Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Strategy Integration and Resources)

Professor Richard Smith is Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Strategy Integration and Resources and took up the role in June 2022.  Reporting to the Vice-Chancellor, Richard is responsible for leading on the delivery of the University’s new 2030 strategy; for effectively planning and coordinating the integrated delivery plan, resourcing and investments; and for prioritisation of strategic initiatives.

Working closely with the Provost, Richard is overseeing the University’s transition to the new Faculty structure over academic year 2022-23; and with the Registrar, Chief Financial Officer and the Divisional Director of Corporate Services is leading a review of the University’s annual planning and budgeting process to further improve its design and operation. He also works closely with the Deputy Vice-Chancellors and other members of the University Executive Board to ensure delivery and prioritisation of major academic programmes. 

Richard is a Professor of Health Economics and joined the University in 2018 as the inaugural Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the College of Medicine and Health.  He was previously at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he served as Head of the Department of Global Health & Development from 2008-2011, and as Dean of the Faculty of Public Health & Policy from 2011-2018.

Richard has experience with a wide range of economic methods, including micro-, macro-, behavioural-, and political-economic techniques, applied to various areas, from health outcome assessment to antibiotic resistance.  In the last decade he has especially pioneered the macro-economic modelling of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the economic analysis of the impact of trade and trade agreements on health and health care across a range of areas, and assessment of fiscal measures related to public health, including collaboration in the evaluation of the UK 'sugar tax'.

Richard has received research funding in excess of £50m and has more than 250 publications.  He is a senior Editor for Social Science & Medicine, and has had previous editorial responsibilities for journals including Health Economics, Journal of Public Health and Globalization and Health.  He has been member and chair of various research funding panels, and expert advisor for numerous organisations, including WHO, WTO, World Bank, OECD and various countries.  He has been elected as an Honorary Member of the Faculty of Public Health, Member of the Royal Society of Public Health, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and as a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.