The council members were recognised for their many and varied contributions, including those funded by or associated with UKRI.
Professor Peter Cox
Professor Peter Cox is a member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Council and Professor of Climate System Dynamics in Mathematics at the University of Exeter.
He has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to science and to climate modelling.
Professor Cox is an international leader in the understanding of interactions between the land biosphere and climate change. He led the team that carried out the first climate simulations to include the carbon cycle and vegetation as interactive components, which highlighted the possibility of Amazon forest dieback under climate change.
Peter’s work has been widely referenced and covered by the media. For example, an influential TV programme with Sir David Attenborough on climate change where he explained, via research in climate modelling, climate change over time from 1850 to 2000 and the effects of global warming.
His projections of Amazon forest dieback under climate change have been covered in a number of TV programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, and major channels in the US, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia. They are now looking more and more prescient, with 2023 being the most severe drought ever recorded in large parts of Amazonia.
Babatunde Olanrewaju
Tunde Olanrewaju is a member of the Innovate UK Council. He is also Managing Partner for Europe at McKinsey and Company.
He has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to business.
Tunde is a Senior Partner at McKinsey and Company Inc, a global management consultancy firm. He advises a range of financial services, private equity, consumer facing and public sector institutions on:
- strategy
- digital transformation
- analytics
- operations
- organisation
- culture
He is based in the London office, where he leads the UK Digital Practice and the European Fintech Practice. He is one of the global leaders that helped create McKinsey Digital, building design, engineering, analytics and product capabilities within the firm to support:
- clients in the digital transformation of their organisations
- the launch of disruptive attacker propositions
- exploiting data analytics at scale
Outside McKinsey, Tunde is a trustee of Oxfam GB.
Julia Black
Julia Black is a former board member of UKRI. She has been made a dame in the King’s 2025 Birthday Honours for services to research in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
Visionary leadership and dedication
Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, UKRI CEO said:
We are delighted to see the recognition of the exceptional contributions of our council members, Tunde Olanrewaju and Professor Peter Cox, and of our former Board member Dame Julia Black. They have all shown visionary leadership and dedication in their respective fields.
Huge thanks and congratulations to them and to all those honoured for their dedicated service to research and innovation.