Citation - Brunel University
BERNARDINE EVARISTO – PUBLIC ORATOR
PROFESSOR RICHARD PARISH CITATION 14/7/14 BRUNEL UNIVERISTY
HONARARY DOCTORATE – DOCTOR OF SCIENCE
Professor Richard Parish’s career is one of amazing achievement and leadership working at the highest international levels to improve something we all value - Public Health.
And his story began right here in Middlesex where he was born. His mother had various jobs including managing a caravan sales company, while his father came from a very humble background but attended night school to become a Chartered Certified Accountant. Rather quirkily, he also helped set up Radio Atlanta and Caroline in its first and most famous incarnation, a pirate radio station that broadcast from ships at sea in the 1960s. Indeed, Richard’s first international appearance was an interview on the station when he was ten years old.
If we go even further back, Richard’s great-grandfather was a renowned faith healer who worked seven days a week for free. Perhaps there is something of the great-grandfather in the great-grandson: the marriage of public health (admittedly of a more unorthodox kind) with public service. His grandfather was a journalist who made propaganda films for the Ministry of Information during World War 2.
Richard attended a state school, Goldalming County Grammar School, where he was Captain of several sports teams and became School Prefect. He then earned a BSc in Zoology and Botany from the University of London, followed by several other postgraduate qualifications and degrees at various institutions. (At some point, he told me earlier this afternoon, he was also a boxer and bouncer.)
Richard’s postgraduate research assessed how to translate public health policy into effective action, at which point the World Health Organisation came calling and he began to work with them on various projects including helping to draft The Ottawa Charter in 1986, which became the basis for health and well-being programmes worldwide to this very day. He also produced the health response plan for Europe following 9/11, should there be a biological, chemical or radiation attack on a major European city.
At the age of 28, Richard set up the Health Promotion Service in Stockport, which became the NHS Demonstration Centre, the largest service of its kind. He then joined the Board of the National Health Education Council, at the age of 32 to become its youngest ever member. Next he became Director of Programmes for the world’s largest cardiovascular disease prevention programmes in Cardiff before moving to Hull University where he set up the first multi-disciplinary NHS Higher Education college. Later appointments include senior positions at the universities of Sheffield Hallam, UCL, Robert Gordon, York and Chester universities.
Richard has been a director and chief exec of many other national health boards and societies, including currently the Royal Society for Public Health. As Project Director for the 2005 European Health Report, he mapped health and disease, current and predicted, across Europe to the Central Asian Republics. On top of all this he has authored over 100 publications including principal authorship for ‘The European Child and Adolescent Strategy’.
Richard was awarded a CBE this year and his multiple Honorary Fellowships include the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, an honour given to non-pharmacists for their contribution to pharmacy. Previous recipients include Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. Need I say more? Yes actually, I will. The only other people alive in receipt of this same honour for their roles as patrons of this society, are the Queen and Prince Philip. Liz, Phil, Rich…I rest my case.
His resume is a shining example of how to have a successful and impactful career. It begins with motivation – the belief that we can pursue our goals. As the Roman poet Virgil wrote 2000 years ago, ‘They can, because they think they can.’ Next comes ambition - the self-powered engine that drives us to succeed and with that must come application - the single-minded work ethic that will get us there; and eventually, achievement - the ways in which we as individuals can make a positive contribution to our world. As the rapper, Kanye West, tells us in Stronger, ‘Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, make us stronger, more than ever, hour after, because our work is never over.’
Richard is a case in point. He has already left the world a better place than when he first arrived, years ago, here in the County of Middlesex.
Chancellor, in recognition of outstanding service to public health I present to you, Richard Parish for the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.
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