Professor Andrew Morris CBE FRSE FMedSci has been elected as the next President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, succeeding Professor Dame Anne Johnson DBE PMedSci, from 25 April 2024.

Professor Morris is Professor of Medicine and Vice Principal of Data Science at the University of Edinburgh, and since 2017 has been the inaugural Director of Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), the national institute of health data science. Prior to this, Professor Morris was Dean of Medicine at the University of Dundee and Chief Scientist at the Scottish Government Health Directorate.  

Under his leadership, HDR UK works in partnership with the NHS, industry, charities and universities to realise the potential of the UK’s wealth of health data in life-changing research. A landmark early in 2024 saw the first research study of health records for the whole population of 67 million people across all four UK nations.  

During the pandemic, Professor Morris chaired the Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group, working in partnership across the UK and internationally to ensure that the best data and evidence as well as scientific and technical concepts and processes were key to understanding the evolving COVID-19 situation and potential impacts in Scotland. As Chief Scientist, he promoted Scotland as a single research site and led policy in medical bioinformatics enabling linkage of medical data with biological data and imaging data.