Bernd Wächter

Claire Morel has worked for the past 18 years in the field of international cooperation in education and training. Before joining the European Commission, she worked at the European Training Foundation, and agency of the EU based in Turin, on the modernisation of vocational education and training systems in the Eastern neighbouring countries. She then moved to DG Education and Culture (DG EAC) of the European Commission where she worked for the Tempus programme (for higher education modernisation), dealing mainly with Central Asian countries, and the programme’s external communication. She is now deputy head of the unit for international cooperation and programmes in DG EAC and her work concentrates on international policy dialogue in education and training, in particular with the EU’s neighbouring countries, and preparing the next generation of EU international education programmes.

Dorothy Kelly is Vice Rector for International Relations at the University of Granada, where she is also professor of Translation. She obtained her B.A. in Translating and Interpreting at Heriot-Watt University, and her doctoral degree from the University of Granada. Her main research interests are translator training, directionality in translation, intercultural competence and student mobility. She was a member of Spain’s national Bologna Experts Team until 2013, and has been Chair of the Executive Board of the Coimbra Group of Universities since 2010.

Uwe Brandenburg is project manager at CHE Consult and an expert on strategic development, internal communication and internal project quality assurance. He was the head of CHE Excellence Ranking (a pan-European quality assessment project of Master’s programmes), project coordinator of the IMPI project (Indicators for Mapping and Profiling Internationalisation), and leads a number of advisory projects in the fields of internationalisation, controlling, strategy development, organisation development, diversity management, benchmarking, and quality control. He has published on financing models for studying abroad, international education systems (inter alia on China with more than 53,000 downloads to date), foreign marketing, internationalisation, EU projects regarding benchmarking, internationalisation, and Change Management at European universities. He has cooperated in the International Deans’ Course for further education and training of deans from developing countries, and is a member of the Deutsche Assoziation für Internationalen Bildungsaustausch (DAIA) e.V. (German Association for International Exchange of Education) (Chairman until 2006), European Association for International Educators (EAIE), Fulbright Alumni e. V., and CHER (Consortium of Higher Education Researchers). He has been invited as core expert to the IAU (International Association of Universities) and to the Ad Hoc expert group on internationalisation.

Georgi Dimitrov joined the European Commission in 2008. He was involved in various roles in setting up the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Currently, Georgi manages the initiative HEInnovate launched in November 2013 by the European Commission and the OECD. HEInnovate aims at higher education institutions (HEI) interested in developing their entrepreneurial strategies and capabilities. He is further managing the development of a sound evidence base or policy initiatives related to innovation and higher education; and entrepreneurship and higher education. 

Before joining the Commission, Georgi worked for a leading multinational telecommunication company in Düsseldorf, Germany. Prior to that, he worked an IT start-up for four years in different functions (Erlangen, Germany). Georgi studied at the University of Bonn (European Studies); the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (PhD); and the Open University UK (Technology Management).

Karin Christen is Head of the programme Erasmus at the ch Foundation, the Swiss National Agency for the programmes Life Long Learning and Youth in Action and the designated NA for Erasmus+. She has been at the ch Foundation since 2010, first as project coordinator and since 2012 in her current position. After her master degree in English, history and political science, she worked at the University of Zurich, at the former Federal office for Vocational Education and at a Swiss Think Tank. 

In her current position, she is responsible for the implementation of the “Swiss interim solution” for Erasmus+ for higher education. In the ACA, she represents the ch Foundation, member since 2011.