The judging panel for the fifth Gulbenkian prize for museums and galleries was announced on 1 November 2006. Chaired by the novelist, journalist and broadcaster, Francine Stock, the panel represents a wide range of academic and artistic interests and museum expertise. It comprises:

Tristram Besterman works as a free-lance museums adviser, following a thirty-year career in museums which began in London in 1971 and proceeded by way of Sydney, Sheffield, Warwick, Plymouth and Manchester. He is now based in Cornwall.

Tristram’s work on museum ethics, scholarship, management and leadership has focused on the social interaction and value, accountability and sustainability of museums.

He is particularly interested in the social purpose of museums as democratic places of social engagement and the way that at their best, they startle, challenge and delight through the revelation of narrative embedded in objects and contexts.

Richard Calvocoressi was educated at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art. He has been Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh since 1987 and was formerly a curator at the Tate Gallery (1979-87).

During his time in Edinburgh, he has built up the Scottish national collection as an important centre for Dada and Surrealist art and literature. He has also developed the grounds of the gallery for sitting sculpture; in 2004 it was awarded The Gulbenkian Prize for its spectacular ‘Landform’ commissioned from Charles Jencks.

He has published on various artists including Magritte, Klee, Kokoschka, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Lee Miller, Tinguely and Baselitz. He is a member of the René Magritte authentication committee.

Dr Mark Miodownik received his BA in Materials Science from St Catherine's College, Oxford in 1992, and his Ph.D in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University in 1996.

He is now head of the Materials Research Group at King's College London. In 2003 he was awarded a NESTA fellowship to create a Materials Library as an interaction space for designers, architects and artists to collaborate with materials scientists.

In 2004 he co-presented a BBC2 TV pilot Chain Reaction, and in 2005 co-organised and chaired two seminars at the Tate Modern on the influence of new materials on the arts.

He is a member of the Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Group.

After studying history at Balliol College, Oxford, Dan Snow was asked by the BBC to co present the 60th anniversary programme of the Battle of El Alamein in November 2002. Straightaway the BBC asked for another eight programmes on great battles of British history.

The series Battlefield Britain was transmitted in summer 2004 and another series on 20th century world battles is in production for the summer of 2007.

In between filming battles Dan has worked with BBC special events to commemorate occasions such as Trafalgar and VE/J day and the Falklands War.

Francine Stock, Chairman of the 2007 Judges, is a novelist, journalist and broadcaster. She read Modern Languages at Oxford before starting work in magazines and newspapers. Her work for the BBC spans a wide range of television programmes including Newsnight, The Antiques Show  and several documentary series.

For BBC Radio, she presented Radio 4’s weekday arts programme Front Row for six years and currently fronts The Film Programme.

Her novels include A Foreign Country (shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award) and Man-Made Fibre. She is chair of Tate Members. 

Mohini Sule graduated from University College London, where she studied French Literature. Her career in television began as a researcher with BBC Birmingham.

She was a finalist in the BBC Talent scheme in 2000 and not long afterwards began as an on-air presenter for the CBBC channel and BBC Prime.

She co-presented the BBC science show Eureka, has presented the live youth show Smile a number of times and is a co-host of The Big List on the new movie channel Eat Cinema

In 2006 she was a reporter for the popular BBC2 daytime show The People’s Museum.