Professor Denise Lievesley has just completed a five year term as Principal of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, a graduate college specialising in medicine, management and applied social science. Prior to her role in Oxford, she was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy in King’s College London. Formerly she has been Chief Executive of the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre; Director of Statistics at UNESCO, where she founded the Institute for Statistics; and Director of the UK Data Archive. Denise is a statistician who has been very active in professional associations serving as President of the Royal Statistical Society (1999 – 2001), the International Statistical Institute (2007 – 2009) and the International Association for Official Statistics (1995 – 1997). A Fellow of University College London (her alma mater), she has honorary doctorates from City University and the University of Essex and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2014 for services to social science. Her research on the use of evidence in policy making internationally focuses on the relationship between trusted and trustworthy information. She has campaigned for the importance of professional, quality statistical services which set the agenda for official data to be collected unhindered by political interference, and which are free to publish uncomfortable truths.