A TOP boss at University Campus Suffolk is set to retire this year, it has been announced.Professor Bob Anderson, pro-vice-chancellor and chief executive of UCS, 62, has announced his intention to retire from his post with effect from September 1, 2009.

A TOP boss at University Campus Suffolk is set to retire this year, it has been announced.

Professor Bob Anderson, pro-vice-chancellor and chief executive of UCS, 62, has announced his intention to retire from his post with effect from September 1, 2009.

Prof Anderson was appointed in 2005 and took up his role in January 2006. He joined UCS following a successful career in academia and the private sector. In his previous role, he was pro-vice-chancellor for research at Sheffield Hallam University. Prior to Sheffield Hallam, he was director of the Xerox Research Centre in Cambridge.

Prof Anderson has been at the forefront of the formation of University Campus Suffolk. He has overseen the creation of an innovative higher education presence across Suffolk and Great Yarmouth, steered the transfer of students and staff from predecessor institutions, and helped to develop the new Waterfront campus in Ipswich.

In the first years of its operation, UCS has grown at around 10 per cent per annum and has achieved national visibility as a flagship project.

Prof Anderson said: “It has been both a privilege and a pleasure to lead UCS over the last three and a half years. It has been tremendously exciting to be at the heart of such a momentous development; to help shape it and contribute to the setting of its long term strategy. When I came to Suffolk, I said that I wanted to lead UCS through the crucial early years of start up and launch to being a real, functioning higher education institution. This has been done and an enormous amount has being achieved in an amazingly short period of time. UCS is now well set for its growth into the future. We have recently re-structured, giving us sharper focus, and moving us towards a mature organisation. As a consequence, I feel now is the right time for a new Chief Executive to come in and take the organisation into maturity.

The chairman of the UCS Board and vice chancellor of the University of Essex, Professor Colin Riordan said: “Bob Anderson has steered UCS through the critical and difficult early years with skill, imagination and tenacity. The foundations which he has helped to lay will serve UCS well as it develops. The Board would like to record its appreciation of the contribution to UCS and to the sub-region which Bob has made and to wish him well in his retirement.”

Richard Lister, executive director of UCS, will be appointed as acting chief Executive until a replacement is found.

This news follows the departure of Dr Peter Funnell, the executive dean at UCS, last month. He left to become chief executive officer of IDEA Ltd, a joint venture which is developing a skills escalator for the information communication technology and associated employment sectors.