[3] In 2016 he was appointed the Fair Access Commissioner by the Scottish government, a role he held until 2023.
[4] Scott studied modern history as an undergraduate at Merton College, Oxford and was a visiting scholar and at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Public Policy under a Harkness Fellowship.
[8][7] Scott was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University in 1997 and took up his post there in January of the following year.
[10] In May of that same year the World Intellectual Property Organization rejected a complaint by Scott that an internet domain name—sirpeterscott.com—registered by a former Kingston University lecturer constituted a trademark owned by him (Scott) and that the lecturer did not have the right to use it.
[3] He is a member of Academia Europaea[20] and the Academy of Social Sciences,[21] and has received the following honorary degrees: