University academics recognised in Queen's Birthday Honours List

Professor Sir Paul Newton CBE, the Chair in Security and Strategy Studies and Director of the new Strategy and Security Institute, was knighted in the Military Division of the Honour’s List.

Meanwhile Dr Gordon Murray, Emeritus Professor of Management (Entrepreneurship) in the Business School, was awarded the OBE for his services to business.

Sir Paul Newton enjoyed a long and distinguished career within the British Army.  He completed eight operational tours in Northern Ireland and two tours in Iraq, and served in Germany, Sierra Leone and Brunei.

He has served as a member of the UK’s Defence Crisis Management Organisation, the Chief of Defence Staff’s Liaison Officer to the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs in Washington, and latterly became Commander Force Development & Training and a member of the Executive Committee of the Army Board charged with ‘leading and driving’ change.
As well as receiving a CBE, Sir Paul has also been awarded the US Legion of Merit and a Legion of Merit, First Oak Leaf Cluster. 

Having retired from the Army at the end of March 2012, he became Director of the Strategy and Security Institute (SSI) at the University of Exeter which works on a broad range of contemporary global security issues through innovative teaching, policy-facing research and field-based consultancy drawing on a broad base of expertise. 

Speaking of the award, Sir Paul said: “I’m very proud. I think that looking back, generations of the Newton family would be absolutely amazed, especially my father who probably thought I wouldn’t last more than 37 days at Sandhurst much less 37 years and end up on the Army Board. It’s a great honour.”

Dr Gordon Murray, is an Emeritus Professor of Management (Entrepreneurship) at the Business School.

He joined Exeter in 2003, having previously been a faculty member at both Warwick and London Business School.  He has researched, lectured and consulted internationally of the genesis and growth of new technology and knowledge based firms and the international development of the formal and informal venture capital industries.

He has conducted policy-focused research for the UK, German, Finnish, Irish and other European national governments, the Australian Commonwealth and the European Commission, and is also a senior adviser on policy related issues concerning the financing and growth of high potential young firms to the UK Government‘s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

Since 2005, Professor Murray has run an international Entrepreneurship Policy Research Seminar Series with the support of the governments of UK, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. In spring 2009, he was invited by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills & HM Treasury to join the four person panel of the Rowlands Growth Capital Review seeking to explore means by which UK growth companies can be optimally supported.

Professor Gordon Murray OBE said: “There is now so much excellent academic research work done in areas of direct relevance to government in the areas of both Enterprise and Innovation policy.

“It has been a both pleasure and a rewarding career working at the interface between policymakers, business practitioners and academics and, in some ways, seeking to create common understandings that have a direct and positive impact on the challenging environments faced by young and growing firms. For my work across several governments and international agencies to be recognised in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List in the Jubilee Year, is particularly satisfying.”