Tim brings to the role 25 years of experience as researcher, educator and academic leader. His most recent appointment was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Queensland (UQ). Tim was the first Dean of the new Faculty after its inauguration in 2014; under his leadership, the Faculty has established itself as among the very best in Australia and competitive internationally across many disciplinary areas. Prior to his four-year term as Dean, Tim was the Director of UQ’s Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect as well as Professor of International Relations in the School of Political Science (which has remained his substantive position since he joined UQ in 2010). He had previously held discipline and faculty-level leadership roles at the University of Exeter (UK). Tim began his career at Aberystwyth University in Wales, which is famous for having the oldest and one of the best departments of International Relations in the world. His graduate training was at the University of Oxford where he won a national prize for his PhD.

He is recognised for his research on human rights protection and foreign policy-making in a changing world order. He has written and co-edited thirteen books, including Human Rights in World Politics (1999), Worlds in Collision (2002), and Terror in our Time (2012). Most recently he has collaborated with colleagues in the School of Political Science and International Studies to produced two edited volumes: The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect (2016) co-edited with Alex Bellamy, and The Globalization of International Society (2017) co-edited with Christian Reus-Smit – this book won the International Studies Association prize for the best edited book on International Relations theory.

In 2019 he was involved in the publication of the edited classic Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics; the new edition has been put together with Ian Hall at Griffith University. Additionally, he is working with his political science colleague at UQ, Richard Devetak, on an innovative and multi-disciplinary project called ‘The Rise of the International’.