CURRICULUM VITAE: MATTHEW INNES
Current Post
Vice-Master of Birkbeck, University of London, as a planned progression from the post of
Pro-Vice-Master for Strategy, which I have held since 2008. Key activities include:
- resource allocation, budget setting and financial oversight over both academic
Schools and Professional Services;
- strategic development of fees, bursaries and scholarship;
- college-level responsibility for academic development and future strategy,
including Portfolio Review;
- representing the college to key external stakeholders, and deputising for the
Master as appropriate;
- in 2008-10, leading a Strategic Review and academic restructuring, which
involved reorganising 22 independent academic units, each with their own
internal structures, into 5 new Schools each of which had devolved budgets; an
important element of this activity was the ‘mainstreaming’ of Birkbeck’s Faculty
of Lifelong Learning
I am happy to provide fuller details of my current activities.
Career History
2005-9: Academic Governor of Birkbeck College (elected by Academic Board), academic
representative on Finance & General Purposes Committee and Nominations Committee.
2005-8: Dean of Arts and Humanities
2001-4: Head of School of History Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck College, London (rated
in top 10 nationally in RAE2001 and RAE2008).
1999-present: I have taught in History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, with promotion
from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer in 2001, to Reader in 2003, and to Chair in 2005.
1998-9: Lectureship in History, University of York
1997-8: Temporary Lectureship in History, University of Birmingham
1994-7: Research Fellowship at Peterhouse, Cambridge.
1992-96: PhD in History, Cambridge.
1988-91: BA in History at Cambridge: double starred first.
Honours and Prizes
Times Higher Outstanding Leadership and Management Team 2011 (won by Birkbeck
College for our response to crisis)
Times Higher University of the Year 2010 (Birkbeck College, shortlisted)
Philip Leverhulme Prize for Outstanding Research, 2004.
Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone History Book Prize, 2000.
Ronald Tress Prize for Outstanding Research, 2000 (Birkbeck College).
Seeley Prize & Prince Consort Medal, 1997 (Faculty of History, Cambridge: Joint Award).
Elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, 1997.
Service to Profession and Academic Profile
I have authored and edited 5 books, as well as publishing over 30 articles and chapters; I was
described in my citation of the Philip Leverhulme Prize as ‘one of the leading medievalists of his
generation’, and my publication profile clearly demonstrates continuing international impact.
Editor of Early Medieval Europe 1997-2008; Reviews Editor 1999-2004; now a
corresponding editor.
Assessor for UK AHRC, Leverhulme Trust and for Austrian, Canadian, Dutch, Irish and
Polish equivalents; for European Science Foundation, and for Wittgenstein Prize.
Invited papers to diverse audiences in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland,
Italy, Turkey and the USA, as well as in Birmingham, Brighton, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh,
Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton and York in the UK.
Media appearances e.g. South Bank Show and In Our Time, BBC News website.
Advised on tenure applications for several US institutions, and on applications for research &
teaching fellowships at a number of Cambridge and Oxford colleges; promotion applications and REF
decisions for a number of UK Universities.
Refereeing for Ashgate, Cambridge University Press, Granta Books, Manchester University
Press, Polity Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge and Penn State University Press, and for a
range of academic journals (including American Historical Review, Journal of Medieval History,
Speculum, Viator).
Acted as examiner for nine UK MPhil/PhD students, and on juries for European PhD awards;
hosting Spanish and US doctoral students in UK.
External examining at BA level, Birmingham, Cambridge and Newcastle.
Co-convenor of an international network on ‘Archives and Documents from Late Antiquity to
the Early Middle Ages’ which has met regularly since 2001 across Europe and North America, and has
been supported financially by the British Academy, Leverhulme, and a number of academic institutions
in the UK, USA and Europe.