Tony Holland is a clinical academic learning disability (LD) psychiatrist at the University of Cambridge who has an international reputation for research into biological aspects of behavioural phenotypes in genetic syndromes and in the contrasting domain of competence, mental capacity and decision making. He was one of the few psychiatrists to champion policy shifts of de-institutionalisation and the development of modern community services for people with LD. He helped produce the 1993 ‘Mansell Report’, was the psychiatric expert in the ‘Bournewood case’ and has advised at national level on many aspects of LD. Anthony has established an interdisciplinary research group that is unique in Europe bringing together biological, behavioural, social scientists and also the humanities.