• Lewis Perinbam, a former senior adviser at the Commonwealth of Learning, succeeds H. Ian Macdonald as chair of the board of governors. He is the second Canadian to hold the post.
• Jill Macleod Clark, deputy dean of medicine, health and biological sciences at Southampton University, has been elected chair of the Council of Deans and Heads of UK Faculties for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting.
• Thomas Burns, professor of community psychiatry at St George's Hospital Medical School, London, has been appointed to the professorship of social psychiatry, funded by the University of Oxford and the Oxfordshire Mental Healthcare Trust.
• Lincoln University has appointed Richard Keeble professor of journalism. He is a former editor of the National Union of Teachers' newspaper, The Teacher.
• Douglas Kell, professor of bioanalytical science at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, has been reappointed to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
• Roger Taylor, former senior curator of photographs at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, has joined De Montfort University as senior research fellow.
• New members of the National Academy of Sciences in the US include two UK academics - Janet Thornton, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, and Alan Walker, professor of anthropology and biology, Pennsylvania State University at University Park.
• Author Margaret Elphinstone has joined Strathclyde University's department of English studies as professor of writing.