Sandra Kemp

She has been a panel member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Assessment Exercise, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Visual Arts and Media Panel.

In March 2012, the Rector Nigel Carrington announced in an all-staff email published by the Times Higher Education that she had resigned due to "sustained media coverage" making her position untenable. He stated that she had "successfully completed" the first stage of restructuring, "balanced the budgets and in 2011 achieved a significant increase in the College's National Student Survey scores."

From 2008 to 2012, she was Head of College of the London College of Communication, where she led a major restructure of the college's academic portfolio and of its technical, administrative and financial operations.

From 2008 to 2012 at LCC, she led a complete restructuring of the academic portfolio, and also undertook a financial review to eliminate a deficit of £1.4 million in addition to sector-wide substantial reductions in public funding. University proposals to close 16 courses in 2009 and a further 16 in 2012, leading to a significant number of redundant posts, were met with consistent opposition from the trade unions and calls for her resignation. A QAA investigation found that the university procedures the College followed were inadequate and that this had a detrimental impact on the courses being closed, though there was no ongoing risk to academic standards and quality. The university continued the restructuring, including further staff redundancies in the reorganisation of technical and administrative services. Widespread media coverage included publication of a leaked resignation letter of LCC Head of Communication Gillian Radcliffe criticising Kemp's management style and practices, on which the university refused to comment, noting the availability of its own grievance and internal procedures.

In 2001, she moved to a management role, spending eight years as Director of Research at the Royal College of Art, leading the College to two successful RAEs. The 2007 Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Institution Report cited as good practice the leadership, management and currency of research including research student and supervisor training. In the same year, Research Fortnight noted a 60% increase in the success rate of RCA applications to research councils.

Sandra Kemp (born 10 March 1957) is an academic and curator with a background in English literature. She is a Research Associate at IMAGES&CO, and has held leadership roles in the university and cultural sectors, most recently as Head of College, London College of Communication (LCC) and Director of Research, Royal College of Art (RCA). She curated the Wellcome Trust-sponsored exhibition Future Face: Image, Identity, Innovation at the Science Museum, with a related programme at the National Portrait Gallery, a film festival and a debate on BBC Radio Five Live. She has also published and given public lectures in the fields of fiction, literary theory and cultural studies.