Christopher Smith
Professor of Ancient History, University of St Andrews & Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
I am the Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). I was previously Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews, where I also served as Dean of Arts (2002 to 2006), Provost of St Leonard’s College and Dean of Graduate Studies (2006 to 2009), and Proctor and Vice-Principal (2007 to 2009). I was then seconded as Director of the British School at Rome, the UK’s leading humanities and creative arts research institute overseas, a role I held from 2009 to 2017.
From 2017 to 2020, I held a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship on The Roman kings: a study in power, and I have held visiting positions in Erfurt, Princeton, Otago, Pavia, Milan, Siena, Aarhus and Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne. My research explores constitutionalism and state formation, with particular emphasis on the development of Rome as a political and social community, and how this was represented in ancient historical writing and subsequent political thought.
I am the author or editor of over 20 books, and in 2017 I was awarded the prestigious Premio ‘Cultori di Roma’. I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Royal Society of Arts, and a Member of the Academia Europaea.
EXPs by Christopher Smith
Roman political speech reveals how oratory, public space, and figures like Cicero shape power and citizen participation. In Ancient Rome, the people really mattered. They exercise that say all the time. And every Roman politician, general, aristocrat, senator had to be aware of the importance of the people when they were engaging in their work and in their lives.
We're at a key moment in the transformation of our knowledge economy. Arts and humanities help ensure that science and innovation remain human-centered, responsible, and beneficial to society as a whole. Innovation and tradition are utterly inseparable parts of the human spirit. That is the basis of our creativity and our future.