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Emeritus Professor Maurice Kogan

Maurice joined Brunel in 1967 as a member of the Health Services Organisation Research Unit. He went on to become the first Professor of Government, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and, in 1989 on the sudden death of Professor Bishop, Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University, until the appointment of Michael Sterling.

He carried out his duties as Acting Vice Chancellor in an exemplary manner, building consensus and a commitment to management, based on carefully considered policies, firmly grounded in the principles Maurice had developed in his earlier, highly successful 14-year career as a civil servant.

Building on that experience in the Civil Service, and drawing on his strong training as a historian at Cambridge, over the next three decades Maurice established himself as a leading international researcher in higher education policy, creating at Brunel a strong team of colleagues in the wider field of social policy.

For over two decades, the team ran the country's leading Master's course in Public and Social Administration and educated, often to doctoral level, many of the current senior figures in the charitable sector and in central and local government administration.

Maurice brought significant research funding into the University, earning the Social Scientists 'across the road' the enduring respect of the Engineers. He had a significant impact on education policy in a number of European countries, travelling frequently to the Netherlands and Sweden to lead research programmes.

A Festschrift in honour of his 75th birthday brought together contributors and participants from Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, USA, Sweden, France, Germany and the UK.

All of us who worked with Maurice found the experience intellectually challenging but richly rewarding (and often wickedly amusing). One of his colleagues wrote in 2005: "Over the past three decades, he has brought to our field a special combination of intellectual gifts, breadth of vision and endeavour, analytic creativity and rigour, critical power and a lightning wit."

Maurice was a prolific writer of books and articles and an incredibly hard worker who set rigorously high standards for himself and those who worked with him. He was working and travelling abroad in the month before he died.

The University mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished Emeritus Professors. Condolences have been extended to Maurice's widow, Ulla, and his family.

The funeral is at 4pm on Friday 12 January 2007 at Golders Green Crematorium. A