New Vice-Chancellor for Cambridge

On October 1st Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz  became the 345th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, succeeding Professor Dame Alison Richard.

He was formally admitted to the position this morning at a ceremony, known as a Congregation, in the Senate House.

The new Vice-Chancellor was previously Chief Executive of the UK's Medical Research Council from 2007, and from 2001 to 2007 was at Imperial College London, where he served as Principal of the Faculty of Medicine and later as Deputy Rector.

In his inaugural speech to the University following his admission, entitled 'Shared Values and Visions', the new Vice-Chancellor said: "I am excited about the challenges and yet awed by the responsibility of this position. I am indeed privileged to rejoin the Cambridge community from which I gained so much earlier in my career.

"The challenge to the new Vice-Chancellor is clear. It is to lead the University in a competitive and difficult economic environment, to secure our financial base despite short-term fluctuations, develop an infrastructure commensurate with an internationally leading university, and ensure the best possible environment to recruit and retain academic staff of the highest quality."

He first came to Cambridge in 1987 as a Wellcome Trust Senior Lecturer at Addenbrooke's Hospital, then a year later joined the University as a lecturer in medicine and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He moved back to his birthplace, Cardiff, in 2001 where he served ten years as Professor of Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine.

Professor Borysiewicz was knighted in the 2001 New Year's Honours List for his contribution to medical education and research into developing vaccines, including work towards a vaccine therapy for cervical cancer.