QMUL appoints new Vice-Principal (Humanities and Social Sciences)

QMUL has announced the appointment of Professor Matthew Hilton as Vice-Principal (Humanities and Social Sciences). Professor Hilton joins QMUL from the University of Birmingham where he is Professor of Social History and Deputy Head of the College of Arts and Law.

Professor Hilton is a distinguished social historian. His work focuses on the history of humanitarianism, consumer society and on the history of social activism and non-governmental organisations, both in Britain and globally. He received his PhD in History from the University of Lancaster before joining the University of Birmingham in 1997. He was appointed Professor of Social History in 2006.

In 2002 Professor Hilton was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize and he has been a visiting scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard. Professor Hilton is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and sits on Arts and Humanities Research Council Advisory Board. He is currently one of the editors of Past and Present.

QMUL’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences comprises eight academic schools: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; English and Drama; Geography; History; Languages, Linguistics and Film; Law; and Politics and International Relations. In the Guardian University Guide 2015, five disciplines in the Faculty were judged to be in the UK top ten.  In the United Kingdom's last Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment of the quality of research (2014) the Faculty did exceptionally well, and contributed strongly to Queen Mary University of London's overall achievement, placing it in the top ten for research quality amongst multi-submission and multi-faculty universities in the UK.

Professor Simon Gaskell, President and Principal of QMUL, said: “Matthew is a distinguished researcher and an accomplished academic leader. His research background, which he will continue to develop at QMUL, will add to the already rich vein of social history expertise across the Faculty. He joins QMUL at an exciting and challenging time for higher education in the UK. I am confident that under his leadership, the Faculty will continue to go from strength to strength.”

Professor Hilton said: “I am absolutely delighted to be joining a fantastic group of staff and students in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at QMUL. I am really looking forward to working on some exciting challenges and opportunities at one of the UK’s very best universities.”