Bob Cryan to step down as Huddersfield v-c after 20 years

One of the longest serving vice-chancellors in the UK is to depart his “hometown university” early next year.

Chartered engineer Bob Cryan is to leave the University of Huddersfield – based in the town where he was born – on 1 February, having been in the role for 20 years. He is believed to be the longest serving leader of a major university currently working in the sector.

He is surpassed in service only by the likes of John Cater, who served as vice-chancellor at Edgehill University for three decades before his retirement in January 2025.

Cryan, once the youngest professor of engineering in the UK, joined Huddersfield as an academic in September 1986. He left in 1992 to work at institutions including Manchester Metropolitan University and Northumbria University, before returning to take on the vice-chancellorship in January 2007.

He met his wife while he was a student at Huddersfield, and she later became a graduate of the institution too, while his two children also studied at the university.

Cryan’s current deputy, historian Tim Thornton, will take over on an interim basis as the university begins an “external process” searching for a permanent successor.

Cryan has been credited with leading Huddersfield to gold award status in the most recent Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) results and boosting its research strength, with the institution joining the top third of UK-based universities in the last Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Mark Fisher, chair of Huddersfield’s university council, noted that “alongside these academic achievements”, the institution has “maintained a financial position in the upper decile of the sector and remains debt-free”.

The university has however had to undergo a series of redundancy rounds in recent years, proposing nearly 200 cuts to jobs in 2024.

“On behalf of the university council, I would like to thank Bob for his exceptional leadership and outstanding service to Huddersfield,” Fisher added.

Cryan said: “Leading the University of Huddersfield has been the defining professional experience of my life and an enormous privilege.”

He continued: “I have been extraordinarily fortunate to work alongside talented and committed colleagues and students, and I am immensely proud of what we have achieved together. I remain as ambitious for Huddersfield today as I was when I returned in 2007 and have enormous confidence in its future.”

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com