Professor Mark Biggs

Job title
Vice-Principal and Provost
Qualifications
FIChemE, CEng

Professor Mark Biggs is the Vice-Principal, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University. Mark was previously at Nottingham Trent University as the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Science and Technology since March 2018, after holding the Dean of Science role at Loughborough University since August 2014. Prior to this, he was Professor of Chemical Engineering (2008-14) and Head of School of Chemical Engineering (2010-13) at the University of Adelaide in Australia. This period in leadership roles was preceded by academic posts at the University of Edinburgh (2001-2008), Surrey University (1996-2000) and Middlesex University (1994-96).

Mark has served on the boards of the Chemical College of Engineers Australia (2011-14) and the Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management (South Australia) of Engineers Australia (2011-12), which is now known as the College of Leadership and Management. He was also the founding Chair of the Australian Carbon Society and Carbon Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI). Mark is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineering (FIChemE) and a Chartered Engineer (CEng). He was also a Fellow of Engineers Australia (FIEAust) although he has allowed this to lapse. Mark is a recipient of a Royal Academy of Engineering/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (2007-08). Mark has been a member of the EPSRC's Peer Review College since 1998 and has been a member of many EPSRC grant prioritisation panels, including ten as chair. He was also a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts for a three-year term (2010-13); this body of around 100 people (at that time) identifies research excellence, moderates external assessments and recommends fundable proposals.

Mark's research is focused on interfacial science and engineering. Mark has supervised around 20 PhD students to completion and nearly 10 postdoctoral fellows who have gone on to posts in academia, research institutes and industry. He has held more than ten major grants as principle investigator and a similar number as co-investigator. Mark has given around 100 invited talks around the world, published around 120 papers that have been extensively cited and holds a number of patents. Mark has collaborated extensively with researchers around the world, including most recently with researchers in Japan, Spain, the US, France and Australia. These collaborations are reflected in numerous joint publications.

Mark’s wider interests include history and travel.

As well as Court, Mark is a member of:

Key information