News archive 2004

Harkness Lecture held at King’s

03 Nov 2004, PR 69/04

Research for health and wealth was the title of this year’s annual Harkness Lecture. It was given by Professor Colin Blakemore FRS, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council and Harkness Fellow (1965-67), on Thursday 28 October in the Great Hall of King’s College London.

The Harkness Lecture, established in the last decade, has become a major annual event in the activities arranged by the Harkness Fellows’ Association. Previous speakers have included Dame Rosalyn Higgins of the International Court of Justice, Hugo Young of the Guardian, Sir Howard Davies, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Jonathan Freedland, journalist and broadcaster and The Hon William Shawcross, writer and broadcaster.

Professor Rick Trainor, Principal of King’s, welcomed Harkness Fellows and College staff. Timothy Hornsby, Chair of the Harkness Fellows Association, introduced Professor Blakemore’s lecture. Professor Trainor chaired questions after.

Notes to editors

Professor Colin Blakemore FRS
Colin Blakemore, FMedSci, FRS, became Chief Executive of the MRC on 1 October 2003. He studied Medical Sciences at Cambridge and completed a PhD at the University of California in Berkeley. After 11 years in the Department of Physiology at Cambridge, he became Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford in 1979 and was Director of the MRC IRC for Cognitive Neuroscience for 8 years.

His research is concerned with vision and the early development of the brain. He has been President of the British Neuroscience Association, the Physiological Society and the new Biosciences Federation. He has also been President and Chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and he is strongly committed to the public communication of science.

Harkness Fellows’ Association
The Harkness Fellows’ Association and Transatlantic Trust was set up by alumni of the Harkness Fellowships, the premier programme offering graduate scholarships in the USA, which ran from 1925 to 1996. Membership and activities are open to all those who are interested in relationships with the USA. The Association offers a varied programme of talks and social events. It has commissioned a film celebrating the achievements of the fellowships programme and opening up the debate about the possibility of reviving a modern Hakness Fellowship for the 21st century.

For 75 years the Harkness Fellowship provided a unique and inspiring opportunity for young people to travel and learn. Between 1925 and 1996 the Harkness Fellowship programme sent some 1,500 Fellows to the USA from Britain and other countries (primarily Australia and New Zealand). The programme was terminated in 1996 and redesigned as the Harkness Fellowships programme in Health Care Policy, administered by the Commonwealth Fund in New York and offering six Fellowships per year.

King’s College London
King’s is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with 13,800 undergraduate students and some 5,300 postgraduates in ten schools of study. The College had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level. King’s is in the top group of five universities for research earnings with income from grants and contracts of more than £93 million (2002-2003) and has an annual turnover of £320 million. King’s is a member of the Russell Group, a coalition of the UK’s major research-based universities.

King’s has three Harkness Fellows: Professor Sir Graeme Catto (Vice-Principal and Dean of the Guy’s, King’s College, St Thomas’ Hospitals’ Medical & Dental Schools), Professor Philippa Easterbrook (Professor of HIV/GU Medicine and Head of the Department of HIV/GU Medicine) and Professor Anne-Marie Rafferty (Head of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery).

Further information
Melanie Gardner. Senior Public Relations Officer, King’s College London Tel: 020-7848 3073, email: pr@kcl.ac.uk

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This information is provided by the Public Relations Department
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