Sir Crispin Tickell
Director, Policy Foresight Programme, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization, Oxford University
Sir Crispin Tickell has been Director of the Policy Foresight Programme in the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at Oxford University since 2006, Chairman of the Trustees of the St Andrew's Prize for the Environment since 1998, and Advisor at Large to the President of Arizona State University since 2004. His main interests are in the field of the environment and international affairs.
Most of his career was in the Diplomatic Service. He was Chef de Cabinet to the President of the European Commission (1977-80), Ambassador to Mexico (1981-83), Permanent Secretary of the Overseas Development Administration (1984-87), and British Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1987-90). He then became Warden of Green College, Oxford (1990-97), and Director of the Green College Centre for Environmental Policy and Understanding (1992-2006). He was President of the Royal Geographical Society (1990-93); Chairman of the Board of the Climate Institute of Washington DC (1990-2002); President of the Marine Biological Association (1990-2001); Chairman of the International Institute for Environment and Development (1990-94); Chairman of the Government’s Advisory Committee on the Darwin Initiative (1992-99); President of the National Society for Clean Air (1997-99); Convenor of the Government Panel on Sustainable Development (1994-2000); a Trustee of the Natural History Museum (1992-2001); Inaugural Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment (2002–3). Since 1992 he has been a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
He is author of Climate Change and World Affairs (1977 and 1986), and Mary Anning of Lyme Regis (1996). He has contributed to many books on environmental issues (including human population problems, and conservation of biodiversity). He was a member of two Government Task Forces: one on Urban Regeneration, the other on Potentially Hazardous Near Earth Objects. He has received many honours and distinctions. His interests cover a very wide range: from business and charities to climate, pre-Colombian art, and the early history of the Earth.
