Malcolm Wicks MP (Labour, Croydon North), 51, former social policy lecturer at Brunel University and fellow of York University from 1968 to 1970, has been appointed chairman of the Commons education select committee. He replaces Margaret Hodge, who was promoted to junior employment minister in the summer reshuffle.
Gordon Marsden MP (Labour, Blackpool South), 45, has been appointed to the education sub-committee, replacing Durham MP Gerry Steinberg.
Sir Trevor Holdsworth, 71, former chairman of GKN and former president of the Confederation of British Industry, has been appointed chairman of the new Institute for Manufacturing, which joins together the Foundation for Manufacturing and Industry with Cambridge University's Manufacturing and Management Division.
Thomas McKillop, chief executive of Zeneca Pharmaceuticals and chief executive designate of Zeneca Group, has become a pro chancellor of Leicester University.
Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Bronwyn Curtis, chief economist for Nomura International, and Heather Rabbats, chief executive of Lambeth Borough Council, have been appointed to the Economic and Social Research Council.
Graham Rees has left the University of Wolverhampton, where he was senior lecturer in English, to become research professor at Queen Mary and Westfield College. QMW is losing Lorna Hutson, a reader in renaissance studies, who is taking a chair in English literature at Hull University.
At Keele University, John Bale, reader in education, becomes professor of sports geography in the education department; Didi Herman, reader in law, becomes professor of law; Rolland Munro, reader in management, becomes professor of organisation theory in the department of management; Rosemary O'Kane, senior lecturer in the politics department, becomes professor of comparative political theory; Bie Nio Ong, reader at the centre for health planning and management, becomes professor of health services research; Hidemi Suganami, head of the department of international relations, becomes professor of the philosophy of international relations, and Hugh Torrens, reader in the earth sciences department, becomes professor of history of science and technology.