Professor Colin Riordan was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex in October 2007. He came to Essex from Newcastle University, where he had been Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Provost of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences since August 2005. Before joining Newcastle University, he taught at the University of Wales, Swansea, and Julius-Maximilians Universität-Würzburg in Germany. Professor Riordan is a Board member of the East of England Development Agency, of the Haven Gateway Partnership and of the Equality Challenge Unit. He is chair of the International and European Policy Committee of Universities UK. In 2009 he chaired the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s enquiry into teaching quality. He has been Chair of the Board of University Campus Suffolk since February 2009. A Germanist by academic background, Professor Riordan has published widely on post-war German literature and culture, including editing books on the writers Jurek Becker, Uwe Johnson and Peter Schneider. Other research interests include the history of environmental ideas in German culture.