Dr. Max Price was Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town for ten years, from July 2008 to June 2018. From 1996 to 2006, he was dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow of The Centre for Global Development. He consults in public health, higher education, strategic leadership, and crisis management. Earlier in Max’s career, he was a researcher and director in the Centre for Health Policy at Wits University. He has also worked in academic and rural hospitals in South Africa. Max’s research has covered higher education, the political economy of health in South Africa, health economics, rural health services, health systems research, and health science education. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa.
Educational qualification
- MBBCh (University of Witwatersrand, 1979)
- BA Politics, Philosophy, Economics (Oxon, 1983)
- MSc Community Health in Developing Countries (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1986)
- Diploma in Occupational Health (University of Witwatersrand, 1993)
Key achievements in the last decade
- During the decade of his leadership, UCT consistently ranked in the top 200 universities globally in the Times Higher Education rankings and the top university in Africa in almost all ranking systems.
- His key concerns and achievements at UCT were the growth of the university’s research output, impact and profile, the consolidation of international partnerships in research and student mobility, the transformation of the admissions policy to increase students from disadvantaged background, and other interventions to change the institutional culture of UCT. He contributed significantly to the fundraising success of the university over this period.
- In the years 2015 to 2017, he steered the university through a challenging, often traumatic series of student and worker protests which were part of a national protest movement.
- Dr Price played a leadership role in the South African higher education landscape external to UCT, and in international university networks including the launch of the African Research Universities Alliance, of which he was the first chair.. For ten years he participated in the Global Universities Leaders Forum at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.
Important recognition in the last decade
- Rhodes Scholarship (1980-1983)
- Fellowship ad eundum of Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (Oct. 2004)
- Takemi Fellowship in International Health, Harvard School of Public Health (1994-5)
His range of speaking topics
- What makes a world class university?
- Future of Higher Education in Africa
- Strategies for University leaders, coaching, change management
- Integrating digital technologies for learning – blended and on-line pedagogies
- Strengthening research and research universities in Africa
- Transforming university and higher education – inclusiveness, diversity, decolonisation
- Crisis management
- Development and advancement for universities – how to do it
