Professor Stephen Toope to succeed Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge

He was formally admitted to the office of Vice-Chancellor at a ceremony held this morning in the University’s Senate House.

The new Vice-Chancellor was previously Director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. Between 2006 and 2014 he served as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia.

In his inaugural address to the University, Professor Toope, a Trinity College alumnus, said: “This day feels like a return to familiar ground: my time as a PhD student at Cambridge was personally rewarding and career-defining. What I learned then has stayed with me, and served me well, ever since. So I am thrilled to return to serve an institution from which I gained so much.”

Born in Montreal, Canada, Stephen Toope studied History and Literature at Harvard University before earning degrees in common law and civil law at McGill University. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he completed a Ph.D. under the supervision of Sir Derek Bowett.

Professor Toope’s academic interests are in international law, human rights, international legal theory and international development.

Addressing the Congregation at Senate House, the new Vice-Chancellor said: “No single country or discipline can have exclusive purchase on how we attack today’s fundamental problems – nor can a single institution, no matter how high in the league tables.”

“With its breadth and depth of expertise, with its history of truly disruptive discovery, Cambridge must take a global lead as the place where barriers between areas of knowledge are broken down, the place where global collaborations are seeded and nurtured.”