Tom Sorell at the University of Essex, who is well-known for his prolific publications on early modern philosophy and on ethics and applied ethics, has accepted the John Ferguson Chair of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, where he will be Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics and a member of the Department of Philosophy.  Last year, Birmingham made several other appointments, including two other Chairs:  Helen Beebee (metaphysics) from the University of Manchester and Alex Miller (philosophy of language, metaphysics, metaethics) from Macquarie University.  This is a dramatic change of fortunes for the Birmingham Department in just the last couple of years.