Background
Higginson was born in Leeds in 1929.
Higginson was born in Leeds in 1929.
Sir Gordon Robert Higginson, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Engineering, FREng (8 November 1929 – 5 November 2011) was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton for nine years from 1985 to 1994. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and the University of Leeds from which he received the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy, both in Mechanical Engineering.
He was co-author of the standard text on hydrodynamic lubrication and the Higginson Report on A levels. Higginson worked briefly for the Ministry of Supply and was then appointed Lecturer at Leeds in 1956. His research interest was hydrodynamic lubrication and tribology, later extending to bio-engineering.
In the 1990s he served as chair of the engineering board of the Science and Engineering Research Council, the major grant-awarding body in United Kingdom academia.
He came to wider prominence when he chaired a committee set up to advise on the reform of the A Level system, producing the "Higginson Report" into the use of technology to support learning in colleges. Despite gaining widespread approval, the report was curtly rejected by the government, but many of the detailed proposals still enjoy some currency.
Within the Further Education sector of England there was, arguably, a more successful "Higginson Report". The Learning and Technology Committee, chaired for the FEFC by Gordon Higginson, published its report in 1996.
Known universally across English FE as the "Higginson Report", it made a number of recommendations for how the FEFC should go about supporting colleges" use of Information Technology. lieutenant set a framework for Information & Learning Technology (ILT) development across the FE sector over following years.
Following the privatisation of the railway system in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, he was the founding Chair of the Railway Heritage Committee, which supervised the transfer of historic artefacts and records to collecting institutions. Higginson was knighted in 1992. The University of Leeds conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa on him in 1994 and the University of Loughborough conferred the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa in 2002.
Higginson was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (Doctor of Laws).
The University of Durham has both a lecture series, the annual Higginson Lecture, and a building named in his honour. Higginson was married from 1954 until her death in 1996 to Marjorie Rannie.