Welcome Keynote “Shaping the Future of Higher Education: Mutual Improvements through linking Theory and Practice”, Wednesday, August 30th

Ada Pellert is an Austrian economist and the Rector of the Fernuniversität in Hagen, Germany’s State Distance-Learning University. She is also the Vice-President of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities and the Chair of the Cooperation Platform Digital University in North Rhine-Westphalia. Previously, she worked as a professor in organizational development and education management and held multiple leadership positions at Danube University Krems, University of Klagenfurt and University of Graz, Austria, and the Carl Benz Academy in China. Professor Pellert has a strong interest in education and university management, personnel and organizational development, as well as international higher education, continuing education, and gender and diversity management. She obtained her doctoral degree in Social and Economic Sciences at Vienna University of Economics and Business and her habilitation at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. You can learn more about her background here

Ulrich Teichler Lecture “Managing Universities for the Public Good: The Role of Academic Governance”, Thursday, August 31st

David Dill is Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States. He holds a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Michigan. He was a Visiting Professor at the European University Institute (Italy), the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente (Netherlands), and a Visiting Lecturer at the Norwegian Institute for Studies in Research and Higher Education (Norway), and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research (Austria). Professor Dill’s research examines the design and impacts of policies on academic quality and university research. He has explored the influence of norms and values on academic conduct – the ethical dimensions of teaching, the academic culture of universities, and the effects of market forces. He has published comparative analyses of national policies, been an assessor of academic quality assurance in numerous countries, and advised policymakers in Asia, northern Europe, and the US. You can find more information on his website.

Conference Keynote “Is Higher Education still relevant? Looking back, thinking forward”, Friday, September 1st

Pedro Nuno Teixeira is Full Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto and a former Director of CIPES – Centre of Research in Higher Education Policies (2009-2022).

His areas of specialization are the economics of education and the history of economic thought. He has published in a broad range of scientific journals in his areas of interest and has authored or edited several volumes for Oxford UP, Springer, Kluwer, Palgrave, Routledge, Edward Elgar, Brill, and Sense. He is the editor of Human Capital: Critical Concepts in Economics, 4 vols. (Routledge, 2014) and Editor-in-Chief of The International Encyclopaedia of Higher Education, 3 vols. (Springer, 2020). He has been a member of the Editorial Board of several journals, namely: Higher Education, the European Journal of Higher Education, Higher Education Policy, and the Journal of Research in Higher Education.

He was a member of the Board of Governors (2007-2022) and Secretary General (2013-2022) of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER). Since 2003 he has been a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA), and since 2005 a Fellow of the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE). He has also served on the evaluation panels for the European University Association (EUA) and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). He has been a national expert for DG Education (2015-2018) and a member of the EU Network of Experts on the Economics of Education. He is a member of Academia Europaea since 2021.

He has served as a special adviser to the President of Portugal on Higher Education and Science (2016-2021) and on Higher Education and Economic Affairs (2021-2022). He was Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at U.Porto (2014-208) and a member of Portugal’s National Council of Education (2014-2018). Since March 2022 he is the Secretary of State for Higher Education in the Portuguese Government.