About

Simon Haines has held positions as Reader in English, Head of English and Head of the School of Humanities at the Australian National University (1990-2008); and as Chair Professor of English and Director of the Research Centre for Human Values at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2009-2017).

Simon is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Humanities and is currently Adjunct Professor at the Australian Catholic University.

From 2017 to 2024 he was the inaugural CEO of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation in Sydney. He led the Centre into three successful and pathbreaking university partnerships, introducing a new degree model into the Australian tertiary landscape in the Humanities by merging a US-style ‘great books’ degree with the existing discipline-based model.

Simon set up what is already one of Australia’s most prestigious overseas postgraduate scholarship programmes.

Simon created a unique live and online lecture/podcast series featuring influential overseas speakers such as Tom Holland, Jonathan Haidt, Bettany Hughes, Daniel Hannan, Deirdre McCloskey, Lionel Shriver, Andrew Roberts, Charles Moore, Remi Brague, Joe Henrich and Robert Tombs, as well as prominent Australians such as Kim Beazley, David Malouf, Ita Buttrose, Geoffrey Blainey, John Bell, Paul Kelly and Gigi Foster. His earlier career, following a first class honours degree and University Medal in English at ANU and doctoral studies in English Literature at Oxford (Magdalen College), spanned banking in London, diplomacy with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs – including a significant tenure at the Delegation to the OECD in Paris – and intelligence analysis with the Office of National Assessments.