Mervin Bakker has been working in international education for 25 years. Immediately before joining the EAIE as Executive Director, he was Director International Strategy and Relations at the University of Groningen. Earlier in his career, Mervin was Regional Director at Nuffic’s Netherlands Education Support Offices in South Africa and Indonesia. Prior to this, Mervin worked at the University of Amsterdam as Manager International Programmes and as Head of Marketing & Communications for the Faculty of Economics and Business. He has also worked for an education agent in Thailand and ran a student related business in the Netherlands. Mervin holds an MSc in International Economics and Economic Geography from Utrecht University, and an MBA in Higher Education Management from the Institute of Education in London.

Yann-Maël Bideau is a Policy Officer in the Higher Education Unit of the Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, in the European Commission. Yann-Maël is currently mainly working on quality assurance and the European degree. Before joining the European Commission in 2019, he worked as a language teacher and in the field of university cooperation in France, Czechia, Slovakia and Belgium.

Martin Bogdan is a policy and project officer at ACA where he first started as a trainee in 2019. While at ACA he has managed the CARe project, which deals with labour integration of refugee researchers in Europe, and the Internationalisation in Higher Education for Society mapping report. Before joining ACA, he completed a Blue Book Traineeship in the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission in the unit working on Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees. In his pre-Brussels life, Martin worked for a number of NGOs in different capacities and briefly taught social sciences and history in an international school. He has a joint MA in European studies from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Jagiellonian University Krakow, as well as a MA in cultural anthropology and museum studies from the University of Zagreb and a BA in anthropology and information science also from the University of Zagreb.

Luisa Bunescu is Policy Officer Education at the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) of the European Commission, where she leads on the higher education portfolio and the Erasmus+ programme. Before joining DG INTPA, she worked as Programme Coordinator of the Higher Education Initiative at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and as Policy Analyst at the European University Association (EUA).

Ioana Dewandeler is Policy Officer for Higher Education in the  European Commission's Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture where she is mainly in charge of the coordination of the European Universities initiative. Ioana has over 18 years prior experience in various positions within the European Commission, in DGs for Research and Innovation and for Education, Youth and Sports, working on higher education policy, strategic coordination of the Erasmus+ programme, social sciences and humanities in research and innovation, and the socio-economic dimension of transport research policies. She studied economic and social public administration and EU law and litigation in Romania and France.

Irina Ferencz is the Director of ACA and has been working in international higher education since 2008. Irina has specific expertise in the area of international student and staff mobility in the European context (data collections, trends, policies), as well as in planning, monitoring and assessing internationalisation activities at institutional and national level. She also has a growing interest in widening inclusion in internationalisation activities. Currently, she is also a PhD candidate at Ghent University, CHEGG, and an occasional reviewer for two higher education journals. She has authored and co-authored multiple publications in the field. Irina holds an MSc degree in European Politics and Policies (KULeuven, Belgium) and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations and European Studies (Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai, Romania). She is a Romanian national, speaks several languages, and calls Belgium 'home'.

Dr Alenka Flander is the Director of the Centre of the Republic of Slovenia for Mobility and European Educational and Training Programmes (CMEPIUS), leading Slovene institution in the field of internationalisation of education and training. In that capacity she is responsible for successful implementation of EU programmes (Erasmus+) in Slovenia, focusing on achieving sustainable impact of the projects and programme and ensuring effective dissemination and integration of programme results into institutional and national systems and practices. Alenka was trained as an electrical engineer and completed her PhD in the Political Science. Her research work is interdisciplinary in nature and encompasses monitoring and measuring the impact of European Programmes in the area of education and training, and research on internationalisation and higher education. She contributed to national or international expert groups and authored publications and articles on internationalisation in higher education and academic profession. Currently she is also a national team leader in the Future-AP global comparative survey involving over 43 countries across six continents. Building on the previous APIKS project, the FUTURE AP is seeking to promote comparative survey research on employment and working conditions in teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and governance as well as examining global academic values and how they address important societal issues (such as the Sustainable Development Goals).

Wim Gabriels is the Director of ESN and he has a thorough experience in project management of European-level projects and a deep understanding of the educational landscape in Europe. He has experience in project coordination but also of grant-specific regulations, project reporting, contact with stakeholders outside the partnership and strategic planning. He is also experienced in planning effective communication and dissemination, having a Bachelor in Communication Studies (Communication Science) and a Master in Communication Studies (Media Sociology and Strategic Marketing) from University of Antwerp. Wim has also worked at the International Relations Office of Vrije Universiteit Brussels and he has represented ESN in various other roles, notably as a Board member in the Erasmus Student and Alumni Association. In these last two capacities he has build an extensive knowledge on non-EU projects and programmes in order to build an global awareness of European higher education. Active in the field of Diversity and Inclusion and Community Engagement, Wim strives to make Internationalisation of Education contribute to society.

Fernando Galán is the Executive Director of the EU-CONEXUS European University Alliance. Fernando Galán is also a member of the Advisory Board of the European Degree Label Policy Lab of the European Commission. He has over a decade of experience in European higher education policy, quality assurance and university alliances. Before joining EU-CONEXUS in 2025, he served as Secretary General of the Arqus European University Alliance, Head of International Engagement at the Spanish Rectors’ Conference (CRUE), and Policy and Project Officer at EURASHE. A former President of the European Students’ Union, he has been part of the Bologna Process' BFUG board and of different expert groups of the European Union, the Council of Europe, UNESCO and the OECD, as well as of quality assurance agencies and universities among others. 

Stephan Geifes is Vice-President of ACA and the Director of the Erasmus+ National Agency Higher Education within the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) since 2020. He has been working for the DAAD since 1999 where he was before Head of Division Transnational Education and Cooperation Programmes. Prior to this position he was Director of the DAAD Paris Office, Secretary General of the Franco-German University, and Scientific Coordinator at the German Historical Institute of Paris. Geifes has studied History, Sociology, Roman Languages and Political Sciences at the University of Bielefeld, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (EHESS) and at the Institute d’Études politques (IEP) in Paris. He continued his studies at the École nationale d’administration (ENA) in Paris and holds a PhD in Modern History from the University of Bochum.

Jukka Kohtanen works as a director at CSC - IT Center for Science in Finland, a non-profit company owned by the Finnish government and higher education institutions. He is mainly responsible for joint digital services for higher education. He has been working on interoperability and digital transformation in education for over 15 years both nationally and internationally. Before the current post Jukka Kohtanen has worked as senior advisor and head of unit at the Finnish National Agency for Education and as the head or student register at the University of Vaasa. 

Finland has a long tradition of close collaboration between higher education institutions and interoperability and joint digital services are vital for our success. This work now needs to be scaled to European level as international collaboration and mobility needs are putting pressure to creating digital services to support the transformation. This is where Jukka Kohtanen's main focus of work is.

Veronika Kupriyanova is Deputy Director at ACA. Before re-joining ACA in November 2020, Veronika worked for the European University Association (EUA) and several consulting companies specialising in higher education and research. Veronika spent two years in Berlin hosted by the Humboldt University of Berlin with the fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and later worked as a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She is experienced in a wide range of higher education and research topics and has a keen interest in policies and programmes supporting internationalisation at the institutional, national and European level. Veronika holds a joint Master’s degree in World Politics from the Moscow State Institute in International Relations (MGIMO) and the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po). She speaks three official languages of Belgium in addition to her mother tongue (Russian).

Simone is President of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN). He holds a binational Bachelor’s in Political Science and International Relations and a Master’s in International Development and Public Policy. He previously held various roles within ESN at local, national, and international levels, including in the Education Office of ESN Italy and as a Policy Intern at ESN’s headquarters. His work focuses on advancing internationalisation of higher education, improving access to mobility opportunities, and integrating student perspectives into policy and practice.  

Irene Martín is Senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Law. She holds a BA in Law (1994), a BA in Political Science and Administration (1996), an MA in Social Sciences from the Juan March Institute (1998), and a PhD from UAM (2004).

She has served as Vice-rector for Internationalization at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) (2021-2025), Rector's Delegate for Internationalization (2014-2017), Vice Dean of International Relations (2010-2014), Coordinator of the Master's Program in Democracy and Government (2007-2009; 2018-2019); Coordinator of the UAM-Sciences Po Bordeaux Double Degree (2014-2018), and Coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus Master's Degree EUROSUD – South European Studies (2018-2021).

Her research interests are related to political and electoral attitudes and participation. Currently, her research focuses on attitudes towards the conflicts of the past and memorial policies, and their impact on voting. In the past she has carried out research related to political attitudes in Spain and Greece, young people and politics, education for citizenship, and social movements and political parties. 

She has coordinated the H2020 REPAST Project – Revisiting the Past, Anticipating the Future – Strengthening European Integration through the Analysis of Conflict Discourses (2018-2021) at UAM and POLMEMO - Polarization around historical memory in SpainDistribution and factors that contribute to its intensification, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science.

She has been visiting researcher at the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics (2018), the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University (2007), the University of Montreal (2012), and the University of Athens (2008).

Joerg Niehoff is Deputy Head of Unit for “ERA, Spreading Excellence and Research Careers” in the Research and Innovation Directorate General of the European Commission. The Unit is responsible for the design and implementation of the ERA policy agenda, coordinates the ERA governance, develops a policy for research talents and careers, and empowers higher education institutions. The unit is also responsible for promoting the Spreading of Excellence and preparing the Horizon Europe work programme on “Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area”. Joerg has more than 15 years of experience with the coordination of national research policies and programmes and European Partnerships. Previously he was as head of the Brussels office of VDI The Association of Engineers in charge of VDI’s European representation. First experience in management of research programmes he gained as Technology Consultant in the VDI Technology Centre, Research funding organisation on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, with projects and programmes related to photonics research. He started his professional career as a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology. Joerg Niehoff holds degrees in engineering and in industrial engineering and a PhD from the RWTH Aachen. 

Adrien Olszak-Olszewski is a Policy Officer in the International Cooperation unit in DG EAC at the European Commission. In this role, he focuses on fostering education, youth, culture, and sports cooperation with Eastern Partnership countries, with a particular emphasis on supporting Ukraine and Moldova in their EU accession processes, capacity building, and regional integration. Before joining the European Commission in September 2024, Adrien served as an Education Policy Consultant at the World Bank, where he focused primarily on Ukraine, with additional work experience on Moldova, Central Asia, and Kosovo.

Joanne Pagèze has recently taken up the position as Director of ENLIGHT for the university of Bordeaux, after two terms as Vice-President for Internationalization (2018-2026). She teaches English and Scientific Communication at the Department of Languages and Cultures and has a research interest in international learning and teaching, language policy and higher education internationalization, publishing in the field of English for academic purposes, multilingual learning and internationalization. She has designed and implemented professional development programs for academics. She has been fully engaged in all aspects of the European University Alliance, ENLIGHT from its earliest days. Active in European associations that support higher education internationalization and quality learning and teaching, she is currently a member of the board of the EAIE.

Jan Palmowski has been Secretary-General of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, which comprises 23 leading universities across 17 European countries. Janhas been in this position since co-founding TheGuild in 2016. Other roles included being Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London (2008-12), and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Academic Vice-President at theUniversity of Warwick from 2013 to 2018. He is Professor at the University of Warwick, and adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo.

A frequent commentator for a range of publications (most notably the Times Higher Education and Research Professional), in his academic capacity Jan has published widely in European contemporary history. More recently he has focused on European higher education, with recent publications including ‘In theshadow of the EU’s crises: the changing dynamics of the European knowledge area, 2014-25’ (with Åse Gornitzka: Journal of European Integration: https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2025.2592091) and ‘A Paradigm Shift in European transnational collaboration? European University Alliances as communities of practice’ (with Jo Angouri, in: Globalisation, Societies and Education: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2025.2524479). With Jo Angouri, he also co-authored TheGuild’s most recent Insight Paper on ‘European Universities Alliances: Pilots without Pathways?’ (The Guild: https://doi.org/10.48620/91947).

Georgiana Maria Pleşu is a Policy Officer in the International Cooperation Unit of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture since July 2022. She is responsible among others of relations with the countries in the Southern Neighbourhood. Prior to this, she worked for 10 years on funding and the external dimension of migration and security policies within European Commission’s Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs.  She studied International Business and Economics and European Affairs at Bucharest University of Economic Studies and Strategic Management at Rotterdam School of Management.

Angeliki Psychogyiou is Policy and Project Coordinator at the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), where she leads initiatives on digitalisation, sustainability, and international cooperation in higher education. She coordinates ACA’s Thematic Peer Group on New Mobility Formats, advancing discussions on digitally enhanced and sustainable mobility models, and currently oversees ACA’s participation in the European Digital Education Hub, where she has led the working group on sustainability in digital education.

Angeliki is also the project coordinator of HIBLend, an Erasmus+ project enhancing institutional capacity to implement high-quality blended mobility. With extensive experience in the design and evaluation of EU-funded education initiatives, she regularly supports National Agencies in reviewing Erasmus+ proposals, including those related to external action instruments.

Before joining ACA, she worked in institutional cooperation at the University of Paris 8, managing Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) partnerships with institutions in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Western Balkans. She later joined the European Vocational Training Association (EVTA), overseeing a portfolio of EU-funded skills and employability projects.

Simone Rave is Policy Officer for Education, skills, youth, culture and sports (Chapter 26 of the EU Acquis) for the EU Neighbourhood East and enlargement since 2021. Currently she is working in DG Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood (DG ENEST). Simone has been working at the European Commission since 2000, when she started at the EU Delegation in Hungary in the field of Regional and Cohesion policy. She worked in many policy areas including in the field of energy, economic and social policies, mainly for the EU neighbourhood and enlargement region. She is also a professional coach and a trainer on personal development and leadership at the EU Commission.

Marcello Scalisi is the Director of UNIMED – Mediterranean Universities Union – since 2008. He holds a degree in Historical Sciences and International Cooperation at the Faculty of Literature, Philosophy and Languages of the University of Roma Tre, Italy. He started working at UNIMED in 1998 as a project manager and moved gradually to the coordination of UNIMED’s initiatives and projects. He has extensive experience in managing and monitoring international projects. UNIMED is currently a network of more than 180 universities from more than 25 countries of the Euro-Mediterranean region, with 12 SubNetworks involving more than 400 researchers, around 40 funded projects, 20 staff people and 15 institutional partnerships with important international organizations. Nowadays, UNIMED is a permanent stakeholder of the European Commission and the Union for the Mediterranean. 

Dr. Marco Schouten serves as Director General of Nuffic since August 2025. "Making a real, practical, and tangible difference is what drives me," he says. Marco’s career spans nearly 30 years, during which he has held diverse roles within complex international organizations. This experience has built his expertise in change management, business development, and (international) partnerships. He is academically trained as a business economist and received his Ph.D. in 2011 from Erasmus University Rotterdam, specializing in strategic management and public-private partnerships.

Arno Schrooyen is serving as Vice president of the European Students' Union since 2024. Prior to joining the ESU’s Executive Committee in 2023/24, he studied for a bachelor’s degree in hotel management in Brussels and is doing now a master’s degree in administrative sciences in Brussels. He started his student journey back in 2019 on the local level. Later joining the National Union of French-speaking Students of Belgium. Last year he joined the European level entering the executive committee of ESU focusing on work related to Social Dimension, Student Participation, Internationalisation and Mobility.

Gro Tjore is the President of the Academic Cooperation Association and the Deputy Director General at the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir). The Directorate is the executive agency for the Ministry of Education and Research within the higher education and higher vocational education sectors and is responsible for the national skills policy. Gro Tjore has been working in education since 2006. Her main focus has been on international cooperation in higher education, including programme administration, programme development and policy development. Since 2018 she has mainly been working with organizational development, managing large restructuring processes and developing new strategies. She previously worked within the field of humanitarian assistance and spent 9 years working for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). She holds a degree in political science from the University of Bergen, Norway.

Filip van Depoele is an economist by training (University of Leuven, Belgium) and subsequently studied European Economic Integration (College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium) and International Relations (Johns Hopkins University, Bologna, Italy). He worked for a number of years in the private sector (banking) before joining the European Commission in 1997. Filip held several positions in the Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs and the Directorate General for Competition before moving to the Directorate General in charge of Education, Youth, Sport and Culture. After having managed the Policy Coordination unit for 5 years, he is currently heading the International Cooperation unit.

Tomáš Varga is Deputy Head and Bursar at the Teiresias Centre (Support Centre for Students with Special Needs) at Masaryk University. In this role, he oversees the management of financial operations, coordinates courses on universal design and accessibility, bridging academic instruction with practical institutional change, and contributes to the Centre’s strategic development while supporting the implementation of universal design principles across the university. He plays a pivotal role in shaping inclusive and accessible higher education at Masaryk University and beyond.

In addition to his core responsibilities, he actively participates in university-wide initiatives and international collaborations. As a member of the university committee on sustainable development (SDGs), he contributes to the integration of inclusive and sustainable practices into institutional policies, ensuring that accessibility and environmental responsibility are central to academic planning. Through international projects and conferences, he participates in global discussions on inclusive education, student mobility, and institutional development, thereby reinforcing the Centre’s role as a key advocate for equity and innovation in higher education.

He draws inspiration from his background in English studies, which has shaped him into an open-minded, critically thinking professional challenging boundaries. He firmly believes that high-quality education, particularly in an international context, is inseparable from inclusivity.

Andries Verspeeten is Team Leader and Senior Policy Advisor at Ghent University. He coordinates its team of EU education project advisors and is university liaison for EU education policy matter to a number of stakeholder organisations of which Ghent University is member. Prior to his current function, Andries advised university staff on the development of joint programmes, particularly in the framework of the EU’s Erasmus Mundus action. He was involved in a number of related EU-funded projects in the matter, a.o. recently the EDLab European Degree pilot project. Within the European University Alliance ENLIGHT, he is a.o. actively involved in its advisory entity on EU policies.

Vegard Vibe is a Senior Adviser at the Department of Global Cooperation in the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills. Since 2019, he has served as the Erasmus+ International Contact Point (ICP) for the Norwegian National Agency, where he administers the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) programme. He is also an active member of the ICM working group, contributing to the development and implementation of this initiative.

Vegard has extensive experience working with nationally funded cooperation programmes in the Global East and Global South, and currently holds responsibility for academic cooperation with South Korea. His professional background bridges policy and academia: prior to joining the Directorate, he was a researcher and lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, with a particular focus on human rights in West Africa. He holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Politics from the University of Bergen and has studied and worked in France and Ghana.