* Tariq Ramadan , philosopher, Arabist and visiting fellow at St Anthony's College, Oxford, has been appointed visiting professor at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, for two years from January 1.
* Sheffield University has appointed: Richard Hodges , director of the Institute of World Archaeology at the University of East Anglia, visiting professor; John Woolford , formerly professor of English at Manchester University, research chair in English; Tamara Harvey , professor of law at Nottingham University, chair of law; Aurora Plomer , reader in law and bioethics at Nottingham, chair in law; and Evgeny Dobrenko , professor of Russian studies and critical theory at Nottingham, chair in Russian and Slavonic studies.
* Brinley Jones , president of the National Library of Wales, succeeds Ray White as president of the University of Wales, Lampeter.
* Kirsty Gunn , novelist and London Arts Board Literature Award winner, has been appointed chair of creative writing at Dundee University.
* Hassan Hassan , former director of research at the University of Central Lancashire, has been appointed vice-principal (research and commercialisation) at Paisley Univer-sity.
* Jill Janney , of law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, has been appointed chief executive and head of the new Nottingham at Kaplan Law School, a partnership between Nottingham University Law School and the private Kaplan Law School.