Sir Gordon Conway

Professor of International Development, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College


Sir Gordon Conway is Professor of International Development at Imperial College London. He was former Chair and current Senior Advisor to Montpellier Panel. Gordon trained in agricultural ecology, attending the Universities of Bangor, Cambridge, West Indies (Trinidad) and California (Davis).

In the 1960′s he was a pioneer of sustainable agriculture developing integrated pest management programmes for the State of Sabah in Malaysia. He joined Imperial College in 1970 setting up the Centre for Environmental Technology in 1976.

In the 1970s and 1980s he lived and worked extensively in Asia and the Middle East, for the Ford Foundation, World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He directed the Sustainable Agriculture Programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and then became representative of the Ford Foundation in New Delhi. Subsequently he became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex and Chair of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

From 1998-2004 he was President of the Rockefeller Foundation and from 2004-2008 Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for International Development (DFID) and President of the Royal Geographical Society. He is a KCMG, Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex, Hon Fell RAEng and FRS. He holds five honorary degrees and fellowships.

He is the author of "The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for all in the 21st Century" Penguin and Cornell.