Originally from Belgium, Martine Rahier holds an Engineering degree in Agronomy from the Free University of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles - 1977). She continued her studies in the United States at the Universities of Cornell and Berkeley, and went on to obtain a PhD in Science from the University of Basel (1983), and a further “Habilitation” in Ecology from the University of Zurich (1993).

Granted a professorship by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in 1988, she became a Professor of Entomology and Animal Ecology at the University of Neuchâtel in 1994. In 2001, she founded the “Plant Survival” National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR), which she directed for seven years. From 2008 to 2015, she served as the Rector of the University of Neuchâtel. Martine Rahier has been a member of several national and international university committees; she has also been president of various committees assessing research programmes and projects, as well as of scientific associations. Author of numerous publications, she has also supervised a large number of doctoral theses. 

Martine Rahier was a member of the Rectors’ Conference of Swiss Universities (2008-2016) and President of the “swissuniversities” (2013-2015). She has been a member of the German Accreditation Council since 2013 and a member of the council of the Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria since 2017. 

Term of office: 2019-2023

Professor Paul Boyle was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Swansea University in 2019. Prior to this, he was President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester. Previously, Professor Boyle was Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the UK’s largest funding agency for social science research; the International Champion of Research Councils UK, with responsibility for international strategy on behalf of all seven UK research councils; and President of Science Europe, representing over 50 European funding agencies.

Professor Boyle is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Social Sciences.  He is Chair of Universities Wales’ Research and Innovation Network; a Board Member of Universities UK, which provides leadership and support to executive heads of 133 UK university institutions, as well as Chair of their Research Policy Network; and Chair of Jisc, a not-for-profit organisation providing digital services and solutions to the UK’s higher and further education sector.

He was elected to the EUA Board in 2017 and re-elected in 2021.

Term of office: 2021-2025

Prof. Josep M. Garrell is a computer engineer and Doctor of Electronic Engineering (1995). As a faculty member and researcher at Ramon Llull University (URL), he specialised in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. He was co-founder of the Intelligent Systems Investigation Group at La Salle-URL and, in 1994, he was awarded a Catalan Research Foundation grant to further his work at Carnegie Mellon University’s Supercomputation Centre in Pittsburgh (USA).

Since 1998, he has held several positions at URL’s rector’s office: Secretary of the Research Commission (1998-2002); Delegate of the Rector for ICTs (2000-2002); Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation (2002-2010); Secretary General (2006-2010); and Vice-Rector for University Policy (2010-2012). During his mandate as Secretary General, he led the project Aristos Campus Mundus 2015 (ACM), which was awarded the Campus of International Excellence label by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.

In 2012, Professor Garrell was appointed Rector of Ramon Llull University. His mandate was renewed for a second four-year term in 2016, and for a third two-year term in 2020. From 2014 to 2018, he was a member of the Catalan Parliament Advisory Council on Science and Technology (CAPCIT) representing Catalan private non-profit universities. In May 2015, he was appointed member of the Permanent Committee of the Conference of Spanish University Rectors (CRUE) and from January 2016 until mid-2019, he was CRUE representative at the EUA Council and General Assembly. In 2019, he was elected to the EUA Board.

In July 2020 Professor Garrell took up the presidency of The Strategic Alliance of Catholic Universities (SACRU), a network of eight Catholic or Christian-inspired universities from around the world dedicated to research and teaching excellence through global engagement and collaboration.

Term of office: 2019-2023

Anne Lequy was born in France in 1971. She studied German as a Foreign Language as well as English Language and Literature. In 1999, she was awarded a joint Franco-German doctorate from the Universities of Metz and Leipzig. Professor Lequy has worked as a sworn interpreter and translator for German federal agencies and state authorities since 1998.

Anne Lequy has been Professor of Specialised Communications in French (technical translation) at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences since 2006. Her research focuses on computer supported translation teaching and corpus analysis.

As Vice-Rector for Studies and Teaching (2010-2014), Professor Lequy was responsible for the (re)accreditation and development of study programmes, as well as for quality management in teaching and internationalisation.

In 2014, Professor Lequy became the first woman appointed as Rector of Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. She was re-elected in 2018 and is the only female rector in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

From 2017-2022, Professor Lequy was project manager at the German Jordanian University (GJU). She has been a member of the Advisory Board of CHE Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung gGmbH, and a Council member of the Franco-German University. She served as member of the Standing Commission for Organisation and Governance of the German rectors’ conference (2018-2022) and since 2016, has been a member of Brandenburg State University Council.

Professor Lequy is Ambassador for Democracy, State Programme for Democracy, Diversity and Cosmopolitanism of Saxony-Anhalt as well as Ambassador for Equality of the Saxony-Anhalt State Women's Council.

Term of office: 2021-2025

Patrick Lévy is former President of Université Grenoble Alpes. He has also served as President of the federative institution Communauté Université Grenoble Alpes (2015- 2017), and as President of Université Joseph Fourier (2012-2015). He is also a leader of the project “Université Grenoble Alpes: University of innovation”, which was awarded the Initiative of Excellence label by the French government in 2016. This project is based on an ambitious vision that aims to establish a comprehensive world-class research and multidisciplinary university in the Alpine area.

Professor Lévy has been a member of the French Conference of University Presidents (CPU) since 2012 and currently chairs its European affairs Committee. He has also served as President of the Digital University for Health and Sports (UNESS) (2013-2019).

Patrick Lévy graduated with a Master’s degree in Animal Physiology (1986) and a PhD in Physiology (1989). He is a Professor of Physiology, Doctor of Medicine and a respiratory physician. Since the 1990s, his teaching has been dedicated to three main disciplines: respiratory diseases, mainly chronic respiratory failure and sleep apnoea; physiology and pathophysiology focusing on respiratory control, upper airway mechanisms and autonomic nervous systems; sleep physiology, focusing on changes in respiratory and cardiovascular control during sleep in normal and in various pathological conditions (obesity, maxillofacial changes, etc.). His primary accomplishments include establishing a regional (Lyon-Grenoble) and a national (National Certification on Sleep) course on sleep and sleep-disordered breathing, the foundation of the Sleep and Breathing Conference, jointly organised by the two European scientific societies, ERS and ESRS. He has been the head of the Hypoxia Pathophysiology Laboratory (HP2) Grenoble Alpes University and Inserm (2003-2015) and established one of the most active research laboratories on obstructive sleep apnoea worldwide. Professor Lévy was also the first French scientist to be awarded the “Prix Jean Claude Yernault Lecture” by the European Respiratory Society for his outstanding contribution to research and education in respiratory medicine. He was elected to the EUA Board in 2019.

Term of office: 2019-2023

Professor Marcin Pałys served two terms as the 44th Rector of the University of Warsaw (2012-2020), during which he became closely involved in national debates on higher education and research. In 2016, he was appointed member of the Committee on Strategic Problems of Higher Education of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (KRASP). Since 2014, he has chaired the Organisation and Legislation Committee of KRASP, and from 2012 to 2016 he served as Vice-President of the Conference of Rectors of Polish Universities (KRUP). He has actively contributed to different EUA initiatives, through his membership of the RIS3 Expert Group and participation in various EUA-organised meetings on topics such as university autonomy. Between 2011 and 2013, he served as an expert for the External Advisory Group on the European Commission FET Flagship projects. He joined the EUA Board in 2019.

Prior to becoming Rector, from 2008 to 2012 Marcin Pałys served as Vice-Rector for Development and Financial Policy. During this time, he facilitated the University of Warsaw’s strategic planning and initiatives. He was also responsible for the university’s budgetary policy.

Professor Marcin Pałys graduated from the University of Warsaw (M.Sc. in 1987) and received his doctoral degree from the University of Twente (Enschede, the Netherlands, 1992). He became a professor in 2010. His field of expertise covers inorganic and physical chemistry, in particular: transport phenomena in electrochemical systems, chemical process modelling and supramolecular systems.

Term of office: 2019-2023

Professor Ivanka Popović served as rector of the University of Belgrade from October 2018 until September 2021. She was president of the Serbian Rectors’ Conference (2018-21) and president of the Rectors’ Forum of Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans from April 2019 until October 2021. She has presided over the Danube Rectors’ Conference and the UNIADRION Network and is currently vice-president of the Danube Rectors’ Conference.

Professor Popović studied at the University of Maryland (USA) and at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy (FTM) of the University of Belgrade. She obtained her BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the FTM. Professor Popović joined the FTM staff in 1983; she later became full professor and went on to serve as the faculty’s first female dean (2006-12). Her research interests are polymer science and engineering, and sustainable development. She served as vice-rector for research (2012-15) and as vice-rector for international and inter-university cooperation (2015-18) at the University of Belgrade.

Professor Popović has headed several national and regional basic research projects. She has participated in both TEMPUS and ERASMUS projects, as well as two FP7 projects and is currently involved in two Horizon projects. She is an UNIDO national expert for Cleaner Production.

Professor Popović has been engaged in several working groups for the development of strategic documents regarding higher education and research in the Republic of Serbia.

Ivanka Popović was the first female president of the Serbian Chemical Society (2009-13) and has been president of the Association of Italian and Serbian Scientists and Scholars since 2012.

Term of office: 2021-2025

Francesco Ubertini is Rector of the University of Bologna where he has been full professor of Mechanics of Solids and Structures since 2007. 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 DISTART was regrouped twice before it joined what is now DICAM. From 2010 to 2015 he was Head of the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering of DICAM and a member of the Academic Senate of the University of Bologna in his capacity of representative of the Heads of the Technological Area, and a member of the Research Group and the Internationalisation Group (2012-2015).

From 2013 to 2015, Professor Ubertini was a member of the Administrative Board of the Centro Ceramico, nominated by the University of Bologna (Unibo), Vice President of UniAdrion and President of Fondazione Fibra – Fondazione culturale Italo Brasiliana (2016 - 2017), member of the Technical Committee on Computational Solid and Structural Mechanics, European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (2010 -2014) and coordinator of the Italian Group of Computational Mechanics (GIMC) and the Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechatronics - AIMETA (2006 - 2013).

He is the President of the Federico Zeri Foundation, the Fanti Melloni Foundation, the Bologna Business School Foundation, and the Board of the Confucius Institute at the University of Bologna since 2015. He was member of the council of the Observatory Magna Charta Universitatum for the four-year period 2016-2020. He has been President of Bononia University Press srl since 2016, President of Uniadrion (2017-2018) and member of the CRUI (Conference of Italian University Rectors) Board.

Term of office: 2019-2023