International consultancy to lead Adelaide University vice-chancellor search
A global consulting firm will lead the search for the inaugural vice-chancellor of South Australia’s merged university, after the current vice-chancellors of the University of Adelaide and University of South Australia said they would not apply for the role.
University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Peter Høj and University of South Australia vice-chancellor David Lloyd are currently working as co-vice-chancellors of Adelaide University ahead of the newly merged institution opening in January 2026.
The merger university’s Transition Council – a 15-member body of senior leaders that includes Høj and Lloyd – will ultimately appoint an inaugural, standalone vice-chancellor for Adelaide University to commence next year.
The council in December appointed international organisational consulting firm Korn Ferry as its “executive search partner” to lead a global search for the high-profile role. The firm, headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, is understood to be preparing for a search that could take up to 12 months.
In an all-staff email sent on Wednesday afternoon, Høj and Lloyd revealed that “neither of us will be seeking to take on that role” as inaugural vice-chancellor.
“Our focus throughout 2025 will be on continuing to lead the journey to a successful Day One as a strong and fully committed co-VC team, without any conflicts of interest as aspiring VC candidates,” Høj and Lloyd wrote in the joint email.
“We believe this commitment further enables us to first and foremost operate in the best interests of Adelaide University, without any consideration of what it might mean for us as individuals in respect of the pending recruitment of a new Vice Chancellor for Adelaide University.
“So – for the avoidance of doubt – to our staff and to potential candidates for the position of Vice Chancellor of the new Adelaide University, while we will be in place as co-VCs throughout this period, and as VCs of the foundation institutions into 2026, neither of us will be participating as candidates in the process to select a new Vice Chancellor for Adelaide University 2026 and beyond.”
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Høj and Lloyd argued ruling themselves out would bring “a greater degree of clarity” and allow “all contributors within and across our current institutional boundaries to collaborate even more effectively”.
The co-vice-chancellors also said they wanted to “remove speculation from the equation as we face into a busy year ahead”.
“We have one overarching goal, to open the new Adelaide University well,” they said.
“For that to happen, we need to be even more sharply focussed, and we know that by providing this clarity and certainty up front, and by removing any perception of conflicts of interest from those actions we take in the next twelve months, we are best placed to deliver on that task.”
Høj and Lloyd have not given any indication yet as to what role – if any – they will seek at the merger university. InDaily has been told they could still be co-vice-chancellors in the early months of Adelaide University depending on how the recruitment process plays out.
University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Peter Høj and University of South Australia vice-chancellor David Lloyd speaking at Adelaide University’s brand launch on July 15. Photo: Adelaide University
Wednesday’s announcement sees the Adelaide University merger take a path closer to the 2004 University of Manchester merger, which brought together the Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
That merger was spearheaded by Australian academic Alan Gilbert, an outsider who was appointed eight months before the new Manchester University opened. The two incumbent vice-chancellors had agreed to retire.
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Former University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Professor Warren Bebbington told a parliamentary committee in 2023 that appointing a founding vice-chancellor is a more effective merger model than co-vice-chancellors.
“Manchester was a fabulous success as a merger,” Bebbington said at the time.
“The founding vice-chancellor had a very clear idea, nine principles of what he was going to do, first beginning by recruiting a little group of world-class researchers, Nobels and Hi-Ci (highly-cited) researchers, knowing that they were drawing outstanding students, and then he set particular targets.
“The thing is, though, that Alan Gilbert, the founding vice-chancellor, was brought in completely from outside, with no baggage in the previous two universities.”
Bebbington referred to his committee evidence when contacted by InDaily on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, National Tertiary Education Union SA division secretary Dr Andrew Miller welcomed Høj and Lloyd’s decision to rule themselves out of the vice-chancellor race.
Miller said the decision allayed staff fears that the vice-chancellor appointment “might have been a foregone conclusion, a stitch up”, adding that he was now “optimistic… that it’ll be a robust, proper, wholesome search rather than any mischief behind the scenes”.
“If it’s genuine, meritocratic international search, then South Australians in general should feel comfortable that that means that the very best fit possible can be found,” he said.
“I would have thought a genuine international search should unearth some really talented people… people outside the fishbowl of Adelaide.”
Miller has been among the most outspoken critics of the university merger’s workload impact on staff and its consultation process.
He has previously claimed that conflicts between senior management at the University of Adelaide and UniSA has created a “Game of Thrones” culture during the merger – a claim rebuffed by Høj and Lloyd.
“This isn’t Game of Thrones,” Høj and Lloyd wrote in an opinion piece for Times Higher Education in August.
“This is no ‘red wedding’, at which one clan is seeking to slaughter the other.
“And neither of us, the leaders of these supposed clans, is planning to knife the other in the back in a ruthless quest to ascend the Iron Throne.”
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