Alasdair Smith, vice-chancellor of Sussex University, will step down in August 2007 after nine years in the post, it was confirmed this week.
Professor Smith, who will leave a year before the end of his second five-year term of office, said that 2007-08 would be "an important year of opportunity for Sussex. It is best if a new vice-chancellor is in position at the start of that academic year."
Professor Smith faced intense criticism over his abandoned plans to axe chemistry at Sussex, but the university said he had "already agreed at the start of his second five-year term in 2003 that he would not stay on beyond 2008".