Peer reviewers
Each submitted practice will be reviewed by two independent ECA Experts according to the CeQuInt Assessment Framework. All involved experts have considerable experience with the internationalisation of Higher Education programmes.
Dr Bladh is an independent consultant and involved in evaluations and other engagements as well as requested speaker in the field of higher education, especially on governance, autonomy and mergers. Bladh holds a PhD in Political Science from Stockholm University (1988).
Executive positions
Dr Bladh was Rector of University of Kalmar, Sweden, between February 2004 and December 2009. Bladh was one of the driving forces behind the merger of her institution and another one, in order to give the best possible prerequisites for future development and increased quality. The new university, the Linnaeus University, was established January 1, 2010.
From 1998 to 2004, Dr Bladh served as State Secretary at the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science, responsible for Higher Education and Research. From 1995 to 1998, Dr Bladh was Director General at the National Agency for Higher Education (the agency was responsible for, among other things, quality assurance issues).
Temporarily, during the search for new Deans and CEOs, Bladh served as Dean and CEO for Jönköping International Business School (Jan-Dec 2011) and the School of Education and Communication (Sept 2013 to February 2014), both part of Jönköping University.
Board memberships
Dr Bladh is member of several university governing boards: Uppsala University (vice chair), Stockholm University Library Board (chair) and University College of Oslo and Akershus (Norway). Dr Bladh is chairperson of the organisation VA (Public & Science – acronym for Vetenskap & Allmänhet), to advance and encourage dialogue between researchers and the public. Bladh is a member of the Swedish Higher Education Authority Board and has been a member of the Danish Accreditation Council. During 2005 – 2007 Bladh was vice chair of the Swedish Rector’s Conference (SUHF).
Dr Bladh is a member of the Magna Charta Observatory Council and has 2012-2014 been a member of the EU High Level Group on Modernisation of Higher Education and 2008-2012 of the Administrative Board of the International Association of Universities, IAU. Bladh chaired an international panel in Denmark for the evaluation of a university law (especially autonomy issues) as well as mergers between universities and research institutes.
Bladh has been an expert to the EU Erasmus pilot project about assessment for a Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation, run by the European Consortium for Accreditation. The Dean and CEO experience from Jönköping International Business School and the School of Education and Communication, as well as the Board chairing of the School of Health Sciences, all at Jönköping University, an institution aimed at increased internationalisation, are also assets in the field of internationalisation.
Frederik De Decker is currently the Head of the International Relations Office at Ghent University, the institution he graduated from. He also started his professional career in internationalisation in that same office, more than 20 years ago, triggered by his own study abroad experiences in The Netherlands and Poland.
He was active in international relations offices in various higher education institutions before being appointed the Head of the Office for educational development and internationalisation at University College Arteveldehogeschool in Ghent, Belgium in 2003. From this post he has been seconded from 2006 to 2014 to the umbrella organisation Ghent University Association as senior education advisor, advising the board in various educational policy matters.
He has been or is a (board) member of various national and international organisations and participates very regularly as an expert in international projects, mainly dealing with internationalisation, educational development, qualifications frameworks and quality assurance. In 2010 he has been co-chairing the pilot project “Internationalisation as a distinctive quality feature” of the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation organization and is currently involved in setting up the European (EQA) Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation.
His special interest is the concept of (international/intercultural) learning outcomes/competences: how can these be defined, how to measure these, what is the impact of it on internationalisation etc.
At Flemish level he is an acknowledged expert on topics such as internationalisation, diversity, lifelong learning and sustainability in higher education and chairs and participates in various advisory boards re. these topics. Frederik is a frequent (invited) speaker at conferences, publishes regularly about a variety of educational topics and is a reviewer for the Journal of Studies in International Education.
Dr Rainer Kuenzel was born in Berlin, Germany, on April 1, 1942. He is married and has two daughters.
He graduated as Diplom-Volkswirt (equivalent to a master’s degree in economics) at the Freie Universitaet Berlin (FUB) in 1967. From 1968 through 1974 he worked as research and teaching assistant at the Institute of Applied Economics and Econometrics of the FUB; he received his doctorate in economics in1974.
Following a short interim period as lecturer of economics in Berlin and as researcher in Goettingen he became Professor of Economic Theory at Osnabrueck University (UOS) in 1976. His research interests ranged from theoretical models of multi-sector production, pricing, and growth to the determination of long-term fluctuations of economic growth by the interaction of social, political and economic factors.
Dr Kuenzel served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences for two consecutive terms; he was elected Vice President of the UOS in 1987.
Upon nomination by the Academic Senate he was appointed President of the UOS by the Minister of Higher Education and Cultural Affairs of the State of Lower Saxony in 1990. He was re-elected twice and retired from office in September 2004.
During his presidency of the UOS Dr Kuenzel was elected twice as chairman of the Association of University Presidents of the State of Lower Saxony (1993-1998). On the federal level he served as Senate member of the Association of Rectors and Presidents of Higher Education Institutions in Germany (HRK) throughout his entire office period as university president (1990-2004); he was elected and re-elected Vice President of the Association for the periods 1994-1997 and 1997-2000.
Partly in his capacity as representative of the state and federal associations of university presidents, partly on account of his publications and contributions to conferences, Dr Kuenzel was entrusted with numerous tasks and functions in federal and state commissions on reform issues in German higher education. He was especially interested in the assessment and institutional management of quality in higher education and research and became involved in the first European project on quality assessment in higher education in 1994/95 as Germany’s representative in the steering group.
In 1995 he served as co-founder of the first quality assurance agency in the German higher education system, the Central Evaluation and Accreditation Agency, Hanover (ZEvA). From 04/2001 until 12/2013 he headed ZEvA as its Academic Director. Upon his initiative the Scientific Commission of the State of Lower Saxony (WKN) was created in 1997 for the purpose of periodically assessing the organization and quality of research carried out in the state universities and in the publicly funded research institutes of the state. He served as a consultative member of the commission until the end of 2013.
From 03/2005 until 03/2010 Dr Kuenzel represented the then six independent accreditation agencies of Germany on the board of the German Accreditation Council (AR). He has also represented ab initio the German system of quality assurance in higher education in the respective organizations on European level.
After retirement from the office of university president in 2004 Dr Kuenzel was offered to take a chair in the department of economics at Osnabrueck University. With special permission by the state authorities he continued to work beyond retiring age as senior professor of economics in the area of higher education management and policy until April 2014.
In addition to these activities Dr Kuenzel has been and is still serving as an advisor to several governments in Germany and abroad and has taken part in quality audits of many European and non-European universities. For the last fifteen years his publications have covered a broad range of issues in higher education management, policy and quality assurance.
Eugenia Llamas is Director of International Relations and Head of the Department of Languages and International Culture at EIVP; as such, she is responsible for the institution’s internationalisation policies and represents EIVP in various national and international organisations. Eugenia’s passion for international relations began twenty years ago while still in Spain, where she was first Erasmus coordinator and then Deputy Director of the ETSIT at the University of Valladolid. At that time, Eugenia acted as an advisor for the implementation of the Bologna process in Spanish engineering degrees till 2005, when she moved to Paris. Eugenia currently belongs to the CTI (Commission des titres d’ingénieur) panel of experts, and regularly participates in accreditation procedures. She has been involved In CeQuInt as a core expert from 2013.
Riitta Pyykkö is Vice Rector of the University of Turku, Finland. In this capacity, she is responsible for teaching and learning, as well as quality management. She has had a long career teaching at the university level and conducting research as a professor of Russian Studies. She has also been active in the development of higher education as, e.g. a national coordinator for the Bologna implementation in 2002-2005, and a member of the Finnish Bologna Experts’ Team in 2006-2013 and several national working groups and projects. From 2004 she was a member, and from 2008 until 2014, the Chair of the Finnish national quality assurance agency FINHEEC. She has participated in several European evaluations and reviews as a member or chairperson of the evaluation panel.
Director of the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy
Hans de Wit is Professor and Director of the Center for International Higher Education, Lynch School of Education, Boston College. He has been Director of the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, and professor of internationalisation of higher education at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. He is also research associate at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Hans de Wit is founding member and past president of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) and the Founding Editor of the ‘Journal of Studies in International Education’. He is a prolific and influential writer on international education (articles, handbooks, blog at University World News) and is actively involved in assessment and consultancy for the European Commission, UNESCO, World Bank, IMHE/OECD, IAU, and the European Parliament.
Eva Werner is Rector of the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems. In this capacity, she is responsible for the quality assurance of the degree programmes offered at the IMC Krems. She is furthermore a member of the Steering Board of the Association of the Universities of Applied Sciences Austria, a Member of several working groups of the Austrian University Conference, and a member of the Board of Directors and the assessment group of Tourism and Hospitality Education (Center of Excellence, Australia).
Eva Werner has been an Austrian Bologna Expert and also actively contributed to the implementation of the Bologna process other countries. She is regarded as an expert in curriculum development and the development of internationalisation. She has a well-developed affinity with internationalisation which started as student studying in Austria, France and Canada.