PAWS - Public Awareness of Science & Engineering

Sir David King is the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford. He was the UK Government's Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science from October 2000 to 31 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 2008) on this subject. As Director of the Government's Foresight Programme, he created an in-depth horizon scanning process which 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 2001; post 9/11 risks to the UK; GM foods; energy provision; and innovation and wealth creation; and he was heavily involved in the Government's Science and Innovation Strategy 2004-2014.

He 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 1920 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 Cambridge University, and is currently President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.