Speakers & Agenda

Sigal Ben-Porath received her doctorate in political philosophy from Tel-Aviv university in 2000, after which she joined Princeton University’s Center for Human Values as a post-doctoral fellow. In 2004 she moved to the University of Pennsylvania where she is currently a professor of education, philosophy and political science. Her areas of research include democratic theory, education policy at the K-12 and higher education levels, and ethics. She recently published the books Free Speech on Campus (Penn Press, 2017) as well as Making Up Our Mind (with Michael Johanek, University of Chicago Press, 2019). Her previous books include Citizenship under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict(2006) and Tough Choices (2010), both from Princeton University Press. She serves on the board of the Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, as well as the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia. She has been chairing Penn’s Committee on Open Expression since 2015. In the last few years she has offered guidance to many campuses on policy development and responses to controversies surrounding speech.

Dr Bladh is an independent consultant and involved in evaluations and other engagements in the field of higher education and research. Dr Bladh was Rector of University of Kalmar (now part of Linnaeus University), Sweden, between February 2004 and December 2009. From 1998 to 2004, Dr Bladh served as State Secretary at the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science, responsible for Higher Education and Research. In this role, she was one of the signatories of the Bologna Declaration. From 1995 to 1998, Dr Bladh was Director General at the National Agency for Higher Education. Bladh served 1987-91 as well as 1993-95 in various positions in the Swedish national administration. Bladh served 2011 temporarily as Dean and CEO for Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) and the autumn 2013 as Dean and CEO at Jönköping School of Education and Communication, both part of Jönköping University.

During 2017-2018, Dr Bladh is appointed by the Swedish government as special examiner of Internationalisation at Swedish Higher Education Institutions. Dr Bladh is member of the Board of the Swedish Research Council (chair), the Magna Charta Observatory Council (vice president) and the Swedish Carnegie Foundation. Dr Bladh has been member of the governing boards of several universities in Sweden and Norway and commissions and evaluations in several European countries. Dr Bladh has also been chairperson of the organisation VA (Public & Science – acronym for Vetenskap & Allmänhet) to advance and encourage dialogue between researchers and the public.

Bladh has been a member of the Swedish Higher Education Authority Board and the Danish Accreditation Council.  Dr Bladh was 2012-2014 a member of the EU High Level Group on Modernisation of Higher Education. During 2008-2012 Bladh was member of the Administrative Board of the International Association of Universities, IAU.

Bladh holds a PhD in Political Science from Stockholm University (1988).
Her mandate as Council member started on June 14th,2013 and her first mandate will expire the 13th June, 2021.

Department chair and urban geographer James Dunn likes to bend studies around natural experiments. He studies living communities as they undergo transformations, and explores how built environments affect the mental and physical health in neighbourhoods and communities.

Early in his career, he helped reveal how neighbourhoods that naturally evolve toward greater socioeconomic and cultural diversity produce better health outcomes among those who live there. More recently, though, his focus has turned to the question of whether this kind of healthy mixed neighbourhood can be engineered – or at least fostered – through public policy.

Some connections are obvious – parks, pedestrian friendly streets and accessible transit can all promote healthy activity, reducing prevalence of diabetes, obesity and other conditions. Some connections are more subtle: For more than a decade, Dunn has been studying Toronto’s Regent Park, the largest urban redevelopment project in Canadian history. He has found clear evidence that people who are more satisfied with their housing and neighbourhood, and who feel safer and more secure, also enjoy improvements to their overall health.

Dunn partners with many community organizations and government departments in Hamilton, Toronto and elsewhere. Such partnerships help Dunn design his research projects to answer the right questions, and also ensure that the insights coming from his work end up where they can have the greatest impact.

David Lock has had a varied career in international higher education and university leadership.

As Director of International Projects at the UK’s Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, David was responsible for instigating and delivering projects with over 30 different countries, some at Governmental level. Projects have included major programmes for Rectors and Ministry Officials to implement national HE reform and autonomy strategies over several years and building partnerships between universities in different countries.

Until October 2007 David was the founding Registrar and Acting Chief Executive of the British University in Dubai where he structured, built and then led the University following its legal creation by the Ruler of Dubai as a not-for-profit provider of Higher Education to UK standards.

Prior to going to Dubai David was Secretary to the University of Huddersfield and Registrar and Secretary to the University of Hull in the UK for a total of 14 years. A teacher and Chartered Secretary by background, David has served on a number of international bodies and undertaken a range of consultancy assignments including international development and UK HE governance projects. He is Chairman of the Gulf Education Conference and serves on the International Advisory Committee of the British Council.

He has been appointed Secretary General of the Magna Charta Observatory in September 2014.

Prof. Thierry Luescher is Research Director in the education and skills development research programme of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. The HSRC is Africa’s largest research and policy think-tank in the social sciences and humanities. In addition to his primary association, Thierry is affiliated with the University of the Free State as associate professor in higher education studies, where he previously worked as assistant director for institutional research. Prior to that, he was a senior lecturer in higher education studies and extra-ordinary senior lecturer in political studies at the University of the Western Cape. Thierry was a student leader at the University of Cape Town (SRC Vice-President). He completed his Bachelor studies and Ph.D. at UCT. Thierry has studied student politics and higher education in Africa as part of a number of research groups including the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA), African Minds, and the Mellon Project ‘The New South African Student Movement: From #RhodesMustFall to #FeesMustFall’. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals, including Journal of College Student Development, Makerere Journal of Higher Education, and the book series African Higher Education Dynamics. His recent publications include the book Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism (2016, edited with M Klemen and J Otieno Jowi) and Reflections of South African Student Leaders, 1994-2017 (2019, with D Webbstock and N Bhengu).

Dr Sijbolt Noorda is president emeritus of the University of Amsterdam, past president of the Association of Dutch Research Universities and a former board member of the European University Association.

Presently he chairs the board of Codarts (Rotterdam University of the Arts), as well as the board of International Baccalaureate, the board of Muziekgebouw aan het IJ (Contemporary Music Hall, Amsterdam) and the board of De Groene Amsterdammer (independent weekly). Furthermore he is a member of the International Advisory Board of Amsterdam University College, Universität Tübingen, the Berlin Universities, the Slovak Academy of Sciences and ITMO University, St Petersburg. He is editor-in-chief of the Dutch-Flemish Journal for Higher Education Th&ma. He lectures and writes on higher education issues and regularly reviews Higher Education Institutions in the European Higher Education Area.

He has served on various executive and non-executive boards in the domains of Higher Education & Research, Public Radio & Television, Performing Arts & Moving Image, Health Service, High Performance Computing, Not-for-profit Publishing and Social Services.

His academic field is cultural history of religions in Europe. He holds degrees from Free University Amsterdam, Utrecht University and Union Seminary/Columbia University, NYC.

His mandate as Council member started on June 14th,2013 and his second mandate will expire in 2021.

Associate Professor Nandini Ramanujam is the Executive Director and Director of Programs of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralismat McGill University’s Faculty of Law. She also directs the International Human Rights Internship Program as well as Independent Human Rights Internships Program.  She is the McGill representative for the Scholars at Risk Network and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Scholars at Risk Network, Canada section..

Nandini Ramanujam’s research and teaching interests include Law and Development, Institutions and Governance, Economic Justice,  Food Security and Food  Safety, the role of civil society and the Fourth Estate (Media) in promotion of the rule of law, as well as the exploration of interconnections between field based human rights work and theoretical discourses.

Before joining the McGill Faculty of Law, Dr Ramanujam was involved in the successful systemic reform of higher education in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, including Aga Khan’s Central Asian University and Smolny College in St. Petersburg. She has sat as Director of the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute in Budapest and Regional Director of Baltic and Eurasian Programs of Civic Education Project. She also has extensive experience in human rights issues, strategic planning, governance and programming, with a particular focus on education and civil society. She has been involved in the development of strategic planning for human rights institutions such as the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights and the Open Society Institute’s Disability and Law Network. She served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (Equitas) from 2001-2008, and was President of Board between 2003-2008. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Centraide of greater Montreal.

Nandini Ramanujam received her Doctorate in Economics from Oxford University for her dissertation on Price Mechanism in Russia: Its role in the Old Planning and the New Markets. She holds a M.Phil and a M.A. in Economics with 1st class honours from Bhopal University.

Quinn Runkle is the Director of Education for SOS-UK (Students Organising for Sustainability), the sustainability charity of the UK National Union of Students. She leads SOS’ work on educational reform, focusing on transforming further and higher education into a force for good in creating a more just and sustainable world.

Quinn joined NUS in 2014 and previously has a background in student and staff behaviour change, engagement, and education for sustainable development programmes at the University of Bristol (UK) and the University of British Columbia (Canada).

Quinn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Political Science with a specialism in Environment and Sustainability from the University of British Columbia. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Education at the UCL Institute of Education. In 2017, she was named the “Top 30 Under 30 Environmental Educators” by the North American Association for Environmental Education.

Mary Tupan-Wenno is the executive director of ECHO, Center for Diversity Policy in The Hague, the Netherlands. Her professional involvement on diversity and inclusion developments in higher education started at the Dutch Ministry of Education Culture and Science. Mary has more than 25 years of experience with policy and program development to improve access and success of underrepresented groups in higher education, with a specific focus on ethnic diversity. Mary is a founding member of the European Access Network (1991) and of GAPS, Global Access to Postsecondary Education initiative (2016) and a member of the Board of both EAN and GAPS. ECHO is a non-profit organization focusing on the development of new strategies, policy and practice to improve diversity and inclusion in higher education and the labor market. ECHO collaborates with schools, universities, businesses, governments, student- and community organizations.

Originally from Perugia, where he was born on 6 February 1970. After completing scientific high school studies in Perugia, he moved to Bologna to study at the University, graduating with full marks in Civil Engineering.

After a PhD in Mecha­ni­cs of Structures at the University of Bologna, a post-doc study grant and a research fellowship, he became university researcher in Construction Sciences at the then-Faculty of Engineering and, from 2001 to 2007, associate professor. In 2007 he became a full professor of Mechanics of Solids and Structures at the University of Bologna.

From 2007 to 2010 he held the position of Head of the Department of Structural Engineering, Transport, Public Works, and Surveying of the Territory (DISTART) at the University of Bologna. During this period the DISTART was regrouped twice and then joined what is now the DICAM.

From 2010 to 2015 he was Head of the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM) and a member of the Academic Senate of the University of Bologna, as representative of the Heads of the Technological Area, and a member of the Research Group and the Internationalisation Group (2012-2015).

Prof. Francesco Ubertini was also a member of the Technical Committee on Computational Solid and Structural Mechanics, European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and coordinator of the Italian Group of Computational Mechanics (GIMC) and the Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechatronics (AIMETA).

He is a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna and member of the Academic board of the PhD degree programme (third cycle programme) in civil, chemical, environmental and materials engineering and tutor of the University of Bologna’s Collegio Superiore.

He coordinates an extensive research group which is very active on the international scene, and has participated in different roles, in numerous national and European research projects. He has also presided and participated in organisational and scientific committees of various national and international congresses. He been invited to speak at national and international conferences, is a member of editorial committees of various international magazines, he is also an expert reviser for the MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research), national agencies of other countries and for the European Commission as well as for the most important international magazines of the sector.

He is the author of over 70 publications in international magazines and over 200 publications in acts of national and international conferences.

His mandate as Council member started on March 4th,2016 and his first mandate will expire the 3rd March, 2020.