Professor Raoul Franklin - BE (Hons), BSc, ME, MSc, MA, DSc, DPhil, DSc
Professor Raoul Franklin has made major contributions to academic management and his field of scientific research - plasma physics - at the highest levels. As Vice-Chancellor of The City University in London, he successfully steered this key institution's growth and development from the time of his appointment as Vice Chancellor in 1978 to his retirement 20 years later. In the face of tertiary sector funding cuts, he dramatically increased the University's income from non-government sources, successfully collaborating with business and industry. His innovative approach led directly to the University winning successive Queen's Awards for technology in 1982 and 1985, and for export in 1988 and 1991.
Professor Franklin's impressive career in university administration was combined with an equally impressive academic career as one of the world's leading researchers in plasma physics. He published his major work, Plasma Phenomena in Gas Discharges, in 1976 and to this day publishes many papers of international significance.
Raoul graduated from the then University of New Zealand with a BE Honours degree and a BSc in 1956, and an ME and MSc in mathematics from The University of Auckland in 1957. He was later awarded a DSc from The University of Auckland, and also graduated from The University of Oxford with MA, DPhil and DSc degrees. His contribution to higher education was recognised in 1981 when he was made a Freeman of the City of London and in 1995 with the award of a CBE.
More recently he has been Chairman of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), the largest examining body at the school and college level in the UK. His links with the City of London have led to him being the Foundation Master of the Guild of Educators, and in 2002-3 he was Master of the Curriers Livery Company.
Raoul received a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004. Unfortunately his wife Faith died in Bangkok on his way to receive the award, and so it happened in a personal ceremony in Oxford, shortly before John Hood took up his appointment there.
