Professor Sir Michael Arthur FMedSci

Professor Sir Michael Arthur is the past President and Provost of University College London, having completed his seven-year term of office in January 2021. Prior to this he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds (2004-2013) and formerly Professor of Medicine (1992), Head of the School of Medicine (1998-2001) and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK (2003-04). In 2015, Sir Michael became the first Vice-Chancellor of a Russell Group University to become a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Sir Michael has a significant national and international profile.  He was Chair of the Advisory Group for National Specialised Services (NHS) (2010-2013) and was a long-standing member of the Council of the Medical Research Council (2006 - Sept 2014).

Sir Michael has previously led two highly successful university fund raising campaigns, one at the University of Leeds and the other at University College London.

With professional support, the Leeds campaign was built de novo, and ultimately went on to raise £100M.  At UCL, an experienced development team was expanded and supported to create an award-winning campaign called ‘It’s All Academic’, which raised £624M over a ten-year period, becoming the third largest in Europe.

For his commitment to fund raising and other elements of university advancement, Sir Michael was awarded the CASE Europe Leadership Award in 2017. He was also awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan, 2022) Silver and Gold medals for his promotion of Anglo-Japanese collaboration in Higher Education. In the platinum jubilee year, Sir Michael was awarded Knights Bachelor for his services to Higher Education in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2022.