Sir Peter John Gregson, FREng (born 3 November 1957 in

Dunfermline Dunfermline (; sco, Dunfaurlin, gd, Dùn Phàrlain) is a city, parish and former Royal Burgh, in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. The city currently has an estimated population of 58,508. Accord ...

, Scotland) is a British research engineer and Chair of the

Henry Royce Institute The Henry Royce Institute (often referred to as ‘Royce’) is the UK’s national institute for advanced materials research and innovation. Its vision is to identify challenges and to stimulate innovation in advanced materials research to suppo ...

. He was previously the Vice-Chancellor of

Cranfield University , mottoeng = After clouds light , established = 1946 - College of Aeronautics 1969 - Cranfield Institute of Technology (gained university status by royal charter) 1993 - Cranfield University (adopted current name) , type = Public research uni ...

from 2013-202 and President and Vice-Chancellor of

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

from 2004. Prior to that he was deputy Vice-Chancellor at Southampton University from 2000-2004.Gregson, Sir Peter (John), Who's Who 2016, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2015; online edn, Nov 2015, accessed 15 Feb 2016
/ref>

Early life

He joined

GKN GKN Ltd is a British multinational automotive and aerospace components business headquartered in Redditch, England. It is a long-running business known for many decades as Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds. It can trace its origins back to 1759 an ...

Rolled and Bright Steel Ltd. as an industrial scholar in 1976. He studied

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

and materials science at Imperial College London and graduated with a BSc(Eng) (first class) in materials science in 1980, and was awarded the Bessemer Prize. He obtained a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from Imperial in 1983, and was awarded the Matthey Prize.

Academic career

He was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Southampton in 1983 and became Professor of Aerospace Materials in 1995. During his research career, he published over 160 papers, books and patents with over 80 being in premier academic journals. He was Academic Director of the Luxfer Advanced Technology Centre (1998–2004), the DePuy University Technology Partnership (2000–04) and the Defence and Aerospace Research Partnership (DARP) in Advanced Metallic Airframes. He was a member of the International Committee for the biennial International Conference on Aluminium Alloys (International Conference on Aluminium Alloys (ICAA), 1998-04) and Chair of ICAA 2002. As head of the department and Director of Research for Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science (1995–99), he created a new Transport Systems Research Laboratory and founded an Engineering Graduate School. As Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton (2000–04), he led the development and implementation of an ambitious vision for Enterprise and Innovation, including the partnership with IP2IPO and

SETsquared The SETsquared Partnership, usually known simply as SETsquared, is a business incubation network run by five universities in Southern England. SETsquared stands for Southern England Technology Triangle. The partnership was formed in 2002, betwee ...

together with the universities of Bristol,

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

and

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

University leadership roles

Gregson became President and Vice-Chancellor of

on 1 August 2004. He repositioned the university academically, gaining accession to the

Russell Group The Russell Group is a self-selected association of twenty-four public university, public research university, research universities in the United Kingdom. The group is headquartered in Cambridge and was established in 1994 to represent its memb ...

in 2006. External recognition has included Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Green Chemistry and the Comprehensive Cancer Centre (2006 & 2012),

Times Higher Education Awards ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

for Innovation in Culture and the Arts (2008), Entrepreneurial University of the Year (2009), Engineering Research Team of the Year (2010), Innovative Teacher of the Year (2011) and Outstanding Fundraising Team (2012), and an

Athena Swan Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) is a quality charter mark framework and accreditation scheme established and managed by the UK Equality Challenge Unit (now part of Advance HE) in 2005 that recognises and celebrates good practi ...

Institutional Silver Award (2012). He served as Director of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (2008-2013) and Director of

Association of Commonwealth Universities The Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) was established in 1913, and has over 500 member institutions in over 50 countries across the Commonwealth. The ACU is the world's oldest international network of universities. Its mission is ...

(2011-2015). Strategic international partnerships were established with Georgetown University and Seagate Technology (USA), University Malaya and Petronas (Malaysia), National Institute of Immunology and Videocon (India) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University and China Medical University (China). Gregson was appointed Chief Executive and Vice-Chancellor of

in August 2013.Cranfield`s Senior Team, accessed 4 Oct 2014
/ref>

Professional experience

He has been non-executive director of Rolls-Royce Group plc (2007–12), and been a Consultant to

Alcan International The Alcan Golfer of the Year Championship, also known as the Alcan Open, was an international golf tournament played from 1967 to 1970. It was sponsored by Alcan Aluminum of Canada, a long-time corporate sponsor of professional golf on internatio ...

and

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

Orthopaedics (1986–2004). He has served EPSRC in many capacities including as Chair of Postgraduate Training Packages (2000) and the academic representative on the User Panel (2004–06). He was a member of the DTI/OST Materials Foresight Panel (1997–99) and Council of CCLRC (2004–06). He has served the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in many roles including as Chair of the Alloy Design Committee (1991–92), Chair of the Metal Science Committee (1992–93), member of Materials Strategy Commission (1997–99) and Light Metals Division (2000 -2002); He has served on the Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2005–08) and as Chair of Membership Panel 4 (2006–09); He has contributed to the Strategic Leadership Consultations of the Windsor Leadership Trust, the Harvard University Programme for University presidents and the American Council on Education Fellows Programme. He has served on the Steering Committee of the US/Ireland R&D Partnership (2005–10), the Northern Ireland Economic Development Forum (2006–10) and Council of CBI Northern Ireland (2008–13). Gregson was appointed Chair of the

in December 2021.

Honours and awards

He received the Donald Julius Groen Prize of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1994) and the Rosenhain Medal and Prize of the Institute of Materials (1996) for his research on the development of advanced aerospace aluminium alloys. He has been elected to Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2001), Irish Academy of Engineering (2007) and Royal Irish Academy (2007). He has received Honorary Degrees from the Bengal Engineering and Science University (2008), National University of Ireland (2008) and University of Southampton (2009). He served as Deputy Lieutenant of Belfast (2007–13) and received the Flax Trust Award for service to the community in 2010.

Personal life

He married Rachael Kathleen McClaughry in 1983, and they have three daughters. He has been Churchwarden of Romsey Abbey (1991–95) and their charity support has included Wooden Spoon, Naomi House, l’Arche Belfast, Arthritis Care (NI) Association, Lyric Theatre (Belfast), Lyric Theatre and Camerata Ireland. His hobbies include gardening, sailing, tennis and classical music.

Awards and honours

* Bessemer Prize, Imperial College London, 1980. * Matthey Prize, Imperial College London, 1983. * Donald Julius Groen Prize of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1993. * Rosenhain Medal and Prize of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, 1996. * Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, 1998. * Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, 2001. * Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland * Member of the Windsor Leadership Trust, 2002. * Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gregson, Peter 1957 births Living people People from Dunfermline Alumni of Imperial College London Academics of the University of Southampton Academics of Queen's University Belfast Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Vice-Chancellors of Queen's University Belfast Knights Bachelor Members of the Royal Irish Academy People associated with Cranfield University Fellows of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining