Career
Professor Trainor was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich (2000–2004). Prior to this appointment, he was Senior Vice-Principal of the University of Glasgow.
Trainor became Principal of King's College London in 2004, where he is also Professor of Social History. In 2009 the title of President of King’s was added.
Between 2007 and 2009 Rick served as President of Universities UK (UUK), the organisation that represents the heads of all UK Universities. In this role he engaged with the new Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills and latterly, successor Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, on a wide range of issues including autonomy, funding, research, standards and immigration.
He served on the Confederation of British Industries’ Higher Education Task Force from 2008-2009.
Since becoming Principal of King’s in 2004, Professor Trainor has overseen the promotion of the College from 96th to 27th place in the QS World University Rankings (2011), making it the 6th ranked UK university.
In 2010 King’s was named UK Sunday Times University of the Year.
Professor Trainor oversaw the College’s role in the creation of King’s Health Partners in 2009, an academic health science centre, in which King’s College London collaborates with Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts.
During Professor Trainor’s tenure, in 2009 King’s acquired the East Wing of Somerset House, after 180 years of intermittent negotiations between King’s and Somerset House Trust. Somerset House East Wing was opened by Her Majesty The Queen in February 2012.
Under Professor Trainor’s leadership, the College has launched King’s Cultural Institute, enhancing ties to a number of nearby national cultural institutions.
Professor Trainor received the Annual Leadership Award of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education in June 2011 for his role in the College’s fundraising and for alumni relations.
Professor Trainor has overseen the establishment of a number of Global Institutes - the Brazil Institute, the Russia Institute, the India Institute and the China Institute - at the College as part of greater focus on internationalisation at King's. These centres of research and study aim to focus on contemporary developments in fast-changing parts of the world.
In March 2012, Hong Kong philanthropist Dickson Poon CBE donated £20 million to the King’s Law School as part of an overall £40 million investment in the School to establish it as a leader in the field of transnational law. The donation will fund eight new Distinguished Chair positions, a further seven ‘rising stars’ and up to 80 student scholarships a year, of which 15 will be reserved for students currently resident in Hong Kong and mainland China.
In March 2012 Professor Trainor was invited to join the IPPR Commission on the Future of Higher Education. In May 2012 HEFCE announced it was to undertake a Review of Philanthropic Support for Higher Education throughout the UK and Professor Trainor will sit on the review board.
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