Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation)
Ruth was appointed to the new post of Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation at Royal Holloway in February 2025 following a period developing University research strategy and culture as Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation from August 2023. Prior to that she held a number of leadership roles at Royal Holloway including serving as Head of the Department of English and leading University-wide work on doctoral training, research excellence, and EDI.
As a member of the Senior Leadership Team and Executive Board, Ruth has strategic responsibility for all aspects of research, innovation and knowledge exchange across the University. In addition to leading the Research and Innovation action plan for University strategy, RH2030s, she is responsible for University preparation for and returns to the Research Excellence Framework, Knowledge Exchange Framework and partnership development with external research and innovation organisations. Ruth works in partnership with the Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor of postgraduate research our Associate Deans of Research and Knowledge Exchange and colleagues in Research and Innovation to support the continued success of Royal Holloway as a research-intensive University.
Ruth is a member of the Advisory Board of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and a longstanding strategic peer reviewer for UKRI AHRC and the cross-council Future Leaders Fellowship scheme. From 2020-2025 she chaired the Advisory Board of the UKRI FLF Development Network: a national training programme for UKRI-funded research leaders.
Ruth has been Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway since 2017 and her books and articles explore the literature and culture of the Victorian era with an emphasis on gender, place, and nineteenth-century infrastructures. Since 2018 her research has focused on one of the University’s most famous alumnae, the writer George Eliot who attended lectures at Bedford College in the 1850s. Fellowships and awards from UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council enabled her to co-create an innovative immersive reimagining of Eliot’s novel Middlemarch, staged in four locations around Coventry Cathedral close during its year as City of Culture (2021-22) with partner Dash Arts. More details on her research and impact collaborations can be found here.
