Prof. Dr. Colin Grant

Speaker

Professor Dr Colin Grant is Vice-Principal (International), Queen Mary University of London. He is Chair of the Russell Group International Forum, Chair of the British Council Education Advisory Group, a long standing member of the Going Global Steering Committee, and of the Universities UK International Strategic Advisory Board.  He was UUK lead for Latin America from 2014 to 2017, taking national delegations to Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.  He has served on the DAAD Strategic Partnerships Committee since 2012.

Professor Grant began his career at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh where he studied applied languages, literature and European Studies. He was Visiting Associate Professor at one of Brazil’s leading universities – the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – from 1994 until 1998 and appointed Visiting Professor at the prestigious Institute for Philosophy and Social Sciences from 1996 to 1998. He was awarded two DAAD postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Siegen, where he worked with the world’s leading communication philosopher, Professor Siegfried J. Schmidt, developing a theory of communicative uncertainty.

He returned to the UK in 1998, becoming Professor at Heriot-Watt in 2003, Head of School, Dean and then Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Surrey and inaugural Pro-Vice Chancellor (Internationalisation) at the University of Bath. He was Visiting Professor at the Sorbonne in 2004.

In 2016 he was appointed inaugural Vice President at the University of Southampton.

Professor Grant was chair of the Management Committee for the Surrey-DUFE International Institute from 2008-2011 and chair of the Board of University of Southampton Malaysia Campus and Southampton Singapore Limited from 2016 until 2018.