* John Coyne , pro vice-chancellor of De Montfort University, is to become vice-chancellor of the University of Derby.
* The University of Oxford has appointed: Peter Ratcliffe , former professor of renal medicine, senior research fellow of Jesus College and honorary consultant physician at the Oxford Radcliffe Trust, the Nuffield professor of clinical medicine and a fellow of Magdalen College; Susan Walker , deputy keeper in the department of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum, keeper of antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum; Richard Greenhalgh , chairman of Unilever UK, chairman of the governing body of Templeton College; and Hugh Whitemore , award-winning screenwriter, News International visiting professor of broadcast media 2004.
* The University of Manchester has appointed: Vera Tolz-Zilintinkevich , professor of Russian history and alternate director of the European Studies Research Institute at the University of Salford, professor of Russian studies; and Nalin Thakkar , former senior lecturer in medical genetics, professor of molecular pathology and genetics in the Dental School.
* Fellowships of the Institute of Cancer Research have been conferred on: Peter Brookes and Phil Lawley , whose discovery that DNA malfunction is the basic cause of cancer in 1964 changed the course of cancer research; and Daniel Catovsky , professor and leader of the academic haematology department at ICR and former president of the British Society of Haematology and president of the Medical Research Council's chronic lymphocytic leukaemia trials.