Catz alumnus and Honorary Fellow Lord Peter Mandelson named Candidate for Chancellor
Lord Peter Mandelson (1973, PPE) has been announced as one of 38 candidates for the role of Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Lord Mandelson, a former cabinet minister and EU Commissioner, has a long career in politics and public service. Known for his strategic vision and diplomatic expertise, Mandelson has been deeply involved in British and European policymaking. While at Catz, he served as JCR president.
The Chancellor, a role that has been held continuously since 1224, serves as the University’s ceremonial head, presiding over key events, chairing the Vice-Chancellor election and representing the University in national and international forums. The first round of voting will take place during the third week of Michaelmas, after which the top 5 candidates will go onto a second round in sixth week. The University of Oxford’s new Chancellor will be announced in the week of 25 November.
Lord Mandelson’s full candidacy statement can be seen below. To learn more about the other candidates, and the election for Chancellor, please see the University website.
Lord Peter Mandelson’s Candidate statement:
The world we live in is more fractious and challenging than I have ever known. Science, expertise and dialogue are being attacked. Defending Oxford and its commitment to advancing knowledge is more important than ever.
I learned as an undergraduate that progress comes from testing ideas based on rational thought including its ethical considerations. I believe in freedom of expression and in tolerance and respect for others’ views. Freedom of speech, although uncomfortable for many of us at times, is fundamental to university life and we must continue to uphold it.
I am putting my name forward as Chancellor following Chris Patten’s very successful tenure as I am passionately committed to Oxford, its values, its collegiate system and its remarkable teaching and path- breaking research.
The role of Chancellor is largely ceremonial but also advisory and the Chancellor needs to contribute to the cohesion of the collegiate University including its academic divisions and departments. As an ambassador for the University at home and abroad I would always want to project the University’s educational purpose and our understanding of our common humanity, its history and languages, its art and literature.
I benefitted from a state education and was the first in my school and my family to win a place at Oxford. Like thousands of other students, I vividly remember the excitement and trepidation of my first term. I want to see the University continue to attract and welcome the widest possible pool of applicants, from all types of school, while ensuring that Oxford’s commitment to excellence is paramount.
In recent years my love of Oxford has made me a frequent visitor, and I have supported the University through my interest in technological innovation and its commercialisation and as a board member of the Ertegun graduate scholarship programme which seeks to create leaders in humanities. If elected I will take great pride in advancing the interests of the University and serving the whole of Oxford’s collegiate community for the coming decade.
As I argued when minister for universities in the last Labour government, Britain’s national prosperity requires a thriving university sector. I believe that higher education is an essential public investment and I am against the disproportionate shifting of costs onto individual students. I believe this view is shared by the new UK government including the Prime Minister and I will use my longstanding political links to advocate for this approach. But at the same time, as times are tight, the University will also have to raise more money from our worldwide alumni and from philanthropists.
Everything we do must ensure we remain a top-ranking global university, able to attract the very best staff and students. In today’s world, an institution’s glorious history does not guarantee it can remain ahead in the future. In the USA and increasingly elsewhere, competing universities enjoy huge endowments and philanthropy, enabling them to spend more money on staff, scholarships, post docs and facilities. To help the University, I would be able to draw on my extensive international networks created over three decades as UK Trade and Industry and later Business Secretary and First Secretary of State, as the EU’s Trade Commissioner, and as co-founder and chair of the policy advisory firm Global Counsel. As Chancellor, I would put these links at the service of the University, to help rebuild our ties in Europe as well as strengthen them in the US and Asia.
The traditions of the University should continue to anchor us in our long, unique history. While respecting Oxford’s extraordinary legacy, the Chancellor should be part of the conversation about the University’s future, at a time when the impact of Brexit and past government policies have been very harmful to higher education. I would bring a clear sense of strategy and political judgement, an unwavering commitment to enhance the work and amplify the voice of the University’s world class academics, and a proven ability to engage with British and global policy makers, as well as with business and philanthropists.
After a career in government and business, I want to give back to the University that has given me so much and to support the Vice-Chancellor and her team, as well as all of Oxford’s 39 colleges. I sincerely hope I have the chance to serve Oxford’s extraordinarily talented staff, students and alumni, no doubt with the same excitement and sense of anticipation I had when I first came up to the university, though now better equipped to help the whole university succeed.