Second coup for Bain

George Bain, already in the news after his appointment to head the Government's new Low Pay Commission, has won his second high-profile job in a month.

Professor Bain, 58, principal of London Business School, is to succeed Sir Gordon Beveridge as president and vice chancellor of Queen's University Belfast from next January. He said there would be no clash between his two roles.

"While it is a slightly longer journey from Belfast to the DTI, or wherever the LPC ends up, than it is from Regent's Park, this should not be a problem," he said.

While often linked with vice chancellorships - he reckons to have been approached on about a dozen occasions - this is only the second time he has pursued such a post. He dropped his interest in the first when appointed to head LBS in 1989. He said: "I decided if I was going to head another institution after LBS, I wanted it to be somewhere with deep roots in a major city, as Queen's has in Belfast."

Professor Bain also has Belfast roots. His mother was born there, although she left for Canada as a girl. He acknowledges a local identity can be as much a problem as an asset in the city, but says that as a Canadian he has the asset of "sounding neither English nor Irish".

Personal connections and a lifelong interest in conciliation - his academic reputation was built in the field of industrial relations - predispose him to an interest in Northern Ireland. But he points out that "it would be foolish to assume the university could make a direct contribution to any solution by intervention in the political process. Where it could help is by providing a model for a pluralist community, through its cultural contribution to city life and as a learning environment which brings together people from both traditions."

Professor Bain believes his reputation as a manager of academic change helped him to get the job, but he says he will not be turning Queen's upside-down overnight.

It is unlikely his salary will attract the attention of the Low Pay Commission, but he has had to take a pay cut from the Pounds 136,000 he earned at LBS. Sir Gordon's 1995-96 pay was Pounds 103,000.