Sir Robert Keith O'Nions (born 26 September 1944),[2] is a British scientist and ex-President & Rector of Imperial College London.
He is the former Director General of the Research Councils UK as well as Professor of the Physics and Chemistry of Minerals and Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford.
After a period as Director-General of the Research Councils UK, he was appointed to lead the newly formed Institute for Security Science and Technology at Imperial College, London in July 2008.
In 1998, Australian National University named O'Nions as Jaeger-Hales Lecturer, while in 2001 he won the Urey Medal, presented by the European Association of Geochemistry.
[6] In September 2017 he was appointed by Natural Environment Research Council as Chair of the new British Geological Survey board.