Peter Williams, chairman of Oxford Instruments Group plc and president-elect of the Institute of Physics, has been elected master of St Catherine's College, Oxford. He will succeed Lord Plant of Highfield, who is leaving at the end of the year to devote more time to the House of Lords.
Composer Judith Weir is to be the first holder of a visiting chair in opera studies at the University of Oxford.
Michael Hansen, director of finance at Imperial College London, has been appointed to the new post of director of resources at King's College London from December 1.
David Taylor, manager of teacher education and training at the Office for Standards in Education, has been appointed director of inspection at Ofsted. He will succeed Jim Rose, who retires at the end of this month. Judith Phillips, manager of Ofsted's strategic planning and resources division, becomes director of policy, planning and resources.
Brian Gates, head of department in religious studies and social ethics at St Martin's College, has been promoted to a professorship.
Alexander McKinnon, divisional manager of the advanced technology group at Scientific Generics, has been named Heriot-Watt University's director of technology and resource services.
Michael Keating, professor of politics at the University of Ontario, will join the University of Aberdeen's department of politics and international relations in August. But he will be seconded to the European University Institute at Florence next year to develop his interests in regionalism and nationalism in Europe.