University of Bristol Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Patricia Broadfoot, was granted the award of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s New Year Honours list.

Professor Broadfoot, who has been at the University of Bristol for 25 years and will become Vice-Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire in September 2006, was honoured for her services to social sciences.

Professor Broadfoot said: “This came as a wonderful surprise. I am truly honoured, and delighted that the importance of the social sciences has been recognised in this way.”

Professor Broadfoot joined the University in 1981, having previously been a schoolteacher in Jamaica, a full-time educational researcher in Scotland and senior lecturer in the Sociology of Education at Westhill College, Birmingham. She was made Reader in 1991 and Professor of Education in 1992 and was Head of the Graduate School of Education from 1993-97. She was Dean of Social Sciences from 1999 to 2002.

Her background is in sociology and her research interests are in educational assessment and international and comparative studies. She is a Founding Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, a member of the Economic and Social Research Council and Chair of its Research Resources Board.