Alan David Gilbert AO (11 September 1944 – 27 July 2010) was an Australian historian and academic administrator who was until June 2010 the president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester. During his tenure (1996–2004) as vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, he pushed for and established Melbourne University Private, a private university offshoot which ultimately failed. This, and his well-known controversial views on private funding of universities, led to Richard Davis in 2002 dubbing him the "doyen of economically rationalist vice-chancellors". Early academic career Gilbert graduated with a first class BA at the Australian National University in 1965, then took an MA in history and took a post as lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1967. He gained a scholarship at Nuffield College, Oxford and he was awarded a DPhil in 1973. He returned to Australia as a lecturer at the University of New South Wales, where he established an academic reputation as an historian working in the social, socio-economic and religious history of modern Britain and Australia. He was appointed professor of history in the Faculty of Military Studies in 1981. He was elected as a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1990. He became chair of the Faculty of Military Studies in 1982, and later pro-vice chancellor of the University of New South Wales (1988–1990). In 1991 he became vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Tasmania at the time of the merger of the university with the Launceston CAE. University of Melbourne In 1996, Gilbert was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne. He played the key role in establishing and subsequently developing Melbourne University Private Limited (MUP), a private university established to work alongside the University of Melbourne, so as to circumvent regulations strictly limiting the money-making educational ventures of Australian universities. This was pursued despite numerous buildings on campus in serious states of disrepair and inadequate funding to allow lecture theatres to be heated. The venture was a financial disaster and was widely criticised by academics, politicians and the media. To rescue MUP, the University Council borrowed $150 million from the National Australia Bank and agreed to provide additional money from its investment reserves. The present University of Melbourne VC, Glyn Davis, announced the closure of MUP on 7 May 2005, citing no need for such a venture now that market ventures are permitted in the