HRC Chief Executive farewelled after 15 years

News release

19 December 2006

HRC Chief Executive farewelled after 15 years of outstanding service

The Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) farewells its Chief Executive Dr Bruce Scoggins after 15 years of outstanding service and creative leadership.

Dr Scoggins was appointed as Chief Executive of the HRC in October 1991 and retires from the HRC on 31 December 2006.

Dr Scoggins’ profound understanding of science and research was gained through his earlier career as a leading researcher at the Howard Florey Institute for Experimental Physiology and Medicine in Melbourne, as Executive Director of the Colorado Prevention Centre, and two years as the Gordon Meiklejohn Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado. These positions provided him with the intellectual resources and relationship-building skills required to steer the former Medical Research Council towards an organisation that fulfilled the functions and expectations central to the Act that established the Health Research Council of New Zealand in 1990.

Today, the HRC is a very efficient and effective organisation with a highly skilled and dedicated secretariat. That the HRC is esteemed both nationally and internationally owes much to Dr Scoggins’ initiative, skills and leadership.

“Bruce’s tireless effort in his duties as the Chief Executive of the HRC are perhaps less well known, but are no less important than his other achievements over his long service to the HRC, the wider research community and the health sector in New Zealand,” says HRC Council Chair, Professor Graeme Fraser.

“Bruce’s integrity, insightfulness and dedication have been of great benefit to the HRC, to New Zealand, and all New Zealanders. We wish him well in the next stage of his professional career.”

Dr Robin Olds, B Med Sc, MB Ch B (Distinction), Ph D, FRCPA has been appointed to the position of new Chief Executive of the HRC. Dr Olds will take up the appointment in the first half of 2007.

ENDS

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