Emeritus Professor David Lloyd will take the reins as Interim Vice Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame Australia from Monday 28 September, providing leadership continuity while the university finalises the appointment of its next substantive Vice Chancellor.
The appointment was approved by Notre Dame’s Board of Directors and will continue until the incoming Vice Chancellor commences.
Lloyd arrives at Notre Dame after more than two decades in senior executive and board roles spanning higher education, government, business and the not-for-profit sector.
Most recently, he served as Vice Chancellor and President of the University of South Australia from 2013 to 2026. He was also one of the two founding Co-Vice Chancellors and Presidents of Adelaide University, working alongside Professor Peter Høj through the establishment and transition of the new institution.
The Adelaide University role was no small piece of university plumbing. Lloyd and Høj helped lead the creation of the new institution through the merger of the University of Adelaide and UniSA, with Adelaide University opening its doors in January 2026.
Lloyd also brings considerable sector experience beyond individual institutions.
He served as Chair of Universities Australia from 2023 to 2025, following six years on the organisation’s board. During his time in the role, he was a prominent voice on some of the sector’s biggest policy issues, including international education, university funding, migration and the Universities Accord.
That included a particularly vocal period of debate over international student policy. In 2024, as Universities Australia chair, Lloyd publicly challenged the proposed international student caps and argued that universities and international students should not be used as a response to broader housing and economic pressures.
His career also stretches back to Ireland, where he held senior leadership positions at Trinity College Dublin and served as Chair of the Irish Research Council. He was also a member of the Australian Research Council’s Advisory Council and has held a number of other sector and economic development roles.
Lloyd’s academic background is somewhat different to the traditional university executive pathway. A Dublin-born chemist specialising in computer-aided drug design, he holds a PhD in Medicinal Organic Chemistry and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
For Notre Dame, the appointment provides an experienced hand at a time when the university is preparing for its next permanent leadership chapter.
And given Lloyd has spent the past decade-plus navigating university transformation, sector reform and the politics of Australian higher education, it is unlikely to be an entirely unfamiliar patch of grass.
For now, however, the brief is straightforward: keep the university moving while the search for its next Vice Chancellor reaches the finishing line.
