The following chief executives have been appointed to Research Councils from April 1, 1998: Dr Albert Westwood is to succeed Dr Paul Williams as chairman and chief executive of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils; Professor Ian Halliday is to succeed Professor Ken Pounds as chief executive and deputy chairman of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council; and Professors Richard Brook and John Krebs have been reappointed as chief executive and deputy chairmen of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Natural Environment Research Council respectively.

Dr Wynne Jones, principal of Harper Adams Agricultural College, Newport, Shropshire, has been made a professor, the first in the college’s 96-year history.