of leading international experts. Academic life In 2003, Jowell became Research Professor and Founder Director of the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys at City University (now City, University of London), London from where he continued to lead the Central Coordinating Team of the European Social Survey until his death. The success of this ambitious 34 nation comparative study was recognised in 2005 when it was awarded the Descartes Prize for excellence in collaborative scientific research, the first time a social science venture has won Europe's top annual science award. Jowell lectured and published widely. Social science community He made significant contributions to the social science community. In 1978 he initiated the establishment of the Social Research Association. In the 1980s he played a key role in developing a professional code of ethics through the International Statistical Institute. , insisting that it should be an educative rather than a prescriptive code. In 2008 he became Deputy Chair of the board of the UK Statistics Authority advising on the promotion and safeguarding of the publication of official statistics. Recognition Jowell was appointed a CBE in 2001 and was knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to social science. He served for two years as Vice-President of the Royal Statistical Society and was awarded the Market Research Society Gold Medal. City, University of London holds the annual Professor Sir Roger Jowell Memorial Lecture in his honour. 2015 lecturer: Professor John Curtice 2016 lecturer: Professor Dame Anne Johnson 2017 lecturer: Professor Anand Menon. Personal life In 1970 he married psychiatric social worker and fellow Camden London Borough Councillor, Tessa Palmer in Hampstead, London. She went on to become a member of parliament and minister in Tony Blair's and Gordon Brown's cabinets. They divorced in 1977. In 1979, he married Nighat (Rani) Gilani in Camden. They have two sons, Marco and Adam, and divorced in 1995. In 1996 he married Sharon Witherspoon, who was Director of the Nuffield Foundation, and had previously been a colleague at SCPR, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Jowell's older brother is the lawyer Sir Jeffrey Jowell, who also settled in the UK. External links Roger Jowell – City University profile Roger Jowell – ESRC biography Roger Jowell – Guardian obituary References 1942 births 2011 deaths British sociologists University of Cape Town alumni Knights Bachelor Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Academics of City, University of