Tony Minson - Science and University Administration

Science and University Administration

Minson has been highly active in university administration. In 2001–3, he chaired the School of Biological Sciences, one of the six schools of the University of Cambridge. In 2003, he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the university, in succession to Malcolm Grant. Minson was the first, and most senior, of a new team of five Pro-Vice-Chancellors, holding particular responsibility for planning and resources. He said of his role: We have a duty to maintain the university's values of scientific enquiry and scholarship whilst embracing the principles of sustainable, achievable reform. He served in this position until 2009, the university's 800th anniversary year. Soon after his appointment, he was thrown into controversy over his strong support for a proposed new primate research centre attached to the university, which was the target of a campaign by animal rights activists. The plans were later abandoned because of escalating costs, due in part to the activism. In 2005, the university launched a major fund-raising campaign to mark the 800th anniversary; the £1 billion target was achieved ahead of schedule in 2010.

Minson has also served on the steering committee of the multidisciplinary Cambridge Infectious Disease group, launched in 2004. In 2010–12, he chaired the syndicate governing Cambridge University Press. Outside the university, he served on the council of the Society for General Microbiology in 1990–94 and 2003–7, and (as of 2012) is the reviews editor of their journal, the Journal of General Virology. He was an officer of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Institute for Animal Health (now the Pirbright Institute) in 1997–2003. As of 2013, Minson is on the board of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine and is a trustee of the Animal Health Trust.

He has drawn attention to the cost of bureaucracy imposed on researchers by government agencies, writing in 2004:

To be against improvement in standards is like being against motherhood, but we should be alert to the dangers of universal codes of practice imposed for administrative tidiness. The fact is that the great scientific leaps of the past 50 years have not been made in laboratories using validated standard operating procedures, well defined line-management systems, and 6-monthly milestones.