On the move

David Bridges, pro vice-chancellor and professor of education at the University of East Anglia, has been appointed the first executive director of the new Association of Universities of the Eastern Region, bringing together the region's eight universities and three higher education colleges.

Anne Weinstock, chief executive of Rathbone CI, a charity that helps people with special educational and training needs, has been appointed chief executive of the new Connexions Service National Unit. The government unit will try to improve the participation and attainment of teenagers.

Gary Crossley, deputy director at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design University College, is to become principal at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London in October.

Gresham College has appointed: Frank Close, head of theoretical physics at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, as professor of astronomy; Piers Hellawell, reader in composition at Queen's University Belfast, professor of music; and Richard Sorabji, professor of ancient philosophy at King's College, London, professor of rhetoric. Baroness Warnock, former mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, has been appointed visiting professor in rhetoric, and Abdullah Ibrahim, composer and pianist, visiting professor in music.

Jill Macleod Clark, head of the school of nursing and midwifery and deputy dean of the faculty of medicine, health and biological sciences at the University of Southampton, is to help draw up a national plan for the future of the National Health Service.

Richard Hogston, nursing officer for education and training at the NHS executive in Leeds, has been appointed head of the school of nursing at the Univer-sity of Hull.

John Wilkinson, deputy public health director at the North Yorkshire Health Authority, has been seconded to the North and Yorkshire NHS region's public health observatory at the University of Durham Business School.

Sir David Davies, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, has been appointed non-executive chairman of Railway Safety, set up in response to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions recommendations following the Ladbroke Grove train crash.

Cecile Wright, reader in sociology at Nottingham Trent University, has been appointed professor of sociology at the university.