Clive Booth, vice chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, has announced his retirement.
Dr Booth, who has held the post for 11 years, is to retire next March to clear more time for developing his work in public policy and international education.
The announcement this week will come as a blow to those in the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals who saw Dr Booth, a former CVCP vice chairman, as one of the few new university vice chancellors who could lead the committee.
Dr Booth said that although he had agonised over the decision, he felt the timing of his retirement was right for his personal objectives and to allow his successor to be "comfortably in the saddle before Dearing reports".
He had never held ambitions to head the CVCP, he said. "It always seemed to me that the CVCP was such a difficult body to lead that I was never really interested."
Dr Booth is expecting his retirement will leave more time to pursue his interests in international education, possibly maintaining a role within Brookes by developing international projects for the university.
The move had been carefully thought out and planned for some time, with a contract drawn up which would allow Dr Booth to leave at no cost to the university beyond that of the appointment of his successor.
He is also likely to continue his work as chairman of the Nolan working group on higher education, the Committee for International Cooperation in Higher Education, and the UK Socrates-Erasmus Council. He is also a board member of the British Council, and a member of the Council for Industry and Higher Education.
Dr Booth's interest in public policy follows a period as principal private secretary to the Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1975. In 1981 he was appointed deputy director of Plymouth Polytechnic before returning to London as a senior member of Her Majesty's Inspectorate. He was appointed director of Oxford Polytechnic in 1985 and vice chancellor of Oxford Brookes in 1992.