Max Price


Max Price is the former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He was installed as vice-chancellor on 19 August 2008, replacing Njabulo Ndebele, and maintained this position until completing his 10-year term on 30 June 2018.

Education and career

A qualified medical doctor, Price previously served as Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.
He has an MBBCh degree from the University of the Witwatersrand ; a BA PPE ; an M.Sc in Community Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and a Diploma in Occupational Health from Wits University.

Student years and activism

During Max Price's time as a student, he served as President of the Student Representative Council at Wits University during South Africa's student protest years of 1976 to 1978, as well as an executive member of NUSAS.
While organising the first anniversary commemorations of the Soweto Uprising, he was arrested and detained in solitary confinement for 12 days at John Vorster Square.
Price was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University from 1981 to 1983.

Post-apartheid policy-making

In 1988, Price joined the newly established Centre for Health Policy in South Africa, which had the primary focus of envisioning post-apartheid health policy.
In 1992, Price served as Chairperson of the first Steering Committee of the / Policy Conference.
Throughout his career, he authored local and international journal articles, technical papers, and media contributions on topics including health systems research, the political economy of health, health economics and financing, privatisation and medical aids, rural health, the computer simulation modelling of health systems, and medical education.

Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences

In 1995, at age 40, while on sabbatical at Harvard University, Price was approached to serve as Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Wits University; a position he accepted and held from 1996 to 2006. In 1997, the Faculty made a submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and held an internal reconciliation process, inviting black alumni to express how they had experienced training as doctors under apartheid.
As Dean, Price led a series of initiatives, including the Internal Reconciliation Commission; a graduate entry medical programme; academic programmes in rural health, bio-ethics, sports medicine, emergency medicine, and bio-medical sciences; and the founding of the country's first university-owned private teaching hospital, , and the first university research company, .
In 2004, Price was elected an Honorary Fellow Ad Eundum of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa in Public Health Medicine. From 2006 to 2008, Price served on the board of directors of the Aurum Institute for Health Research, a not-for-profit AIDS/Tuberculosis research organisation.

Vice-Chancellor of UCT

Price was installed as vice-chancellor of UCT on 19 August 2008. During Price's decade-long tenure, UCT saw a number of new institutes and initiatives, including the Hasso Plattner , the , and the .
Price also oversaw the increasing of the institution's research output and impact, in the form of an 85% increase in the number of peer-reviewed publications; the doubling of National Research Foundation-rated researchers; growth in international student numbers and research collaborations; a 43% increase in masters and doctoral students; and the trebling of research income.
During the period of Price's stewardship, UCT was the first university on the African continent to begin to offer massive open online courses or MOOCs. It was consistently ranked in the world's top 200 universities according to the Times Higher Education rankings and as Africa's top university in almost all rankings.
Price's own initiatives, referred to as Vice-Chancellor Strategic Initiatives, included the , the , the , and the .
In 2015 Price was co-founder and first Chair of the African Research Universities Alliance, created to strengthen links between research universities in Africa.
He was also a Member of the Global Universities Leaders’ Forum of the World Economic Forum and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Community Organisation Resources Centre.
Fees Must Fall movement
From 2015 to 2017, the University of Cape Town experienced a series of student and worker protests that were part of a larger national protest movement. The key issues were the demand for free education ; decolonisation and transformation ; and union demands for outsourced workers to be re-insourced.
As vice-chancellor, Price's leadership of the university's approach to the protests generated both criticism and praise from many sides. Some argued that the protests should not be sanctioned by negotiation, but responded to with stern disciplinary action and security. Others argued that the UCT Executive was insufficiently sensitive to student suffering and that the use of private security and police to control protests was unnecessary.
At the national level, the #FeesMustFall movement achieved a commitment from government to provide grants to fully fund university education for students from lower income households. At UCT, the movement led to the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes from its position in the centre of the campus and to numerous initiatives to address the coloniality of the institutional culture. Another success was the insourcing of 1300 workers .
Recent Memberships
Price served as Chair of the Worldwide Universities Network Partnership Board from 2014 to 2016, and as Vice-Chair during 2013-2014 and 2016-2017.
From 2011 to 2018, Price was a Member of the Council of the University of Ghana, Legon. From 2014 to 2018, he was a Member of the Global Council of Hanban, the Headquarters of the Confucius Institutes, serving as one of ten university presidents who constitute its external members.
Price currently serves on a panel of senior external experts selected for the Expert Commission of , which provides funding opportunities for research and innovation to benefit children and young people.