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Director General of Science and Innovation

Professor Sir Keith O’Nions

Professor Sir Keith O'Nions became Director General of the Research Councils on 1 January 2004 and was appointed Director General Science and Innovation and Departmental Chief Scientific Adviser in April 2006. He was previously Chief Scientific Adviser at the MOD from January 200 to July 2004.

He was born on 26 September 1944 and educated at the University of Nottingham where he graduated in Geology, later gaining a PhD at University of Alberta and becoming a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo.

From 1971 to 1975 he was Demonstrator and then Lecturer in Geochemistry at University of Oxford. He became Professor of Geology at Columbia University in 1975, Royal Society Research Professor in Cambridge from 1979 and Head of Earth Sciences in Oxford from 1995.

In addition Keith O'Nions has enjoyed extensive participation in a broad range of academic and technological committees. He became a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1979, and a Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1980. In 1983, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Honorary Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences in 1998, Honorary Fellow Royal Academy of Engineering in 2005.  He holds Honorary doctorates from Paris, Cardiff, Glasgow, Herriot-Watt, Royal Holloway and Bedford College.

He has been the chairman, or a member, of a number of Research Council committees over the last 25 years and a member of the Council of Science and Technology from 1998-2000. He was Trustee and Chairman of the Natural History Museum from 1996 to 2005. He received a Knighthood for services to Earth Sciences in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Professor Sir Keith O'Nions is married with three daughters.