About
Professor Malcolm Press CBE DL was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University in 2015, having previously held positions at the Universities of Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester and UCL.
Malcolm is an ecologist who has studied the impacts of climate and environmental change in northern Europe and the Arctic, the regeneration of tropical rain forests in Malaysian Borneo, and the impact of parasitic weeds on subsistence farming in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malcolm was elected as president of Universities UK in 2025 and is also a trustee of the British Council.
Previously, he was elected as president of his subject association, the British Ecological Society, and has served as a trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), and WWF-UK. He has also been a board member of the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education (IfATE), and a council member of the National Trust and the Society of Biology.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2022 in recognition of his contributions to education and appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester in 2024.
