Chief Scientific Adviser

The Department for International Development (DFID), UK

Sir Conway was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for International Development, UK at the beginning of 2005. He was educated at the Universities of Wales (Bangor), Cambridge, Trinidad and California (Davis). His discipline is agricultural ecology.

In the early 1960's, working in Sabah, North Borneo, he became one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture. From 1970 to 1986, he was Professor of Environmental Technology at Imperial College, London.

During this period he lived and worked in many countries in Asia and the Middle East, He directed the sustainable agriculture program of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London before becoming Representative of the Ford Foundation in New Delhi from 1988 to 1992. From 1992-1998, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex and Chair of the Institute for Development Studies. From 1998 to 2004, he was President of The Rockefeller Foundation.

He also holds the title of Professor of International Development at Imperial College, London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004 and was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in 2005. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of East Sussex. And he is President of the Royal Geographical Society and Chair of Visiting Arts.