I am very honoured to be recognised in this way. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the dedicated colleagues with whom I have worked on skills and post-18 policy. I hope very much that, in the years ahead, we can build upon the institutional reforms to which I contributed, and create a more flexible, effective, and equitable tertiary education system for this country.
Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management
15 June 2024
Professor Alison Wolf made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Baroness Wolf recognised in King’s 2024 Birthday Honours
Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management, has been made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the King’s Birthday Honours for her services to education.
Professor Wolf’s work focuses on the relationship between education and the labour market and she has a particular interest in training and skills policy including apprenticeships and in the role of universities.
Alongside her research and teaching, she is an active contributor to public policy formation and served in the Number 10 Policy Unit as part-time adviser on skills and workforce to the UK Prime Minister, from February 2020 to February 2023. During this period she was actively involved in developing the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, the introduction of bootcamps, and the Lifelong Learning Entitlement which from 2025 will give all adults in England access to a flexible loan and funding pot equivalent to four years’ worth of university fees. In 2022 she was appointed to the Advisory Council for the UK government’s Levelling Up strategy and between April 2023 and April 2024 served as a Non-Executive Director at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Professor Wolf was a panel member for the ‘Augar Review’: the independent Review of Post-18 Education and Funding chaired by Sir Philip Augar, which reported in 2019 and strongly recommended a lifelong entitlement. In March 2011 she completed the Wolf Report which led to major reforms in vocational education for 14- to 18-year-olds, and she was also a member of the Sainsbury Review which led to the creation of T-levels.
Since 2014 Professor Wolf has sat as a cross-bench peer (Baroness Wolf of Dulwich) in the UK House of Lords. She was the founding Chair of Governors of King’s College London Mathematics School where she remains a governor and vice-chair and was awarded the CBE for services to education in the Queen's 2012 birthday honours.
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Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management