Helen Wallace


Dame Helen Sarah Wallace, Lady Wallace of Saltaire, DBE, CMG, FBA, MAE, FAcSS, née Rushworth, is a British expert in European studies and, by marriage to William Wallace, Baron Wallace of Saltaire, a peeress. She was Foreign Secretary of the British Academy from 2011 to 2015.
She attended Oxford University, where she was President of the Oxford University Liberal Club and where she obtained a BA in Classics. Having already met her future husband, William Wallace, at Oxford, she spent a year at Bruges, Belgium, undertaking postgraduate studies at the College of Europe.

Marriage/family

Helen Rushworth married William Wallace on 25 August 1968; the couple have two children, Harriet and Edward.

Career

Helen Wallace studied at the University of Manchester, where she completed her doctoral thesis with the title The Domestic Policy-making Implications of the Labour Government's Application for Membership of the EEC. She obtained a Certificate of Advanced European Studies at the College of Europe in 1968.
She was Lecturer in European Studies at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology 1974–78 and in 1976 was appointed Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, a position she continued to hold until 2001. She was a Lecturer at the Civil Service College 1978–85, and, briefly, a member of the planning staff at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1979–80. In 1985, she was appointed Senior Research Fellow and Director of the West-European Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House.
In 1992 she took up the first of several appointments at the University of Sussex, where she was Jean Monnet Professor of Contemporary European Studies and founding Director of the Sussex European Institute. In 1998 she became Director of the Economic and Social Research Council programme One Europe or Several? and became Co-Director of the Institute. From 2001 until 31 August 2006 she was Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. She was Centennial Professor in the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 2007 to 2010.
In the 1970s she was Secretary and Chair of UACES. She was a board member for the Brussels-based think-tank, Bruegel. For Her Majesty's Government she was a member of the Better Regulation Commission and for the European Commission a member of the Group of Political Analysis and the Advisory Group for Social Sciences. She has been, since 2004, Chair of the Conseil universitaire européen pour l'Action Jean Monnet.

Affiliations

Professor Dame Helen Wallace serves as editor of the book series One Europe or Several? and New Europe published by Palgrave Macmillan and was co-editor of the New European Politics series published by Oxford University Press. She has also served as a member of the editorial advisory boards of the journals Journal of Common Market Studies, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Co-operation and Conflict, Perspectives, European Union Politics, and Policy Studies.

Honours

In 1996, she was appointed a Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite by the President of the French Republic. She was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 2000 New Year Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to social science.
She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in June 2000. She has been awarded honorary degrees by the universities of Sussex, Loughborough and Aston and by the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris.
In 2015 she was awarded the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. In the same year she was elected a Member of the Academia Europaea.

Publications