Sir John Knebs, Royal Society research professor in the University of Oxford's zoology department, has been appointed chairman of the new Food Standards Agency. Chief executive will be Geoffrey Podger, head of the Agriculture Ministry's joint food safety and standards group.
John Akker, the former general secretary of university and college lecturers' union Natfhe, has become executive secretary of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics.
Peter Oppenheimer, a tutor in economics at the University of Oxford and Student of Christ Church, has been appointed president of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies from April. He succeeds acting president Martin Goodman.
David-Hillel Ruben, former director of the London School of Jewish Studies and professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, has become director of New York University in London.
His successor at LSJS will be Ian Rabinowitz, administrative director of the department of medicine at University College London. He takes up his post at LSJS in a part-time consultative role from this month and will become full time in May.
Ian Cameron, vice-chancellor of the University of Wales College of Medicine, has been appointed to the Commission for Health Improvement by the National Assembly for Wales.
David Irwin, founder of the company Project North East, has been appointed chief executive of the new Small Business Service at the TEC National Council.
Jacob Klein, professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, has been appointed head of physical chemistry at the University of Oxford from next October.
Christine Bell, director of the Centre for International and Comparative Human Rights Law at the Queen's University, Belfast, has been appointed to the foundation chair of law at the University of Ulster's Magee College campus, Londonderry.
Colin Campbell, professor and dean of law at the National University of Ireland, Galway and Fionnuala Ni Aolain, assistant professor of law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, join Ulster as professors of law.