2024 University of Oxford Chancellor election

The 2024 University of Oxford election for the position of Chancellor became necessary upon the resignation of the incumbent Chancellor, Chris Patten. Online voting will take place during the third week of the Michaelmas term of 2024. The electorate consists of approximately 250,000 eligible voters, comprising alumni and staff of the University of Oxford. Following the withdrawal of Rory Stewart from the race, Theresa May and Elish Angiolini were reported as the most likely contenders; success for either would result in Oxford’s first female chancellor in the role’s 800-year history.

Vacancy
Patten had been elected as Chancellor of the University of Oxford in March 2003. In February 2024, he announced in a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Irene Tracey, that he would retire as Chancellor at the end of the academic year, after twenty-one years in post.

In resigning, Patten quoted from the University of Oxford's statutes of 2002: "the Chancellor shall be elected by Convocation and shall hold office during his or her life or until his or her resignation."

Process
To stand for election, a candidate needs to be nominated by fifty members of the university's Convocation. The election of 2024 will be the first to take place on the Internet. At all previous elections, ballots needed to be cast in person in Oxford.

Online voting will take place during Third Week of Michaelmas term (week commencing 28 October). The Alternative Vote system will be used, whereby voters can rank as many of the candidates as they choose. If the number of candidates in this election is fewer than ten, there will only be one round of voting, and lower ranking candidates will be eliminated until one candidate achieves 50% of the vote. If there are ten or more candidates, a second round of voting will be triggered. In this scenario, votes would be counted using the standard Alternative Vote method, but only up to the point where five candidates remain. These five candidates will go forward to a second round, to take place during Sixth Week of Michaelmas Term (week commencing 18 November). The new Chancellor will be announced during Seventh Week.

Possible candidates
On 7 February 2024, The Daily Telegraph reported that the former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, of Balliol College, had emerged as front runner in the election with the bookmaker William Hill. By chance, Chris Patten and his two predecessors, Harold Macmillan and Roy Jenkins, were also Balliol men.

Other potential candidates have been reported as former British prime ministers Theresa May, Tony Blair, and Boris Johnson, former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, who is also a former Chancellor of the University of Bradford, and Elish Angiolini, Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford, a pro-vice-chancellor of the University and chair of the Angiolini Inquiry. All of these are members of the University of Oxford, although this qualification is not strictly required, and in principle anyone can be nominated. The Daily Telegraph subsequently reported that Tony Blair's spokesman said "he was not in the running for the job."

On 7 February 2024, William Hill had Stewart favourite in the betting odds at 5/6, May at 7/4, Blair at 4/1, Johnson at 13/2, and Imran Khan at 10/1.

On 5 March 2024, the Evening Standard reported that a number of academics were considering supporting Angiolini as an alternative to Stewart, noting that she was not a politician and that she would be the first woman ever to hold the post. At this point, Stewart had not announced definitely that he would stand, but had said "it is a very interesting idea and an amazing role”. On 20 June 2024, Stewart announced via social media that he would not be standing, saying, "There’s been talk of me as a candidate for Oxford Chancellor. There are much better candidates than me for Oxford. I won’t be standing. Good luck to those who are."

Creation of Chancellor’s Election Committee
On 22 March 2024, the University announced changes to its regulations governing the election of a new Chancellor, which were to take effect on 5 April 2024. Instead of any candidate being entitled to stand, subject to being nominated by fifty electors, a new Chancellor’s Election Committee will remove nominated candidates from the election process whom it does not consider "suitable".

The Committee will decide the criteria for suitability and may disclose what they are. It will "have due regard to the principles of equality and diversity".

If the Committee finds only one candidate suitable, it may declare that person to be elected unopposed or may choose to re-open the nominations.

If in a contested election the voting is tied, the Chairman of the Committee will decide between the candidates with an equal number of votes.

The members of the Committee are the High Steward, currently Lord Reed of Allermuir, who is designated to chair the Committee ex officio; the Vice-Chancellor, and other "representatives from across the collegiate University and its council". These are: one person appointed by the University Council from among its external members; two members of the Council appointed by it from among its members; one member of Congregation appointed by the Gardens, Libraries and Museums, University administrative Services, and the Department for continuing Education; one member of Congregation appointed by each of the divisional boards; the early career research staff representative who attends the Council; and the chair of the conference of colleges. The Committee may also co-opt one or two other members.

Neil O'Brien MP, a University graduate and member of Christ Church, commented the same day "A stitch-up in Oxford: with no public discussion the University has decided to move away from democracy when choosing its next Chancellor." An article in The Daily Telegraph the next day quoted his "stitch-up" comment and also an unnamed college don who had told the newspaper he saw the new Committee as an "undemocratic, Politburo-style election approach”. Dr Yuan Zi Zhou, a university lecturer in politics, commented that the changing of the rules "illustrates the control freak tendencies of modern academic managers". The removal of duly nominated candidates was believed to be unprecedented in such elections in the United Kingdom.

On 25 March the Evening Standard quoted an anonymous "senior cabinet minister" as saying "We can’t have a stitch-up. The next chancellor must be selected by the same democratic process as the last one." It reported that "another senior government source", also anonymous, had commented "It is all about this performative obsession with equality and diversity". In a statement the University said: "'The next chancellor will be elected by convocation — the body of university members and alumni — using an online platform. Eligibility will first be checked by the chancellor’s election committee against criteria agreed by council. The committee will be made up of representatives from across the collegiate university and its council.'"

On 28 March, a letter from Vice-chancellor Irene Tracey appeared in The Times defending the changes and claiming "democracy is alive and well at Oxford".

On 30 March, The Sunday Telegraph claimed to have seen a leaked email showing that the intended purpose of the Committee was "to stop politicians becoming chancellor". Damian Green, the former de facto deputy prime minister and a friend of Theresa May from their days at the University of Oxford, described the criteria as “a momentous and ill-advised change which at the very least should have been consulted on”.

Proposed limit to term of office
Initially, Oxford chancellors were elected for a term of one to three years. Later they were elected for life, starting from John Russell in 1483. A further function given to the new Chancellor's Election Committee is to make a recommendation to the University Council to fix a term of office for the Chancellor. This will need to be decided upon by the Council.

The purpose of this change was stated as "to prevent the coincidence of a newly appointed Vice-Chancellor and a new elected Chancellor."