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.

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.

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 15 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'.

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).

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.

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.

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.