Kerstin Tham proposed as new vice-chancellor of Malmö University

KI’s pro-vice-chancellor, Kerstin Tham, has been put forward as the new vice-chancellor of Malmö University, the only candidate to be considered by the university board following recommendation by its selection committee.

Kerstin Tham, who was made professor of occupational therapy at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society in 2009 and Karolinska Institutet’s pro-vice-chancellor in January 2013, is the selection committee’s proposal for Malmö University’s new vice-chancellor. The consultative assembly and union representatives at the university both unanimously recommend Kerstin Tham out of the three final candidates to have been selected through interviews and tests from a starting field of 69.

Malmö University will be holding an extraordinary board meeting to decide the matter on 22 May, after we go to press. It is then up to the government to consider the university’s proposal and officially announce the appointment, although no final date has been given for when this will happen.

This means that after two and a half years as pro-vice-chancellor of KI, Professor Tham has to make a decision on taking up a new office and that KI will probably need to start looking for her replacement.

“I’ve learnt an incredible amount in my 20-years and more at Karolinska Institutet and now feel that it’d be interesting to put my experience and knowledge to use in a new context,” she says. “Malmö University is really Sweden’s largest university college, and I’m convinced that my experience from KI will come in useful in its ambition to obtain full university status.”

The incumbent vice-chancellor, Stefan Bengtsson, will be leaving in August to become president and CEO of Chalmers University in Gothenburg.