Leszek Borysiewicz Nominated to Become Cambridge University's Vice-Chancellor. (November 28, 2009)

Alison Richard, Cambridge University's current vice-chancellor, will complete her seven-year term as vice-chancellor on September 30, 2009. Professor Richard was instrumental in maintaining the independence of the university's governance, and when faced with ministerial pressure to do more to attract students from disadvantaged backgrounds, Professor Richard argued that the role of Cambridge was to educate and to lead research, not to "fix problems of social mobility".

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, KBE, was trained as a physician and is currently the chief executive of the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC). He is considered to have been instrumental in the development of the HPV vaccine used in the fight against cervical cancer.

The university's media release states: "Prior to joining the MRC, Professor Borysiewicz was Deputy Rector at Imperial College London, having joined in 2001 as Principal of the Faculty of Medicine. In his latter role at Imperial, Sir Leszek was responsible for the overall academic and scientific direction of the college, particularly the development of inter-disciplinary research between engineering, physical sciences and biomedicine. During his time at Imperial, Sir Leszek was also Governor of the Wellcome Trust (2006-2007), Chairman of the UKCRC Integrated Academic Training Awards Panel (2005-2007), and he continues to Chair the HEFCE RAE Main Panel A Assessment Panel."

Professor Borysiewicz, commenting on his nomination said: "Cambridge is a world-leading university and I believe it will continue to be so. Hopefully while I’m there I can help to do that. It’s an increasingly competitive world environment in which we have to operate but Cambridge is very well placed," while Professor Richard made the point: "Professor Borysiewicz is an outstanding scholar with an impressive record of achievement and leadership at the highest level. I wish him the very best in the role and will hand over the Vice-Chancellorship next October confident that Cambridge can look forward to continued success as he leads it into the future."