Rate My Professor Nicola Phillips

Professor Nicola Phillips is the Vice Chancellor and President of Adelaide University, commencing in the role on 12 January 2026. An esteemed leader and academic with some 30 years of experience in the higher education sector across Australia and the United Kingdom, she completed her undergraduate studies at King’s College London and holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Government and a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. A distinguished scholar in global political economy, Professor Phillips held academic and leadership positions at the Universities of Warwick, Manchester, and Sheffield before returning to King’s College London in 2017 as Vice-President and Vice-Principal (Education) and Professor of Political Economy. She subsequently served as Provost at the University of Melbourne from 2021 to 2025, during which time she also acted as Interim and Acting Vice-Chancellor.

Over the course of her career, Professor Phillips has held visiting fellowships and professorships at institutions including the Australian National University, the University of British Columbia, and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Her research and teaching have focused on global political economy, with particular attention to global economic governance, labour and migration in the global economy, and global inequality. She has served as editor of the Review of International Political Economy and as editor and editor-in-chief of New Political Economy, and has contributed to editorial and advisory boards for journals and book series such as Review of International Studies, International Affairs, and the Cambridge Studies in International Relations series. In 2014 she was a member of the Research Excellence Framework sub-panel for Politics and International Studies and chaired the British International Studies Association from 2015 to 2016. Professor Phillips is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a recipient of the 2018 J. Ann Tickner Prize from the International Studies Association, and a Member of Chief Executive Women.

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