Professor Anna Philpott appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Resources and Operations

Professor Philpott will take up her new position in October 2024, and takes over from current Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor David Cardwell.

A developmental biologist with a long-standing interest in how cells within developing embryos decide which fate to adopt, as well as how they decide whether to proliferate or arrest cell division and adopt a mature functional state, Professor Philpott is also interested in how control of these processes is subverted in cancer cells.

She undertook her first Degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, studying at Selwyn College, and followed this with a PhD in chromatin biology, also at Cambridge.  She then moved to Boston in the US, to undertake two post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School. She moved back to Cambridge in 1998 to start her own lab in the Department of Oncology, and is a Fellow of Clare College.

Her laboratory in the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute continues to use multiple experimental systems, and in particular Xenopus frog eggs and embryos, to understand fundamental mechanisms controlling cell fate and differentiation during embryogenesis, and how these are subverted to drive the aberrant behaviour of cancer cells. She was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 2020, and the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2022.

As Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Resources and Operations, Professor Philpott will provide leadership across four principal areas:

• The prioritisation, distribution and use of resources across the University to optimise operational effectiveness
• Integration of academic planning with resource planning
• Oversight of the University’s change programmes
• Oversight of the University’s IT and digital capability

Working within a rapidly changing landscape of higher education, early priorities will be around delivering changes in systems and processes behind a number of significant operational areas, including finances, human resources and the University estate, to best position Cambridge to meet its academic needs moving forward.

She said: “This is an opportunity to help ensure our long-term operational effectiveness and financial sustainability, which underpin our academic mission and are critical to allow the University to continue to thrive into the future. I’m excited to work with our community, furthering its priorities now, and helping make this world-leading institution even stronger for the next generation of students, staff and researchers.”

Professor Philpott is taking over from Professor Cardwell, who has served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Strategy and Planning since August 2018, having been reappointed for a second term in March 2021. Professor Cardwell has supported and strengthened the University’s academic endeavour, overseeing the distribution of resources, co-ordinating academic strategy across the institution, and developing the University’s planning and budgeting process so that it is priority-led. During the COVID-19 pandemic he was the academic lead in the safe closure and re-occupation of more than 700 University buildings during the repeated periods of lockdown.

The University of Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice welcomed Professor Philpott to the role and thanked Professor Cardwell for his service.

She said: “Anna’s expertise and experience as an academic leader will be invaluable as the University develops its operational effectiveness and efficiency, bolsters its global academic standing, and enhances its capacity to contribute to society. She will continue the exceptional work of David Cardwell, who I would like to sincerely thank for his service to the University, and for everything he has achieved in his role as Pro-Vice-Chancellor over the past six years.”

The repositioning of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor role reflects the different calls on the University’s resources and the consequential need for a greater focus on prioritisation and operational effectiveness.

There are five Pro-Vice-Chancellors at the University of Cambridge. Their role is to work in partnership with other senior leaders, including Heads of School and Professional Services leads, to help drive strategy and policy development. The Pro-Vice-Chancellors also support the Vice-Chancellor in providing academic leadership to the University.