Professor Chris Abell is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, and Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. A biological chemist, he was an undergraduate and graduate at Cambridge, before doing postdoctoral research at Brown University. Today he leads two research teams in the Department of Chemistry pioneering the use of fragment-based approaches in drug discovery, and developing microdroplets as an experimental platform. He is a cofounder of Astex (1999), Sphere Fluidics (2010) and Aqdot (2013), and was a founding director of Cambridge Enterprise.  From 2013-2015 he was the first Director of Postdoctoral Affairs at the University. Professor Abell is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Professor Eilís Ferran is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations, responsible for the University’s human resources policy and strategy as well as oversight and development of the University’s international engagement. She is also Professor of Company and Securities Law in the Faculty of Law and a  Professorial Fellow at St Catharine's College. She served as Chair of the Faculty of Law from 2012 to 2015. Her main research interests are corporate finance law, financial regulation and general company law. She is a Fellow of the British Academy.