald Laskey, embryologist, University of Cambridge (CBE).

Quintin McKellar, principal of the Royal Veterinary College (CBE).

Christopher Lowe, biologist, University of Cambridge (OBE).

Carol Turley, bio-geo-chemist, Plymouth Marine Laboratory (OBE).

David Gentry, former safety manager for the Faculty of Science at Imperial College London (MBE).

Lindsay Green, administrative director of the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre (MBE).

Tudor Jones, physicist, formerly at the University of Leicester (MBE).

David Ovadia, director of international activities at the British Geological Survey (MBE).

Martin Rumsey, Parliamentary Select Committee Liaison Officer for the BIS Science and Research Group (MBE).

Philip Woodworth, scientific leader of the Liverpool National Oceanography Centre (MBE).

Comments

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    Roger Corder said:

    The first name in your list should be Rory Edward Collins!

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    Daniel said:

    Indeed it should Professor Corder.

    Apologies to both you and Prof Collins for the mistake, which has now been fixed.

    Daniel

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    Debbie Harding said:

    I think you mean Charles Godfray.

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