“It feels very exciting and a little solemn to be entrusted with the role of vice-chancellor. The positions brings with it considerable responsibility, but what is uppermost for me is the enthusiasm and desire for a new orientation that I have already sensed from all parts of the University”, says Erik Renström.
“First of all, I will recruit a University Management team that represents the broad activities of Lund University. The next deputy vice-chancellor will also be important for mapping out the years to come. Quality enhancement measures and increasing the University’s creative power and courage will be crucial aspects. Lund University will also strengthen its voice and refine its character as a force for change in society. One concrete task is the development of the University’s campus that is ongoing in the Brunnshög area, but also within our organisations in Helsingborg and Malmö.
Erik Renström was the candidate that the University Board recommended at its meeting on 18 September after a recruitment process involving interviews and tests through which three final candidates were presented to the Electoral College. The college brings together a group of staff and students which, after a voting procedure, awarded Erik Renström most votes. Now the Government, which formally appoints the vice-chancellors of Sweden’s higher education institutions, has decided to appoint Erik Renström as vice-chancellor.
Erik Renström will be inaugurated at a formal ceremony on 22 January 2021. The inauguration of the vice-chancellor will be organised in accordance with the prevailing restrictions and the Swedish Public Health Agency’s recommendations.
During the autumn, work will continue on the recruitment of a new deputy vice-chancellor of Lund University for the term of office 2021–2026. The University Board will decide on the appointment at its meeting on 15 December.
Facts about Erik Renström:
Erik Renström has broad experience. He has been involved in public healthcare, academia and the business sector and also worked at the intersection between the different actors on several projects.
Erik Renström was born in Gothenburg in 1963 and lives in Landskrona. After qualifying as a physician in 1992, he worked as a clinician in public healthcare until 1997, when he was awarded a PhD in membrane physiology by Gothenburg University with the thesis “Properties of Calcium-dependent Pancreatic Hormone Secretion: Evidence for Distinct Functional Pools of Secretory Granules”.
Renström’s research focuses on diabetes, particularly the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. He became professor of experimental endocrinology in 2009 at Lund University and dean of the University’s Faculty of Medicine in 2018. He has conducted diabetes research in Lund and Gothenburg and spent time as a postdoc in the UK. Erik Renström has also worked as a researcher at the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk A/S in Copenhagen in the years 1995–1997. Erik Renström has been assistant coordinator of the diabetes centre LUDC, which became a Linnaeus Centre in 2006, as well as coordinator for Exodiab, one of the Government’s strategic research areas (SRAs).