Vice President of Research moving from ETH Zurich to Singapore

Christian Wolfrum has been Vice President of Research at ETH Zurich since 1 January 2023. He has now decided to embark on a new academic challenge: as of 1 July 2025 he will assume the function of Deputy President & Provost of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore). He will be responsible in this function for the academic matters of teaching, research and professors at NTU.

The leadership profile of the Provost of NTU combines the key leadership skills that Christian Wolfrum, born in Bonn in 1972, has acquired in his career so far as Professor of Translational Nutrition Biology, as Director of Studies of the Health Sciences and Technology degree programme and the Bachelor’s degree programme in Human Medicine at ETH, as Associate Vice President of Medicine on the Executive Board and most recently as Vice President of Research and member of the Executive Board of ETH Zurich.

A highly dynamic environment for teaching and research

“I am greatly looking forward to the new challenge. I am excited about my future leadership role at NTU as I hold the culture and highly dynamic environment of both the university and the country in very high regard. I firmly believe that Singapore’s education, research and innovation strategy at NTU will open up highly interesting prospects in the development of teaching and research,” says Christian Wolfrum. “I am also attracted by this function in university management because alongside research it also includes responsibility for teaching, both of which are very important for me.”

NTU is currently led by behavioural scientist Ho Teck Hua as President and mathematician Ling San as Deputy President & Provost.

The President of NTU is responsible for the university’s strategic orientation and overall leadership. The Deputy President & Provost is responsible for advancing educational and research excellence, ensuring high-quality academic programmes and enhancing the skills and expertise of NTU’s members.

NTU is one of Asia’s leading universities and ranks among the world’s top 30. It has undergone rapid development since its inauguration in its current form in 1991 and has around 1,000 professors. ETH Zurich is the best continental European university and has 565 professors.

Major insights for medicine, AI and animal research

“I very much regret Christian Wolfrum’s departure. He has launched some important initiatives in his short time on the Executive Board as Head of Research. In particular, he has strengthened medically-relevant research and expanded the corresponding network of ETH Zurich. In the area of digitalisation, Christian has provided some substantial insights for trustworthy AI. We will miss his collegiality, passion and commitment to scientific excellence in Zurich. I wish him all the best and every success for his new professional challenge in Singapore. I will immediately initiate the search for a suitable successor as Vice President of Research,” says President of ETH Zurich Joël Mesot.

Christian Wolfrum has strengthened medical research and significantly expanded the collaboration of ETH Zurich with hospitals in his term of office as Vice President of Research.  Institutional foundations were laid under his leadership for developing new AI language models that are specifically tailored to Swiss needs. In particular, the Swiss National AI Institute SNAI was jointly founded with EPFL. In addition, he stepped up support of the 3R principles in animal research and promoted open and reproducible science.

“Research at ETH Zurich is excellent and compares extremely well internationally. Our scientists are therefore respected partners of the academic and industrial world,” says Christian Wolfrum.

The Vice President of Research at ETH has set himself some further fixed targets for the coming six months: “I wish by June 2025 to strengthen and consolidate the initiated development in medicine, artificial intelligence and in animal and research ethics.”