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Chris Patten was installed formally as the third Chancellor of Newcastle University in October 1999. For the past decade, he has served as the formal head of the institution and acted as the University's senior ambassador. He has served alongside three successive Vice-Chancellors – James Wright, Sir Christopher Edwards, and latterly, Chris Brink – and has helped guide the University through a sustained period of growth and development.  Lord Patten has been an outspoken critic of the government’s handling of funding for higher education, and has repeatedly called for bigger public investment in UK universities and greater encouragement for them to raise more money from the private sector. Elevated to the House of Lords in January 2005, when he became The Rt Hon Lord Patten of Barnes CH, Chris Patten has been one of the most high-profile politicians on the world stage. As the last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992–97, he was Chancellor of all the Universities in the territories. During that time he took a close interest in education and training in Hong Kong. When he returned from this post he became Chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland - a job (1998-99) which was associated with the implementation of the Belfast Peace Agreement of 1998-99. In that year he became Commissioner for External Relations in the European Commission until 2004. Chris Patten was made a Privy Councillor in 1989 and a Companion of Honour (CH) in 1998. Lord Patten, who has written a number of books, is Chairman of Trustees of a number of charities and co-Chair of the prestigious International Crisis Group. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2003.