Oxford’s pick for top job is former state school pupil

Neuroscientist who attended ‘terrific’ local comprehensive promises to boost student diversity

OXFORD University is to appoint its first comprehensive school-educated vice-chancellor, who has pledged to boost the diversity of admissions.

Prof Irene Tracey has praised her “terrific“comprehensive school after the announcement of her nomination.

The neuroscientist, who has pushed for diversity in her role as a college warden at Oxford, has been praised as an example of “social mobility”, and has committed to attracting students from all backgrounds when she takes up the position of vice-chancellor in 2023.

She said the university had “made significant strides in recent years to becoming a more diverse community”, adding that under her leadership “Oxford’s commitment to attracting the very best students from whatever background will remain steadfast.”

She will take over from Prof Louise Richardson, Oxford’s first female vicechancellor, amid renewed debate over the proportion of Oxbridge undergraduates who are educated in comprehensives or grammar schools.

Educated at the comprehensive Gosford Hill School in Oxford, Prof Tracey went on to study at Oxford’s Merton College then Harvard Medical School, before returning to her alma mater and earning a professorship in 2001.

After establishing a career as a specialist in pain perception, she was made warden of Merton College in 2019, and under her leadership it has pursued schemes to help boost diversity.

The college rolled out a new Single Equality Scheme for 2021 to 2024 which aims to “remove any barriers which might deter people of the highest potential and ability from applying to study or work at Merton College”.

The scheme’s 2021 plans included projects to “encourage more undergraduate applications to Oxford from black and minority ethnic candidates”, and provide support for them on course by developing “new outreach activities to diversify the student body”.

Plans were also put in place to diversify recruitment of academic and nonacademic staff at the college, and to roll out more equalities training.

A project to alter the physical environment at Merton College was continued, a decision was taken to allow civil partnership in the college chapel, and staff including Prof Tracey took “training on trans issues” in 2021.

She has also chaired Merton Equality Conversation events on issues related to inclusion and diversity.

Her nomination as vice-chancellor and her commitment to opening up the university to students from diverse backgrounds comes after concerns raised by government sources about private schools being discriminated against.

These were raised after Cambridge vice-chancellor Stephen Toope said exclusive universities wanted to reduce the intake from independent schools.

Prof Tracey’s comprehensive school background has been cited by Oxford Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes, who chaired the committee which nominated her for the vice-chancellor role.

Lord Patten said: “Irene Tracey was born in Oxford and educated at a local comprehensive and Oxford University, for which she has now been proposed as the next vice-chancellor. It is an extraordinary story of personal achievement, social mobility and academic excellence.”

Prof Tracey’s nomination is awaiting approval by the university’s sovereign body, Congregation. If this goes ahead, she will take up the position in 2023.

Prof Irene Tracey’s appointment renews the debate over the proportion of Oxbridge entrants coming from grammar and state schools

‘Oxford’s commitment to attracting the very best students from whatever background will remain steadfast’