Professor Roland Levinsky (16 October 1943 – 1 January 2007) was an academic researcher in biomedicine and a university senior manager. His last post, which he held at the time of his death, was as vice-chancellor of the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. He was born in South Africa to Jewish parents. His father emigrated from the Lithuania/Poland area to South Africa to escape persecution; many of his relatives died in Nazi-German death camps. Professor Levinsky noted that "Father was a communist and we had our fair share of police raids."