Peter Kyle, the MP for Hove, has been appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. Kyle is the first holder of this role coming off the back of a more significant Labour Shadow Cabinet reshuffle than had been trailed in the press.

Kyle was part of the 2015 parliamentary intake and most recently the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He has also served as Shadow Minister for Schools, and Shadow Minister for Victims and Youth Justice. Kyle was also previously the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Select Committee.

His time spent looking at the regulation of the sustainability goals, nuclear energy, and new emerging technologies, will be useful for what is a sprawling portfolio. Perhaps most memorably during his time on the committee he became involved in a public imbroglio with Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley over an alleged spying incident involving a hidden camera and a tray of coronation chicken sandwiches.

Kyle also has some familiarity with the world of higher education. He completed a PhD at the University of Sussex on Building capacity for community economic development: the case of the Kat River Valley, SA. Kyle did not begin his university career until he was 25 and in a moving piece for his local newspaper he described the difficulties of navigating the education system with dyslexia. His Linkedin profile notes that he was an active participant in student societies.

In other professional experience Kyle has worked in the voluntary and youth sectors. He also worked in the cabinet office during the final year of the Tony Blair government. Kyle backed Liz Kendall for labour leader in 2015 and he also backed Owen Smith’s 2016 challenge to the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

His latest role is further validation for a source who told the BBC that they believed Kyle be a “very hotly rated figure.” As a pro-European Labour Party politician it is fair to assume that he will be an advocate for Horizon association. Beyond this, it is likely to be at Labour Party Conference next month where we will first hear anything new and substantial on the challenges facing the whole research community.