Former Labour culture minister Chris Smith has been elected the next chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

Smith, currently master of Pembroke College,  other candidates including ex-BP boss John Browne, broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, businesswoman Gina Miller and Cambridge astronomy professor Wyn Evans. He will serve for one non-renewable 10-year term.

It was the first time in the university’s 806-year history that alumni were allowed to vote remotely. Cambridge said more than 23,000 alumni and staff participated online, with almost 2,000 voting in person at the university’s Senate House.

“To be elected as chancellor of the university I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled,” said Smith on his election.

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“I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the vice-chancellor and her team.”  

Smith finished ahead of economics professor Mohamed El-Erian, who came in second place in the election’s single transferable vote system, followed by Toksvig and then Browne. It appeared that it was the supporters of the former BP chief executive, who authored the influential Browne review of higher education in 2010, who helped swing the vote behind Smith after their candidate was knocked out. 

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El-Erian topped the first round, and Toksvig was less than 100 votes off the lead at one stage. 

Wyn Evans, who has been critical of his university’s management, finished in fourth place ahead of Gina Miller.

Writing on , El-Erian sent his congratulations to Smith, saying “I am absolutely convinced that he will make a great chancellor for our collegiate university.” 

Elected in 1983, Smith was the first openly gay MP. He served in Tony Blair’s first Cabinet as culture minister, lasting until 2001 when he was sacked and replaced by Tessa Jowell. He entered the House of Lords after stepping down as an MP at the 2005 election.

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Smith later chaired the Environment Agency and has been master of Pembroke since 2015.

He attended Cambridge as both an undergraduate, when he read English between 1969 and 1972, and a PhD student researching the works of poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge.

In his pitch for the role, Smith said it was “no accident that the first target of autocrats everywhere is education; tyrants do not want people to have and acquire knowledge”.

The Cambridge chancellor needed to therefore be “an advocate for the vital importance of knowledge and expertise”, Smith said.

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In interviews ahead of the vote, he stressed the need for “sustainable, stable funding” for higher education “ideally through a tuition system that rises reasonably over time”, but also said universities “must also communicate their wider value to our country more clearly”.

Addressing the issue of free speech on campuses, Smith said it was “about courage, not comfort”, stressing he disagreed with many of the views of former University of Sussex professor Kathleen Stock, who was forced to leave her role because of protests about her gender-critical stance, but that she “had a right to say them”.

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tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com