Press release: Alain Beretz new Chair of LERU

As of 17 May 2014, Prof. Alain Beretz (President of the University of Strasbourg) is the new Chair of the League of European Research Universities (LERU). Elected by the LERU Rectors in November last year, Beretz takes over from Prof. Bernd Huber (President of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), who has been LERU’s Chair since 2008.

Prof. Beretz graduated with a degree in pharmacology and has been a member of the Pharmacy Faculty of the University of Strasbourg since 1990. His research deals with thrombotic disorders, vascular pharmacology and chronic vascular diseases. He was Vice-President in charge of technology transfer, and then President of the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg. Beretz was elected in January 2009 as the first President of the University of Strasbourg, the result of an innovative merger of the three then existing Strasbourg universities. In 2013, Beretz was re-elected President of the University of Strasbourg.

Prof. Alain Beretz said: “It is a very great honour to be appointed as the next Chair of LERU. I admire LERU’s reputation as a major stakeholder in the EU. LERU has an important and well-respected voice in the discussions about the future of Europe’s research policy. Bernd did an outstanding job in his two terms as LERU Chair. I will do my very best to be a worthy successor.”

LERU’s sincere thanks go to Bernd Huber, for all the work done as LERU Chair and before that, because his involvement in LERU goes right back to the very early days of LERU. “As a founding father of LERU, Bernd has made a significant contribution in establishing LERU as a network of top-level universities. The League has become a valued interlocutor for the European Commission, acting as the voice of European research-intensive universities on a wide range of topics related to EU research policy”, Prof. Kurt Deketelaere, LERU’s Secretary-General, said.

Also today, Prof. Bert van der Zwaan, Rector Magnificus of Utrecht University, joined the LERU Board of Directors. After becoming Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences in 2006, van der Zwaan left the chair of Biogeology at Utrecht University on 1 September 2008 to become completely involved in science management. He was appointed Rector Magnificus of Utrecht University in 2011.

LERU’s third member of the Board is Prof. Andrew Hamilton, Vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. He has been in this position since September last year. Hamilton has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford since October 2009 and was Provost of Yale University from 2004 from 2008.