Professor Robin Williams is a physicist and an authority in the field of semiconductors and electronic devices. His research has been important in the development of digital electronics and the far-reaching progress in computing and communications. He and his team developed new methods to fabricate and study semiconductors and were amongst the first to utilise synchrotron radiation to probe the surfaces and interfaces of solids. He collaborated in research projects with industries across the world and published several hundreds of articles, books and research reports. Born on a hill farm in North Wales, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Physics in Bangor in 1963 and completed his PhD in 1966. He then worked in the University of Ulster, where he built a strong research team, and spent periods working in the Max Planck Institute in Germany and at Xerox Corporation and at IBM in the USA. In 1984 he returned to Wales as head of the Department of Physics in Cardiff where he established a leading research group in semiconductor physics. Together with Professor D V Morgan, he established the Cardiff 3-5 Semiconductor and Microelectronic Centre which was hugely influential to the development of industries specialising in compound semiconductors in South East Wales. Taking advantage of the merger of two Universities in Cardiff, he led the drive to enhance the size and quality of the department which became the very successful Department of Physics and Astronomy.
After a period as Vice Principal in Cardiff, in 1994 he was appointed as Principal [later Vice Chancellor] of The University of Wales, Swansea [later Swansea University]. He was the lead academic in Wales in ensuring that the Universities benefitted from European Union Structural Funds which led to Wales gaining very large grants to support a range of transformational projects. His vision and diplomacy were central in the development of the Swansea Medical School which has been of considerable importance to the health service in South and West Wales. He ensured that the University built excellent working relationship with the local authorities in South West Wales, leading to many developments such as the Wales National Swimming Pool and athletics facilities. He retired as VC of Swansea in 2003.
In 2010, at the request of the Welsh Government, Robin chaired a Board to consider issues around teaching through the medium of the Welsh Language in Universities in Wales, which had been a political ‘hot potato’. His report led to the establishment of Y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol which generated a transformation in the opportunities for teaching through the Welsh language and bilingually. Another Welsh Government commissioned report by him led to the establishment of Health Education and Improvement Wales to ensure appropriate training and workforce planning in the NHS in Wales. He has chaired a number of EU and UK Research Council bodies and served on a number of advisory groups for the EU, UK and Welsh Governments, including Chair of the Science Advisory Council of Wales. For many years he was a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and chaired the influential research committee; he was also central in the establishment of the Ser Cymru project to attract leading world researchers to Wales.
In 1990 Robin was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society and is a Founding Fellow of The Learned Society of Wales. He was awarded CBE in 2004 and a knighthood in 2019 for service to research, higher education and the Welsh language.