Joybrato Mukherjee has been the Rector of the University of Cologne since 2023. He completed his studies in English, Biology and Education at RWTH Aachen University in 1997. He is a fully qualified secondary school teacher. In 2000 he received his doctorate at the University of Bonn, from which institution he also completed his habilitation in 2003. In the same year, he was appointed as Professor of English Linguistics at Justus Liebig University Giessen.

Professor Mukherjee served as President of JLU Giessen from 2009 to 2023. Prior to that, he was already a member of the Presidential Board as first Vice-President. From 2012 to 2019, he also held the office of Vice-President of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and since 2020 he has been the honorary President of the DAAD. He is a member of a number of scientific advisory boards and boards of trustees, including for various non-university research institutions.

Professor Mukherjee’s research focuses on computer-based corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, English syntax and variety research. Numerous research and teaching visits have taken him to various universities abroad.

Joan Guàrdia Olmos is the Rector of the University of Barcelona. Full Professor at the Faculty of Psychology, he has been teaching since 1984 on the topics of the research methodology in psychology. Doctor of Psychology from the same university, he did postgraduate studies in Statistical Data Analysis at the University of Essex (England).

He has participated in more than thirty doctorate courses (national and international). He is a visiting professor at various universities and has given more than one hundred seminars in areas of his research activity at European and American universities. His research activity has led him to the direction of more than 20 doctoral theses, both in his own university and others, and to the presentation of more than 250 communications in congresses and scientific meetings, as well as the publication of more than 40 books and chapters and finally to the generation of more than 250 scientific articles, of which more than 200 in indexed journals and more than 180 in own journals of the Journal Citation Reports. He is currently the coordinator responsible for the Consolidated Research Group (SGR 266) on Quantitative Psychology and also for the Consolidated Teaching Innovation Group on Learning Statistics.

He has held various academic positions in university management both at his university and at other institutions. He is also an evaluator of different calls and programmes of various national and international evaluation agencies and indexed journals.

 

Margareth Hagen is the Rector of the University of Bergen since January 2021. As the elected pro-rector of the institution between 2017 and 2021, she was overseeing research ethics, PhD Programs, and the university’s research engagement. She chaired the university’s research committee which advises the University Board on research policy and long-term strategic research issues. In the period 2013-2017 Hagen held the position as the elected Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities. She has served as Head of Research at the Department of Foreign Languages. Hagen has also chaired the University’s Committee for Equal Opportunities.

A board member of the European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hagen also chairs the Nordic/Baltic advisory Board of Academia Europaea’s Bergen knowledge Hub. She is board member of SNL (Encyclopedia of Norway) and member of the scientific committee of the journal Critica Letteraria. Margareth Hagen is Professor of Italian Literature. Her research has focused on the relationship between poetics, literature, and history in 16th century Italy. In recent years, she has worked particularly on issues at the intersection between the humanities and the natural sciences.

Milena Králíčková is the Rector of Charles University since February 2022. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen at Charles University in Prague in 1996, after which she worked at the Department of Histology and Embryology and at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the University hospital and Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen. In 1997 she was awarded by The Fulbright Commission Scholarship for the academic year 1998/1999 and she has worked at The Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard in Boston, U.S.A. in the team of Reproductive Endocrine Unit. In 2016, Mrs. Kralickova became a professor of medical histology and embryology. She was the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen between 2010 and 2014 and the Vice Rector for Education of Charles University between 2014 and 2022.

In June 2023, Rector Milena Králíčková was elected President of the Czech Rectors Conference until 2025.

Jukka Kola is the Rector of the University of Turku and the Chairman of the national Forum for International Affairs in Higher Education and Research of Finland. He previously held the posts of Rector (2013-2018), Vice-Rector (2010-2013) and Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry (2004-2009) at the University of Helsinki where he started his career as Professor in the 1990s. His academic field is Agricultural Economics and Policy.

Jukka Kola has also served as a trustee in several international associations, including the Executive Committees and the Board of Directors of e.g. the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE), the International Food and Agribusiness Association (IFAMA), for which he still acts as a Counsellor, and the League of the European Research Universities (LERU) where he was a member of the Board of Directors and the Rectors’ Assembly.

Annetje Ottow has been the President of the Executive Board of Leiden University since 2021. She is also a professor of Public Economic Law at the Faculty of Law. In the Board, she focuses on: Sustainability Strategy; Valorisation; Alliances, external and international relations; Social safety; Diversity and inclusion. Annetje Ottow studied at Leiden University, receiving a Master of Laws (cum laude) in business law, and went on to receive a Master of Laws from Queen Mary College in London in 1990. She then worked in the legal profession for 16 years, first at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and later as a partner at Houthoff Buruma. From 2006 to 2013, she was a member of the Board of the Independent Post and Telecommunications Authority (OPTA).

In 2006, Ottow obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam, with a study on regulation of the telecoms sector. In her research, which focuses on regulators and market forces, she combines academic expertise with practical experience.

In 2007, Ottow was appointed professor of Public Economic Law at Utrecht University. From 2014 to 2018, she was dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics, Governance and Organisation there, and Vice President of the Executive Board from 2018 to 2021.

Giovanni Molari has served as Rector of the University of Bologna since 2021. He has been employed at the University of Bologna as full professor in Agricultural Machinery and Mechanisation since 2016, after working as an associate professor (2010-2016) and as a researcher (2000-2010). He holds a PhD in Materials Engineering from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He is qualified to practice as an engineer and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bologna.

Molari’s research activity mainly focused on issues in designing agricultural machines and testing the reliability of agricultural tractors. In addition, he dealt with tillage machines, crop harvesters and machines for animal husbandry, as well as the use of biomass to produce energy.

He coordinated national projects, acted as a scientific supervisor in numerous research agreements with companies, and authored more than 150 manuscripts, 53 of which published in journals indexed on Scopus. He was managing editor (2006-2014) and editor-in-chief (2014-2018) of the Journal of Agricultural Engineering.

At the University of Bologna, he served as Deputy Head (2015-2018) and Director (2018-2021) of the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences He was also a member of the University’s Academic Senate and human resources committee from 2018 to 2021.

He is the President of the Magna Charta Observatory.