Michael Peckham (IOM) was founder and the first Director of the School of Public Policy at University College London. He chaired the U.K. government’s Technology Foresight Panel on the Future of Healthcare, and the National Educational Research Forum for the Department for Education and Skills. As the first Director of Research and Development for the National Health Service and Department of Health from 1991 to 1995, he was responsible for devising and implementing a research and development strategy for the National Health Service. He was formerly Director of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, Dean of the Institute of Cancer Research and Civilian Consultant to the Royal Navy. During his clinical career he became an internationally recognized authority on the treatment of Hodgkin's Disease and testicular cancer where he was at the forefront of developing curative treatment. He received a knighthood in 1995 for services to medicine. He has honorary degrees from the Université de Franche-Compté, Besançon (1991), Loughborough University of Technology (1992), the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (1993), University of Exeter (1996) and the Institute of Cancer Research London (2007). He is an honorary fellow of St Catharine’s College Cambridge (1998), School of Medicine, University of Wales (1999), University College London Hospitals (1999) and the Institute of Cancer Research (2000). He is a member of the Institute of Medicine in Washington, DC, and a member of the President’s International Advisory Committee for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.