Herding Cats Revisited: Being More Advice for Aspiring Academic and Research Leaders

Most academics and researchers - like cats - seek to exercise as much independence as possible and display resistance to authority. Leaders of academic/research institutions must still lead and need all the help and advice they can get! In the ten years since they wrote their hugely popular first book (Herding Cats), the world has changed beyond recognition. Geoff Garrett and Graeme Davies have also accumulated even more experience of leading international academic/research institutions, and have talked to even more colleagues around the world. In ’Herding Cats Revisited’ they have extended, rewritten and updated their advice to reflect the technology, equality and financial realities of the 2020s. Once again, the authors address common leadership and management themes, like making tough strategic choices, leading change effectively, crisis management, dealing with bureaucracy, managing social media, allocating resources, managing budgets and ensuring effective implementation. This book shows academic/research leaders and aspiring leaders to accept and embrace the qualities of their ’cats’ so they can tempt them into achieving exciting and demanding goals.

Sir Graeme Davies is Emeritus Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. He was formerly Principal of the University of Glasgow, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool. He was awarded a knighthood in 1996 for services to higher education. He is Chancellor and Chairman of the British University Vietnam in Hanoi, a Board Member/Trustee of the University of Lincoln, Regent’s University London, Taylor’s University, Kuala Lumpur and the British Institute for Technical Education. Geoff Garrett was Queensland Chief Scientist from 2011-2016, after eight years as Chief Executive of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Before joining CSIRO, he led South Africa’s national science agency, the CSIR, as President and Chief Executive from 1995, following five years as Executive Vice President: Operations. He was named South Africa’s ’Boss of the Year’ in 1998, and ’Engineer of the Year’ by the South African Society of Professional Engineers.