Paul John Layzell (born 23 July 1957) is a British academic,

academic administrator Academic administration is a branch of university or college employees responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the institution and separate from the faculty or academics, although some personnel may have joint responsibilities. Some ...

, and

software engineer Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications. It involves applying engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop ...

. From August 2010 until July 2022, he served as

Principal Principal may refer to: Title or rank * Principal (academia), the chief executive of a university ** Principal (education), the head of a school * Principal (civil service) or principal officer, the senior management level in the UK Civil Ser ...

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

. He is also Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

and Treasurer of

Universities UK Universities UK (UUK) is an advocacy organisation for universities in the United Kingdom. It began life in the early 20th century through informal meetings of vice-chancellors of a number of universities and principals of university colleges and ...

. He previously worked at the

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for Research univer ...

(UMIST), rising to become

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

(1995–2004) and its Pro-Vice-Chancellor (2000–2004). He then joined its successor, the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

, where he was Vice-President (University Development) from 2004 to 2006. Before joining Royal Holloway, he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

(2006–2010).'LAYZELL, Prof. Paul John', ''

Who's Who 2017 ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It has been published annually in the form of a hardback book since 1849, and has been published online since 1999. It has also been published on CD-ROM. It lists, and gives information on, people from around ...

'', A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2016; online edn, Nov 201
accessed 1 Nov 2017
/ref> Layzell was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the

2022 Birthday Honours The 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to Orders and decorations of the Commonwealth realms, various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those ...

for services to higher education and technology.

Controversies

Layzell has been criticised in the past for statements made regarding women and BAME groups. Royal Holloway's student magazine Orbital quoted him as claiming in an open staff meeting of 29 November 2017 that “there are certain protected groups where there is a natural tendency to not have a go and put themselves in for promotion – sometimes that's gender, sometimes it's the BAME group”. The magazine also states that Layzell hinted during the meeting that "women were better suited to teaching than research". This was after gender pay gap statistics were released showing that the pay gap for full-time professors at Royal Holloway had increased from 8.1% in 2015/16 to 10.01% in 2016/17, making it the 7th worst university in the UK for the gender pay gap for full-time professors. He was also the centre of criticism regarding Royal Holloway's treatment of academics who underwent industrial action in 2018. During the

University and College Union The University and College Union (UCU) is a British trade union in further and higher education representing over 120,000 academics and support staff. UCU is a vertical union representing casualised researchers and teaching staff, "permanent" ...

(UCU) pension strikes, a group of students spent almost 120 hours occupying the corridor outside of Layzell's office in solidarity with the striking staff. The occupation ended when Layzell released an apology for the College's treatment of striking staff, which had caused the Royal Holloway branch of the UCU to refer to it as "the UK's most hard-line university employer".

Selected works

* * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Layzell, Paul John 1957 births Living people British software engineers British computer scientists Academics of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology Academics of the University of Manchester Academics of the University of Sussex Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Deputy lieutenants of Surrey Fellows of the Higher Education Academy Fellows of the British Computer Society Commanders of the Order of the British Empire