Professor Paul Townsend

Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Health, Innovation, Technology and Science

Professor Paul Townsend is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Health, Innovation, Technology and Science and joined the university's Executive Leadership Team in 2026.

Paul’s research interests are in the areas of cell stress and survival mechanisms, and developing network solutions for early disease detection.

He earned his PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now CRUK) in 1997 and has consistently bridged the gap between industry and academia, pushing the frontiers of scientific discovery.

After roles at the University of Southampton and the University of Manchester, he served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean at the University of Surrey where he established the Surrey School of Medicine, founded the Surrey Academic Health and Care Partnership, and co-led both the Wolfson Bioanalytics Centre of Excellence and Surrey Centre of Excellence in Ageing.

Under his leadership, the Faculty secured Athena Swan Gold and Silver awards and excellent REF and NSS results. Most recently Paul was in post as Deputy Principal (Research and Innovation) at the University of Stirling before joining LJMU in early 2026.

Paul has also co-founded several companies and secured multi-million-pound grants from major funding bodies. His expertise encompasses drug discovery, AI applications and advanced mass spectrometry, leading to significant breakthroughs in biomarker identification.