Press Release
Director of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
named in Birthday Honours
during anniversary year and amid major new developments
A
Knighthood for Professor Peter R. Crane FRS was announced in The Queen’s
Birthday Honours list on 12 June 2004. This summer Professor Crane celebrates
five years as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Those years have
seen some of the most significant developments in the history of the
gardens, and the years ahead are committed to an ambitious programme
of growth and improvement. More than a dozen major projects are currently
underway at Kew, and more are on the horizon. Kew Gardens, which includes
Wakehurst Place in Sussex, is largely funded by the Department for the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Peter Crane was first appointed Professor in 1992 in the University of Chicago. He served as Director of the prestigious Field Museum in Chicago between 1995 and 1999, and was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1998. Among his awards are the Linnean Society of London Bicentenary Medal (1984),and the Paleontological Society Schuchert Award (1993). He is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (2001), and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2002).
He marks five years at Kew with the reflection, “I feel both honoured and privileged. Simply working at Kew – an organisation I’ve known and loved for 30 years – is a huge privilege. I know that the team of staff with whom I share my recent honour are all very much aware that with privilege comes the responsibility to share Kew’s resources with the broadest possible public. We have tried to build a lively, outward-looking organisation with local, national and international outreach, and in the past five years we have made great progress and have had some wonderful achievements. Over the next five years, we must extend our grasp to even more ambitious goals: further-improved public services, strengthened infrastructure and excellent science. In particular, we must continue to apply our incomparable collections, rich resources and unique expertise to helping meet the challenges of conserving plant diversity for the future.”
His five years at the Royal Botanic Gardens have been remarkable for the designation of World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2003, and for major achievements on a number of different fronts, including improved visitor attendance, increased conservation impact, stronger scientific research, improved funding, improved income generation, and a major capital programme which has included renovation of key buildings and landscape features.
For more information, please call the Press Office at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew,
on 020 8332 5619/5607. Issued 12 June 2004
Further information:
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Photographs available on disc or for download at www.kew.org/../../images/petercrane
For further Press information please contact:
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Kew: Public Relations Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5607/5619 |
Wakehurst Place: Public Relations Tel: +44 (0)1444 894018 |
