People
Structure
IDP has its directorate at the British Library and other IDP Centres worldwide. All are supported by and part of the structure of their host institutions.
IDP has a steering committee with an external chair and patrons which meets annually and a British Library management committee which meets quarterly to review progress and finances.
Steering Committee
Matthew Farrer GCVO (patron)
Matthew Farrer practised as a solicitor for over forty years. He is a former trustee of the British Museum, the 21st Century Trust and Lambeth Palace Library and a former commissioner of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. Also a former member of the British Library Board, he has travelled in Central Asia and has been a patron of IDP since its inception in 1994.
Abraham Lue MBE, CMG (chair)
Abraham Sek-Tong Lue is a fellow of King's College, London, where he taught in the mathematics department for thirty years. He was the founder of the Chinese Community Centre in London, in 1980, and has long played an active role in promoting China-UK relations and in establishing British Academy and other schemes to bring Chinese scholars to the UK. He is honorary professor at several Chinese universities and a former adviser to the Guangdong Higher Education Commission. Dr Lue was instrumental in helping to start IDP and has been Chairman since its inception in 1994.
Professor Dame Jessica Rawson DBE, Dlitt, FBA (patron)
Jessica Rawson was deputy keeper and then keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum between 1976 and 1994. She has been a fellow of the British Academy since 1990 and Warden of Merton College, Oxford, since 1994. Her academic work covers all aspects of Chinese art and archaeology, with a particular research interest in the development of religion and belief in the Han period. A former member of the British Library Board, she is a long-standing patron of IDP.
Tim Simon (patron)
Tim Simon has been a solicitor in private practice in the City for almost forty years, having done much work with charities during this time. He was involved in the 2004 Silk Road exhibition at the British Library and has a general interest in Central Asia, having travelled widely. He has been an IDP patron since 2003.
Susan Whitfield (British Library, IDP Director)
Frances Wood (British Library, Head of Chinese Section)
Lady Pamela Youde OBE (patron)
Pamela Youde is a trustee of the Sino-British Fellowship Trust, Vice-President of the Great Britain-China Centre, chairman of the trustees of the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge, and a trustee of the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund, Hong Kong. She spent many years in China and Hong Kong, latterly when Sir Edward was Ambassador in Beijing and Governor of Hong Kong. She was instrumental in helping to start IDP and has been a patron since its inception in 1994.