Richard Sykes

Sir Richard Brook Sykes, FRS FMedSci HonFREng (born 7 August 1942) is chairman of the Royal Institution and Imperial College Healthcare, and Chancellor of Brunel University. Sykes also chairs the UK Stem Cell Foundation and is Non-executive director of Lonza AG.

Sykes was educated at Queen Elizabeth College where he graduated with a BSc degree in Microbiology. He went on to study for a PhD degree in Microbial biochemistry at the University of Bristol, graduating in 1972 with thesis on beta-lactamases of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Until 2002, Sykes was chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, following a research career in Glaxo and Glaxo Wellcome. He was rector of Imperial College London, UK, from 2001 to 2008.In October 2008, Sykes accepted Farad Azima's invitation to join the NetScientific Group as the non-executive chairman.Sir Richard was the senior independent director and non-executive deputy chairman and chairman of the remuneration committee of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) until June 2011.

Between January 2001 and July 2008, Sykes was the rector of Imperial College London.

Sykes's tenure was not without controversy.

• In 2004 he spearheaded an abortive attempt to merge Imperial College with University College London.
• He supported the lifting of the £3,000 cap on tuition fees and instead allowing the universities to set fees at anything up to £10,000, a proposal opposed by many student-representing societies. This was long before UK coalition government reforms that allow £9,000 fees to be charged from 2011.
• His predecessor at Imperial had brokered a merger with the University of London's agricultural college, Wye College. Sykes overturned a promise to keep Agricultural Sciences taught at Wye at the end of 2004. By 2005 Imperial announced plans to create a non-food crops and biomass fuels research centre, anchoring a major housing development on College land. The true extent of these plans, which would have seen the small academic village become a town, were kept secret from the public by Imperial, Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council. Plans collapsed in June 2006 after media leaks and loss of their potential industry partner, and Imperial then renounced all development aspirations for the campus and surrounding land.The Save.Wye campaign described Sykes as "...an avaricious businessman posing as an academic" after the full extent of the plans were revealed. A book by David Hewsondetails the entire episode.
• In March 2006 his salary became the centre of attention amongst Imperial College staff and students after the students' union newspaper, FELIX, published a front-page article highlighting how much he was paid. Sir Richard received a salary £305,000 a year, the second highest among university principals after Professor Laura Tyson, dean of the London Business School.

On 1 July 2008, he was succeeded asrector of Imperial College by Professor Roy Anderson.

Sykes was chairman of the advisory panel of the think-tank Reform. He was a trustee of the Natural History Museum, London from 1996 to 2005 and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2003 to 2005.He was president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1998–99.

In September 2008, he was appointed chair of NHS London, but resigned in May 2010 over the decision of the Cameron Ministry to halt planned hospital reorganisations in London.

He was a member of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education that published an influential report in 1997. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering.

He joined Adcurata Cultural Change Advisory Board in September 2012 to advise on the pharmaceutical and healthcare markets.

Sykes holds a number of honorary degrees, including ones from the universities of Birmingham, Brunel, Cranfield, Edinburgh, Hertfordshire, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Madrid, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield Hallam, Sheffield, Strathclyde, Surrey, Warwick and Westminster. Sykes was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1998. He was also appointed as a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng) in 2004.

Sykes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1997. His nominations reads

Sykes was knighted in the 1994 New Year Honours. In 1999 he was awarded the Singaporean Public Service Star for his services to the economy of Singapore.