Meet the Rector

Professor Theodore Panayotou is the 1st Rector of the University of Limassol.

He assumed office on 11 January 2023, the founding date of the University.

Rector Panayotou is a former faculty member at Harvard University. Crucially, he is a Nobel Prize Contributor, having authored part of the study for which the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University (2010-15) and as a Member of the Cyprus President’s Council of the National Economy (2013-2018).

Rector Panayotou taught Environmental Economics, Public Policy and Sustainable Development for 23 years at Harvard University (1986-2009) and served as the Director of the Environment and Sustainable Development Program at the Centre for International Development at Harvard. While at Harvard University, he served as an advisor to Presidents and Premiers in a score of countries around the world and as a consultant to companies, governments, the UN and the World Bank over the years. During 1978-1985, as a senior economist with the Rockefeller Foundation, New York, served as an advisor to governments and universities in Southeast Asia on sustainable economic development.