On the move

Paul Richards, chief executive of West Midlands Development Agency, is to take up the new post of deputy vice-chancellor (executive director - external developments) at Staffordshire University.

Chris Lamb - regius professor of plant science at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh and the former director of the plant biology laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, US - has been appointed director of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, the United Kingdom's leading research centre into genetically modified crops.

Michael Barlow, professor of astronomy at University

College London, has been appointed to serve on the Anglo Australian Telescope Board for the period July 1 1999 to December 31 2002. He replaces Roger Davies.