New College Secretary and Registrar appointed at Imperial College London

Imperial College London Media Release

Imperial College London has today named John Neilson as its new College Secretary and Registrar, with effect from 1 May 2012.

Mr Neilson is currently Director of Financial Management in the Ministry of Defence. Prior to this, he spent six years as Director Research Base in the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and its predecessors, where he advised on the £6 billion spent annually on public research in universities and institutes.

The College Secretary is one of the College’s principal administrative officers, and Mr Neilson will be responsible for core functions of the university including the Registry, the Central Secretariat, health and safety, risk management, legal matters and internal audit. Alongside these he will be Clerk to the Imperial College Court and Council. Reporting to the Rector, he joins the College’s Management Board, the senior management committee, which is responsible for the vision and overall strategy for the College.

Mr Neilson’s appointment follows the retirement of Rodney Eastwood after almost 25 years service to the College, and who has been College Secretary since 2007.

Rector Sir Keith O’Nions said: "I am delighted to welcome John to the College. He has a wealth of understanding and experience in complex organisations, and brings many strengths that will aid the College in the coming phases of its development.

"Rodney Eastwood has served the College for almost a quarter of a century, and his influence and skilful handling has taken Imperial through many key moments in its history, including the mergers with the West London medical schools in 1997, the formation of the Academic Health Science Centre in 2006 and our withdrawal from the University of London in 2007. He is also highly regarded across the higher education sector, in particular for his work that has helped universities move towards greater sustainability; his detailed understanding of funding models and costs raised awareness of their importance and helped to lead to the implementation of the FEC and TRAC methods. He heads into retirement with the gratitude and fond appreciation of the entire Imperial community for his outstanding commitment to the College."

Speaking about his appointment, Mr Neilson said: "I am delighted to be joining Imperial College London which is world-renowned as a centre of excellence in teaching, research and innovation. While helping to develop government policy on research funding I have understood what it takes to keep our world-class universities in their pre-eminent position, and I look forward very much to contributing to Imperial’s continued success alongside its outstanding staff."

Imperial College London is a science-based institution that is consistently rated among the world’s top universities. In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, over 70 per cent of College research activity was judged as world-leading or internationally excellent, the highest proportion of all UK multi-faculty universities. It was ranked 3rd in Europe and 8th in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-12.