Ian Chubb - Emeritus Professor, ANU vice chancellor and Australian chief scientist

Abstract

Ian Chubb has grappled with and solved many important questions concerning the management of academic research, and academic leadership in Australia. A decade after Professor Chubb’s appointment as Vice Chancellor of ANU, his boss (Gareth Evans, Chancellor of ANU and previously Foreign Minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments) was moved to say of him as he retired from ANU: “… we’ve had in Ian Chubb an absolutely brilliant and inspiring leader of this great university, who has delivered an unbelievable amount during his tenure here, and whose legacy will be absolutely enduring. When the next history of the ANU is written we know that Ian Chubb is going to be right up there with the legends, and future generations will talk about the three Cs – Coombs, Crawford and Chubb – who, more than anyone else, made this great national institution what it is and what it aspires to be.”

Emeritus Faculty spoke to Professor Chubb in January 2016, as part of the Faculty’s Oral History Program. We asked him to outline something of his origins and life as a student, as a scientist, and as an academic leader and manager. An audio file recording of the interview is attached below the following synoptic text file. His career is formally summarized at the Australian Chief Scientist website [www.chiefscientist.gov.au/about], a position he held after his decade with ANU, and has just relinquished.