Mr Wood is Milton Keynes College’s head of marketing and business development. He moved there in 1992 from Swindon College where he was head of the business school. He was born and educated in Liverpool and Swansea University where he studied sociology and anthropology.

Nick Pearce, special adviser to Home Secretary David Blunkett, will join the Institute for Public Policy Research in September as deputy director.

Before joining the Home Office he was an adviser at the Department for Education and Employment, specialising in further and higher education and skills policy.

American-born astrophysicist Janna Levin has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts to become scientist-in-residence at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University. She will continue her scientific research in the physics department.