Northumbria’s Vice-Chancellor receives CBE at Buckingham Palace

‘The recognition is for the whole university’


Earlier this week, our very own Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Wathey, received a CBE for his services to higher education, after featuring in the New Year Honours list for 2016.

Appointed in 2008, Professor Andrew Wathey has overseen the transformation of Northumbria’s research capacity. During his tenure, the University has risen from 80th to 50th in the “Research Excellence Framework’s research power ranking” – the greatest improvement in the country. He has also overseen a 50% rise in the number of highly-qualified students choosing to study at Northumbria.

Amongst other achievements, in 2014 Northumbria received a double accreditation in Business and Accounting from the “Association to Advance Collegiate Business Schools (AASCB)”, placing us in the top 1% of Business Schools globally. It also singles out the university as the first in Europe to be granted this accreditation. Subsequently, in 2015, Northumbria’s business school was ranked first in the UK by The Times.

Andrew Wathey, left [Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office]

In response to being awarded a CBE, Professor Wathey said: “To receive this award at Buckingham Palace is a huge honour, but as I have said before, the recognition is for the whole university and testament to the many successes that colleagues have achieved in recent years”.

The Tab Northumbria would like to pass on our congratulations to the Vice-Chancellor on achieving this accolade.