Provost of St Leonard’s College

St Leonard’s College is the collective name for the University’s postgraduate community and the head of St Leonard’s retains the historic title of Provost. 

The Provost provides strategic academic leadership for the postgraduate community at the University of St Andrews. The role is central to the advancement of postgraduate education and research, ensuring that all postgraduate students benefit from a rigorous, inclusive and intellectually enriching environment.

As the head of St Leonard’s College, the Provost supports postgraduate students through scholarships and other related funding and is responsible for the continuous enhancement of the postgraduate experience at St Andrews.

The Provost works to align postgraduate initiatives with the University’s broader strategy, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, and supporting postgraduate research and study. In partnership with the Associate Provosts and other senior academic leaders, the Provost helps shape policies and practices that support the academic development, wellbeing and success of postgraduate students.

The Provost also supervises the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies, an academic School that has been established to foster interdisciplinary postgraduate education and scholarship.

In addition to the role of Provost, Morven is the Director of the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies and an academic in the School of Medicine. She completed her undergraduate studies in pharmacology at the University of Glasgow and her PhD in physiology at the University of Cambridge.

A life scientist originally, she became interested in wider issues of bioethics and science policy and subsequently moved into the area of medical ethics and law. Her areas of interest are trust and fairness, with a policy and practice focus. Recent collaborative interdisciplinary projects include Methods in Movement, Early Diagnosis: Handling Knowing, and Forecasting Reproduction in Space. In the education-sphere, her research interests centre around interdisciplinarity and the teaching and assessing of ethics. She has a current project on moral injury in healthcare and its implications for medical education.

Morven is a member of the Advisory Board for the Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies.