Vincent Dousset

Professor of Medicine (Radiology and Medical Imaging) at the Medical School of the University of Bordeaux he is regularly invited as international lecturer to Universities or scientific societies.

Head of the Neuroradiology Unit at the University Hospital of Bordeaux (CHU) since2001, he became the Department Chairman of radiology and nuclear medicine at the University Hospital of Bordeaux (2005-2011) which has 500 employees, including 65 physicians, and eight clinical imaging units spread across three hospitals.

In 2009 he was asked by the President of the university to coordinate the creation of the Bordeaux Institute of Bio-Imaging which has several trustees: University of Bordeaux, National Research Institutes (CNRS, INSERM), University Hospital and Cancer Hospital. He is now Director of this federation of eight imaging research laboratories that aims at promoting translational research. He is also node coordinator of France Life Imaging National Infrastructure.

Director of TRAIL Laboratory of Excellence (Translational Research and Advanced Imaging Laboratory – http://trail.labex-u-bordeaux.fr), his research focuses on translational research from bench to bedside with the overall goal of serving patient diagnosis or therapy.

He is now dedicating most of his research time in the team “Astrocytes and Neurons” of Dr Stephane Oliet in the INSERM Unit of the Neurosciences Magendie Institute (www.neurocentre-magendie.fr) directed by Dr Pier-Vincenzo Piazza, to studying the regulation of CNS neuro-inflammatory processes and its in vivo approach on animals and humans, with MRI and diffusion imaging (Tourdias et al; Neurotherapeutics 2013; Radiology 2013; Journal of Neuroinflammation 2011).

He created a new leading-edge Masters Course entitled the International Master of Bio-Imaging that started in 2011 in collaboration with Laval University in Canada.

He received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (2008).

Antoine Godbert has been Director of the 2e2F Agency (Europe-Education-Formation France) which is in charge of implementing and deploying the Education and Lifelong Learning European Community program in France since november 2010. Previously, he was Diplomatic Advisor to the staff of the Ministry of National Education. At the same time, he is an Affiliated Professor at l’Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP Europe) where he is in charge of the European Geopolitical Studies department. He is also a member of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) team.

A former student at the Ecole nationale de l’administration (ENA) and of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-St-Cloud (ENS Fontenay-St-Cloud), he worked as a journalist from 1990 to 1992, then as the manager of a company that produced educational videos until 1994. Antoine Godbert is the holder of an Agrégation in Geography and was a teacher-researcher in geopolitics at ESCP-EAP European School of Management from 1991-1998.

In 2001-2002, he worked in the Secrétariat général de la Défense et de la Sécurité nationale (SGDN, General Secretariat for Defence and National Security) where he managed the “crisis management” and “European Defence” portfolios. In 2002 he joined the Direction générale de l’Administration et de la Fonction publique (DGAFP, General Office for Adminstration and the Civil Service). There he created and led the “Senior-Level Management and Careers” mission until 2005.

After being Acting Director of Anthenor Public Affairs, in 2007 he became Managing Director at AGMA Consulting, a consultancy in institutional relations. In 2008, Antoine Godbert joined the team of the Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region as an advisor on the “capital region mission”. He held this post until he was appointed diplomatic advisor to the Ministry of National Education.

Sijbolt Noorda is President of the Academic Cooperation Association, Brussels. He is a former president of the University of Amsterdam and the Dutch Association of Universities. He is a graduate of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Universiteit Utrecht and Union Theological Seminary/Columbia University New York.

He served and serves on various boards of institutions for health care, public broadcasting, fine arts and culture, information technology, publishing, university quality assessment and civic development.

In Germany he is a member of Akkreditierungsrat. He is an advisor to universities in Austria, Germany, Holland, Romenia and Turkey, and lectures and writes on European cultural history, university strategies, international cooperation and educational policy.

Bernd Wächter is the Director of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA). He studied at the universities of Hull (UK), Giessen and Marburg (Germany). His career has been focused on international higher education. He worked for the University of Kassel, the British Council, and the Fachhochschule Darmstadt, before joining The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as the head of their EU division. He subsequently became the director for Higher Education (Erasmus) in the Brussels Socrates Office. In 1998, he took up his present post as ACA Director.

Bernd Wächter has published and lectured widely on international higher education. He is the editor of the ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education. He has been the team leader of ACA’s research projects and speaks frequently at major governmental and stakeholder conferences, in Europe and beyond, on the issue of mobility and internationalisation.  

Bernd Wächter has two children. He is married to Thora Magnusdottir, a delightful lady from Iceland.

Born in 1973 in France, Cédric Villani studied mathematics in École Normale Supérieure in Paris, from 1992 to 1996, and spent four more years as assistant professor there.

In 1998 he defended his PhD on the mathematical theory of the Boltzmann equation. Besides his advisor Pierre-Louis Lions (Paris, France), he was much influenced by Yann Brenier (Nice, France), Eric Carlen (Rutgers, USA) and Michel Ledoux (Toulouse, France).

From 2000 to 2010 he was professor at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and now at the Université de Lyon. He occupied visiting professor positions in Atlanta, Berkeley and Princeton.

Since 2009 he is director of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris; this 80-year old national institute, dedicated to welcoming visiting researchers, is at the very heart of french mathematics.

His work has won him many national and international prizes, in particular the Fields Medal, usually regarded as the most prestigious award in mathematics, which was given to him at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad (India), by the President of India. His book “Theoreme vivant” retraces the genesis of the development of the theorem of Landau damping for which he was awarded the Fields Medal.

Since then he has served as a spokesperson for the french mathematical community in media and political circles.

His main research interests are in kinetic theory (Boltzmann and Vlasov equations and their variants), and optimal transport and its applications, a field in which he wrote the two reference books: Topics in Optimal Transportation (2003); Optimal Transport, old and new (2008). More generally, he is fond of subjects which combine several (if not all) of the following themes:

•    Evolution partial differential equations
•    Fluid mechanics
•    Statistical mechanics
•    Probability theory
•    Smooth and nonsmooth “metric” Riemannian geometry
•    Functional inequalities with geometric content.

He belongs to the editorial boards of Inventiones Mathematicae, the Journal of Functional Analysis (JFA), the Journal of Mathematical Physics (JMP) and the *Journal of Statistical Physics (JSP). He also serves as an administrator for several associations, in particular the pro-European Think-Tank EuropaNova. He is President of the Scientific Board of the panafrican institute AIMS-Senegal.

Jordi Curell has a law background and since 1986 has worked in different positions in the European Commission, including in DG Employment, where he was responsible for coordinating the preparation and implementation of the European Social Agenda.

Jordi Curell is presently the director responsible for Higher Education and international affairs in the European Commission, DG Education and Culture. The mission of the directorate includes supporting excellence through structural reform of Higher Education in Europe and the reinforcement of the knowledge triangle. In the context of a global competition for talent, its aim is to make Europe more attractive for students, scholars and researchers and to respond to the need for skills that are crucial for an inclusive knowledge-based economy.

This aim is achieved through policies and programmes such as Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus and Marie Curie Actions, aiming to promote international and intersectoral mobility and partnerships, as well as to support international cooperation (including capacity building). The directorate also supports the long-term development of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a showcase for tackling societal challenges and for boosting Europe’s innovation capacity.

Christian Tauch studied history, international relations and literature in Germany and the US. From 1991 to 1995 he was head of the International Office at the Technical University of Dresden. In 1995 he became head of the International Department of the German Rectors’ Conference HRK in Bonn, a position he held until 2005. He co-authored several studies related to the Bologna Process (in particular the EUA “Trends reports”) and was until recently working at the Unit for Higher Education Policy and the Erasmus Programme in the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission. He is now head of the Department Education at the German Rectors’ Conference.

Gottfried Bacher has a background in translation, American Studies, and international commerce. He started his professional career as assistant professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.
His personal and academic experience during a Fulbright stay in the USA convinced him that all young people in higher education should have the chance to gain international experience. The opportunity to work in this field came with the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research was recruiting individuals with an international  and academic background. He subsequently joined the directorate for international programs in 1992.

Gottfried Bacher has been involved in implementing the EU-higher education programs in Austria as well as the Bologna Process from the very beginning.
He currently heads the Austrian Bologna Contact Point in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, and co-chairs the Austrian Bologna Follow-up Group. In addition he represents Austria in the European Bologna Follow-up Group and co-chairs the Bologna Working Group on Mobility and Internationalization.

Gottfried Bacher firmly believes that physical mobility and personal experience serve as core ingredients of the rapidly evolving European – and  global – higher education area.

John H. Yopp is immediate past Associate Provost for Educational Partnerships and International Affairs at the University of Kentucky. He is currently Manager of Strategic Partnerships, Tuning USA, for the Institute for Evidence-Based Change ((Lumina Foundation funded). He is also past Vice President for Graduate and Professional Education at ETS, past Associate Vice Chancellor at Southern Illinois University and Dean of the Graduate School, where he was also Professor of Biology.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors , Trustees, Advisory Board, and International Task Force of the Council on International Educational Exchange, Goldwater Foundation( in U.S. Senate), Tuning USA, and the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers ( AACRAO), respectively. A long- time presenter at the European Association for International Education (EAIE), EAIE’s NAFSA Workshops , Conferences of the U.S. –European Fulbright Commissions, AACRAO, CGS, AIEA, and NAFSA on international higher education, especially the Bologna Process and Tuning.

His awards include: Outstanding International Educator, awarded by AACRAO (2009); Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education, awarded by IIE (2012) to the US-Germany Fulbright Commission and the University of Kentucky for the Discover Germany-Discover USA Minority Exchange Program created through his partnership with the US –German Fulbright Director ; and the Transatlantic Leadership Award , awarded by the EAIE( 2012). His degrees in Biology are from Georgetown University (B.S.) and the University of Louisville( Ph.D.)

Michèle Gendreau-Massaloux, PhD, wrote her doctoral thesis on Seneca and Spanish literature of the Golden Age, as well as many books and articles on Mediterranean cultures and civilizations. Elected chairwoman of the department of Spanish and Latin-American literature and civilization at the University of Limoges, she was appointed rector of the Academy of Orleans-Tours in 1981.

Technical adviser for education at the French Presidency of the Republic (1984-85), Deputy General Secretary of the Presidency and spokesperson of the President (1985-1988), member of the French National Commission for Communication and Liberties –  CNCL- ( 1988-89),  she was rector of the Academy of Paris, and University Chancellor between 1989 and 1998.

Appointed State Councilor in 1998, she was elected rector of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), a multilateral agency that associates more than 700 universities all around the world, and which she directed between 1999 and 2007. She is now in charge of training, higher education, research, health and culture in the French Interministerial Delegation for the Mediterranean – Delegation interministérielle à la Méditerranée-, DiMed.

Queenie KH Lam joined ACA as Project Officer in late 2010. Since then, she has been involved in a number of (research) projects on mobility policies, curricular internationalisation and (online) marketing in higher education. Queenie is the lead author of ACA’s most recent publication Portable State Grants and Loans: An overview and their contribution to outgoing student mobility (2013) and co-editor of another Tying it all together. Excellence, mobility, funding and the social dimension in higher education (2012). She also contributes regularly to ACA’s monthly newsletter and ACA’s European Policy Seminar series and serves occasionally as independent expert on other mobility-related projects.   

Queenie started her career as Executive Officer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2004-08), first in the academic staff recruitment team and later in the international office. Before joining ACA, she was Research Assistant at the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER) and the International Study Center of the University of Kassel in Germany. Queenie holds an MA degree in Higher Education from INCHER Kassel (2012) and an MPhil in Communication from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2006).

Liqiu Meng is a Professor of Cartography at the Technische Universität München (TUM). She served as the Senior Vice-President for International Alliances and Alumni of TUM from 2008-2014 and as Senator of Helmholtz Association from 2009-2012. Following studies of geodetic engineering in China, she completed her doctorate and a postdoc at University of Hanover in Germany before moving to Sweden to teach and to work as a technical consultant while finishing her habilitation in the field of cartography and geoinformatics. She is a member of “German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina” and “Bavaria Academy of Sciences”. She serves on university councils at Aalto University in Finland and Tongji University in China, the Senate of German Aerospace Center DLR, the Board of Trustees at German Research Centre of Geosciences GFZ, the Board of Trustees at a number of Max-Planck-Institutes and the International Advisory Board of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Marc Zolver is an Engineer graduated in 1990 from Centrale Lyon (France). After 11 years as research engineer in fluid mechanics and CFD applied to Internal Combustion Engines (IFPEN – France), he joined Centrale Paris for its “Ecole Centrale Pékin”project as vice-dean during 4 years in Beijing (China). He participated to the development and the management of a six-year curriculum in Beijing for around 120 Chinese students per year following the French Grande Ecole multi-disciplinary approach. He came back to France in 2008 in Centrale Paris to join the International Relation team as deputy director. He participates actively in the international development and the strategy of Centrale Paris, international research and academic programs and takes part in the management of student and staff mobility.

He has specific knowledge and networks in Europe, Asia and Oceania. In particular he is the coordinator of two ERASMUS MUNDUS action 2 programs, one with China (EM-TANDEM with a twenty-university consortium; 235 people involved, for a total budget of 4.6M€) and one with Japan/Korea (EM-BEAM with a twelve-university consortium; 72 people involved for a total budget of 1.5M€). He is also coordinator of the T.I.M.E. Association (Top Industrial Managers for Europe) in Centrale Paris, a worldwide 53-universities association funded in 1989 to promote student exchange, set up Master-level Double Degree programs and PhD cooperation.

As teacher, he works on professional and soft skills development of Centrale’s students in engineering. His teaching interests are specially dedicated to international students, cross-cultural professional interactions, teamwork, leadership, creativity, career prospective…

Rolf Hoffmann is Executive Director of the German-American Fulbright Commission in Berlin since 2004 and serves as a higher education and marketing expert for many national and international agencies in Europe. Since 1985 he served in different senior positions in academic and international exchange institutions, among them the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service and gained extensive experience in higher education policy, internationalization and program management. In 2001 he was appointed Director of Germany’s new International Marketing Initiative, a joint effort of the Federal Government, the universities and DAAD for the international promotion of study and research in Germany, and headed the first German university marketing consortium GATE Germany with more than 100 member institutions. He holds a doctorate in zoology  from the University of Tübingen and did his Ph.D research as a graduate student at Duke University.

Patrice Simon is Professor of Material Science at the Université Paul Sabatier. His research is focused on the characterization of nanostructured materials for electrochemical energy storage sources, including electrochemical capacitors and Li-ion batteries. He is director of the Alistore European Research Institute focused on Li-ion battery research.

He is at the head of the Pedagogic Committee of the Erasmus Mundus Master “Materials for energy Storage and Conversion”, done in collaboration between 7 universities from France, Poland, Spain, China and USA (see http://www.u-picardie.fr/mundus_MESC/).

Patrice Simon was granted with an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council in 2012 (Ionaces project), to develop research on microporous carbons for supercapacitor applications. He holds the Chair of Excellence from the EADS Foundation “Nanomaterials for embedded energy storage sources”.

Head of the Task force Europe and international for Higher Education and Research a the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research, France
Member of the IAU board.

Patricia Pol has worked in the private sector of multinational corporations before entering the world of education and research at the end of the 80s and becoming Vice-President of her university in 2000.

She obtained her Doctorate in Management Sciences in 1996. Her teaching concerns international management and her research centres on internationalization of organizations (firms and universities) and more particularly, international mobility. During the last 20 years, she has coordinated several international and European projects in various fields and contributed to strategic issues in her university, Université Paris 12 and from 2008 to 2011, the pole of research and higher education, Université Paris-Est, an institutional cooperation structure dedicated at doctoral education and scientific cooperation and, since 2011, at the French evaluation agency for research and higher education (AERES). She is now in charge of a new task force in charge of the internationalization of Higher Education and Research at the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research. She is strongly involved in the development of the European areas of Higher Education and Research and has been participating in many conferences on the Bologna process in France, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Manuel Tunon de Lara studied medicine in Bordeaux, where he became a junior doctor in 1983 and specialized in respiratory diseases. He completed his studies with a PhD in Life scienceat Paris Pasteur Institute and a postdoctoral fellowship in Southampton University in Great Britain. He then became Deputy Chief Resident (1989), and university hospital practitioner (1994). As a specialist in asthma and allergies, he has led considerable research in bronchial hyper reactivity mechanisms. Appointed university professor – hospital practitioner in 1996, he became secretary to the French Allergology Society and is involved in European and American organizations specialized in respiratory diseases.

He was elected Vice President for International affairs at Bordeaux Segalen University in 2003 before his election as President on January 2008.

Very much involved in the cooperation among Bordeaux higher education institutions, he played a major role in the merger of Bordeaux universities, which led to the creation of “Université de Bordeaux” in January 2014. He then became the first president of the newly created university.

William (Bill) Lawton is Director of the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, based near London. The Observatory is an independent higher education research and monitoring unit. It is part of the International Graduate Insight Group (i-graduate), which itself is part of Tribal Group plc. The Observatory disseminates information and analysis on trends, policy frameworks, and the full range of international higher education activities at both institutional and governmental levels around the world. Its core purpose is to provide data and analysis for institutional leaders and policy-makers so that they may shape their institutional strategies successfully to the changing landscape in international higher education

Bill is from Newfoundland and has lived and worked in the UK since 1987. He was a founding member of the UK HE International Unit from 2007 until 2010. Before that, Bill worked at the Canadian High Commission in London, as a political analyst on UK devolution and latterly as Head of Academic Relations. In the 1990s he taught politics at the University of Hull. His PhD is from the University of Edinburgh.

Bill and his team focus on aspects of transnational education. They have recently conducted research for Pearson (on online education), the UK government (on MOOCs), and a UK university (on a branch campus). They have recently concluded a project on the use of agents in international student recruitment and in 2012 published a survey report on international branch campuses.

Antoine Grassin, former Ambassador, has been appointed in 2012 as General Director of Campus France, the French national agency for the promotion of higher education, international student services, and international mobility. A graduate of HEC Paris (Business School), SciencesPo Paris (Institute of Political Studies) and ENA (National School of Administration), he has been serving in the French Diplomacy since 1984. In his diplomatic career he held various positions in French representations abroad and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, where he also served as Director of Scientific and University Cooperation from 2004 to 2008. Prior to joining Campus France he has been the Ambassador of France to Bolivia (2008-2011).

Lesley Wilson joined EUA at its creation in 2001 and formally took over as Secretary General in 2002. Previous to this, she held a number of senior positions in higher education and research management at European level, in particular as Director of UNESCO’s European Centre for Higher Education in Bucharest (UNESCO-CEPES) from 1995 to late 1999, Head of the newly established Science Policy Unit at the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg (1994/1995) and Director of the EC TEMPUS Office in Brussels from 1990 to 1994.

A graduate of the University of Glasgow and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Européennes at the University of Strasbourg, she spent her early career as a scientific staff member of the German Science Council in Cologne before moving to Brussels in 1988 to join the newly established ERASMUS Bureau.

Dr Emile Tanawa is deputy-rector of the “Agence universitaire de la Francophonie” (AUF, http://www.auf.org), the agency which connects French-speaking universities all over the world. From 2004 to 2011, he led the Caribbean office and then the West Africa office of the AUF. The Agency has worked for over 50 years in the field of higher education and research. It is intended to support the training of professionals who will actively contribute to the development of their home countries. In 2014, the AUF includes 800 academic institutions in 100 countries .

Civil engineer by training, Emile Tanawa has specialized in technical and urban development . He has worked on access to basic urban services such as water, sanitation, and public hygiene (solid and liquid waste). He is professor at the National Polytechnic School of Yaounde, attached to the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon.

Beer R.E.V.M. Schröder, was born in a small village in the Netherlands. He grew up in New Guinea, Spain and the Netherlands and studied cultural anthropology, Dutch and Spanish linguistics and literatures and earned his doctoral degree in general and comparative literary criticism, with a specialisation in (oral) literature in Africa at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Since 1982/3, Beer worked for the Netherlands organisation for international cooperation in higher education (Nuffic)  in various management and expert positions.

Over the years, Beer has developed a broad expertise in management and specialised in capacity development programmes for developing countries, international cooperation and the broad spectrum of internationalisation dimensions in higher education. He travelled and worked in many countries across the world, with a strong focus on cooperation with Africa. In November  2014, he was appointed advisor to the Board of Directors. As such, he contributes  actively in realising Nuffic’s motto Linking Knowledge Worldwide.

For the European Commission and  EADI, Beer published in 1993 the International Course Organiser’s Handbook. That book turned out to be instrumental in designing international study and training programmes across Europe. In the slipstream of this publication and others many training courses, workshops were given across the world on international education course design and related topics such as intercultural communication, preparation, reception and guidance of international students.

Lynne is the Senior Education Adviser for the British Council in India, based in Delhi.  Her work involves researching the future of higher education in India, strengthening the relationship between India and the UK through educational links, convening policy dialogues on national and global issues affecting education and the development of new programmes.  She has occupied this position for the last two years, having spent the previous five years as the British Council’s Regional Director Education for Central and South Asia, based in Kathmandu, and responsible for all the British Council’s education work in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Iran.  Lynne has over twenty years’ experience in international education across South Asia and East Asia.

Concurrent to her work, Lynne has research interests in the area of higher education in regions emerging from conflict and affected by social unrest.

Shaun Curtis was appointed Director of International Exeter in August 2009. He is responsible for implementing the University of Exeter’s Internationalisation Strategy, which includes developing stronger links with leading international universities and expanding and diversifying Exeter’s international student body.  Previously, Shaun was the inaugural Head of the UK Higher Education International Unit at Universities UK and was Research Manager at the Economic Development Office of the City of London Corporation.  Shaun has had a diverse career over the last 20 years, working in the public, private and university sectors.  He received a BA in Politics and an MA in Middle East Politics from the University of Exeter, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto.

Irina Ferencz is Policy Officer at the Brussels-based Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) – the European umbrella association of national level agencies working for the internationalisation of their higher education systems. Since her start at ACA, in 2008, she has been mainly involved in projects and activities related to international student mobility and to the use of indicators for measuring internationalisation at university level. She has co-authored several publications and articles on international student mobility, on both statistical and policy trends, such as the studies “Mapping mobility in European higher education” (previously referred to as EURODATA II) or the “European and national policies for academic mobility. Linking rhetoric, practice and mobility trends”. She also led ACA’s ambitious project on curricular internationalisation in the form of mobility windows (MOWIN in short). Over time, Irina has additionally been in charge of designing several ACA European Policy Seminars, and constantly represents the association externally, at various international conferences and in international advisory boards.

Irina, who is a Romanian national, studied International Relations and European Studies at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca and obtained a Master’s degree in European Politics and Policies at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven (Magna cum laude). She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Kassel, Germany.

Maria Yudkevich is a vice-rector of National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia (HSE) and associate professor at the Economics Department of HSE. She also chairs Center for Institutional Studies and Laboratory for Institutional Analysis as its part which is a research center for young scholars who focus on both theoretical and applied economic analysis of institutions. The main areas of her interest and research work are contract theory with a special reference to faculty contracts, universities and markets for higher education. She was a co-organizer of several large-scale research projects that studied different higher education phenomena in comparative perspective (faculty salaries – 28 countries, young faculty careers – 10 countries, university inbreeding – 8 countries).

Robert John Coelen is Vice-President International at Stenden University in the Netherlands. Prior to this appointment he was Vice-President International at Leiden University. He has worked for about 15 years in the field of international education. He returned to work in Europe after an absence of 30 years. Most of these 30 years were spent in Australia. During his time in Australia he spent about 5 years altogether in South-East Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Dr Coelen is a member of Club33, a global think tank on internationalisation, a member of the International Ranking Experts Group, which produced the Berlin Principles on Ranking in Higher Education. He regularly reviews papers for the Journal of Studies in International Education.

Dr Coelen is a regular speaker at international and national conferences on issues related to internationalisation of higher education. In particular ranking, international positioning, the services to international students and admission are amongst the topics he addresses. More recently he is talking about quality in internationalisation as a pressing issue. He was the organiser of the Leiden University Global Ranking Symposium Series. He is the initiator and president of Euroscholars, a new study abroad education project in collaboration with 12 continental LERU universities.

Born in 1962, Barthélémy Jobert is Professor in History of Modern and Contemporary Arts (heritage) since 2004 at University Paris-Sorbonne and was Vice-President of the Scientific Council of Paris-Sorbonne from 2008 to 2012. Since spring 2010, as Professor in charge of research policy at Université Paris-Sorbonne and in the framework of Sorbonne Universités, he had coordinated the participation of Université Paris-Sorbonne to the calls for proposals of the “Investment for the Future” programme, the French government excellence initiative for Higher Education and Research. As such he had represented Paris-Sorbonne in front of the International Excellence Initiative jury (IDEX). Since March 2012, Barthélémy Jobert has been appointed as President of Paris-Sorbonne.

Graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure, having passed an agrégation in History, he was «Teaching Assistant» at Harvard University (1986-1987) and researcher at the Department of drawings, prints and photographies at the French National Library. He was teaching assistant at Paris-Sorbonne from 1988 to 1992. He was Fellow of the Thiers Foundation, then teaching and research assistant (ATER, 1994-1995), and Lecturer in History of Modern and Contemporary Arts at Paris-Sorbonne (1995-2001). After having been a « Focillon Fellow » at Yale University (2000), he became Professor in History of Modern and Contemporary Arts at Grenoble II-Pierre Mendès-France University (2001-2004), before joining Paris Sorbonne as a Professor in 2004.

He is a specialist of European arts of the XIXth century, and particularly of French Romanticism and more specifically of Eugène Delacroix.

He has been director of the « Corpus » programme of the French National Research Agency (ANR), as well as of the e-edition of Delacroix’s correspondence (www.correspondance-delacroix.fr). He has also been commissioner of several expositions in France and abroad (Louvre, French National Library, Museum of Music, Museums of Grenoble and Arras, Museums of Shimane and Yokohama, Japan).

From 2003 to 2004, he has been in charge of creating the Humanities/History and History of arts Master track at the University of Grenoble II. He has participated to numerous contest juries (National Heritage Institute, ENS-LSH, competitive entrance exam for the auctioneers in Paris).

From 2003 to 2006, he has been Special Advisor at the French Ministry of Research for History, History of arts and fine arts, at the Scientific, Technical and Pedagogic Committee (in charge of quality assurance before AERES). He is member of the Strategic committee of the French National Research Agency (ANR), department Social Sciences and humanities since 2008. He was member at the National University Council (CNU 22nd section) from 2007 to 2011. He is currently member of the Directors Board of the Maison française at Oxford, member of the Council of the French Center at Saarbrucken University (Germany). He was Member of the Pedagogic Council of Ecole de Chaillot, expert or member to juries of different French and foreign organizations (ANR, German DAAD, Swiss FRS), and member of the Scientific commission « Social sciences and humanities» at the Belgian National Scientific Research Fund.

Professor Georges Haddad is currently Honorary President of the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne where he served as the President from 1989 to 1994. Professor Haddad had also served as Vice-President of the French Conference of University Presidents from 1992 to 1994, as Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the World Conference on Higher Education from 1994 to 1999, as well as a member of the World Bank-UNESCO Task Force on Higher Education in Developing Countries from 1998 to 2000. In 2004, Professor Haddad took up the position of Director of UNESCO’s Division for Higher Education and organized the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education devoted to “The New Dynamics of Higher Education and Research for Societal Change and Development”. In late 2010, Georges Haddad was appointed Director of UNESCO Education Research and Foresight where he served until returning to his position as Professor at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne in September 2013.

Ulrich Grothus (b. 1952) is the Deputy Secretary-General, Director for Strategy and Head of the Berlin Office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He obtained a Master’s degree in Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1976. He then worked as a journalist before joining the International Division of the former West German Rectors Conference in 1982. He has been working for DAAD since 1988, first as spokesman and head of the president’s office. From 1991 to 2009, he was consecutively director of all three DAAD program directorates. In between, he served as director of the Paris office from 1998 to 2000 and of the New York office from 2004 to 2008. He was an ACA administrator and served as Vice-President from 2011 through 2013. Grothus speaks five foreign languages. In his leisure time, he is an avid reader, listens to classical music and plays the piano.