Professor Sir David King

Professor Sir David King

UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change (SRCC)

Professor Sir David King is the newly appointed Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change (SRCC). He was formerly Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford, and the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science from October 2000 to December 2007. In that time, he raised the profile of the need for governments to act on climate change and was instrumental in creating the new £1 billion Energy Technologies Institute. In 2008 he co-authored The Hot Topic (Bloomsbury) on this subject.

As Director of the Government’s Foresight Programme, he created an in-depth horizon scanning process that advised government on a wide range of long-term issues, from flooding to obesity. He also chaired the Government’s Global Science and Innovation Forum from its inception. He advised government on issues including the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic of 2001; post 9/11 risks to the UK; GM foods; energy provision; and innovation and wealth creation. He was also heavily involved in the Government’s Science and Innovation Strategy 2004-2014.

Sir David was born in South Africa in 1939, and after an early career at the University of Witwatersrand, Imperial College and the University of East Anglia, he became the Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 1974. In 1988 he was appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and subsequently became Master of Downing College (1995-2000) and Head of the University Chemistry Department (1993-2000). He has published over 450 papers on his research in chemical physics and on science and policy, and has received numerous prizes, fellowships, and honorary degrees. He continues as Director of Research in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and is currently President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Disorder Jury

The jury for the Prix Pictet are a group of leading experts in the visual arts from around the world including directors of major museums and galleries as well as journalists and critics. They lead the global search for images of high artistic qcuality and narrative power and fit the theme of a particular cycle.

  • Professor Sir David King (Chairman)

    UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change (SRCC)

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  • Peter Aspden

    Arts Writer, Financial Times

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  • Martin Barnes

    Senior Curator of Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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  • Philippe Bertherat

    Former Managing Partner Pictet Group

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  • Edward Burtynsky

    Photographer

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  • Emmanuelle de l’Écotais

    Curator of Photography, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

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  • Nili Goren

    Curator of Photography, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

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  • Wang Shu

    Architect

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  • Elisabeth Sussman

    Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

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