The Centre for Higher Education Futures (CHEF) is based in the Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University at Campus Emdrup in Copenhagen, and is formed in conjunction with the Department of Education, Aarhus Campus.
Membership is open to researchers, administrators, and policy makers concerned with universities and higher education in Denmark and internationally.
CHEF has established links with ‘sister centres’ around the world.
The sister centres are:
As part of its new institutional cycle as research centre (2022-2027), Centre for Higher Education Futures (CHEF) is creating its Advisory Board (AB) to strengthen its organization with membership from CHEF’ international partner institutions, national partner institutions and networks, and local partners at Aarhus University.
The role of an Advisory Board member will be to advise the Co-Directors (Sue Wright and Søren Bengtsen) and a small Steering Group on emerging themes on which to develop CHEF’s activities and opportunities for doing so in cooperation with other institutions and actors in the field of higher education in Denmark and internationally.
It is a great pleasure for us to present our newly constituted Advisory Board with members from Aarhus University, Denmark more widely, and internationally. We are very grateful and thankful to the AB members for accepting, and we look forward to the first AB meeting in March 2023
The following list of the CHEF AB is in alphabetical order.
Ronald Barnett, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Education, University College London, UK
Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at University College London Institute of Education, where he was a Dean & Pro-Director. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate (East European University) and an earned higher doctorate (University of London). He was Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education, was awarded the inaugural prize by the European Association for Institutional Research for his ‘outstanding contribution to Higher Education Research, Policy and Practice’ and is President of the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society. He has been a Visiting Professor in China, Australia and other countries, and been a special advisor to UNESCO and to the UK Parliamentary Committee on Education. He has produced 35+ books (several having won prizes &/or translated into other languages), written hundreds of papers, given 150 keynote talks in over 40 countries, and been cited well over 25,000 times in the literature.
Jill Blackmore, Professor, Deakin University, Australia
Jill Blackmore AM Ph D is Alfred Deakin Professor in Education, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and Vice-President of the Australian Association of University Professors. She researches from a feminist perspective education policy and governance; international and intercultural education; leadership and organisational change; spatial redesign and innovative pedagogies; and teachers' and academics’ work, health and wellbeing. She is former Director of two Deakin strategic research centres in education, Chair of Deakin Academic Board, and Australian Association of Research in Education President. She has worked in multiple consultancies with government, industry, NGOs and professional organisations such as International Education Association. Recent projects are School autonomy reform; International students’ mobility, identity, belonging and connectedness, and Geopolitics of transnational student mobility. Her latest publication is Disrupting Leadership in the Entrepreneurial University: Disengagement and Diversity (2022, Bloomsbury).
Que Anh Dang, Assistant Professor, Coventry University, UK
Dr Que Anh Dang is an Assistant Professor and interdisciplinary researcher at the Institute of Global Education, Coventry University UK. She has been working in international higher education since 1996 at the British Council Vietnam and in the past 17 years at universities in Denmark, Germany and England in different capacities including management, teaching and research.
She has published internationally about the concept of higher education regionalism, transnational education, globalisation and doctoral education, SDGs-related international research partnerships, normative power and knowledge diplomacy in Asia and Europe. Her academic work draws on her trans-disciplinary background combining educational sociology, international development and cultural political economy perspectives.
She currently leads the international PEER project investigating Higher Education and Research Partnerships between the UK and 15 East Asian countries in the past decade. She is a member researcher in the CHEF’s project ‘European Universities -Critical Futures’.
Lise Degn, Associate Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
Lise Degn is Associate Professor at the Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy, at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University. Her primary field of expertise is the governance and management of higher education institutions, focusing particularly on how managers at department level navigate shifting and conflicting demands and how this affects their leadership practice. Lise has also worked on related themes such as well as academic work and performance. In recent years, Lise has focused her attention on responsibility in research and is currently leading a large research project on research integrity, and how the translation of policies of research integrity is (or is not) shaping academic work.
Ivana Didak, Senior Policy Officer, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities
Ivana Didak has been working as Senior Policy Officer in The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities since 2018. She coordinates The Guild’s working groups on Education Innovation, Erasmus+ programme, the European Universities initiative and participation of lower R&I performing countries in Framework Programmes. Previously, she worked in the Croatian Erasmus+ National Agency where she focused on International Credit Mobility. Ivana holds a Master’s degree in European Politics and Policies from KU Leuven and a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Zagreb.
Rachel Douglas-Jones, Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Rachel Douglas-Jones is Associate Professor of Anthropological Approaches to Data and Infrastrucutre at the IT University of Copenhagen, where she is Head of the Technologies in Practice research group and a member of the ETHOS Lab. Her research interests include the governance of science, research ethics and integrity. She is the co-editor of Hope and Insufficiency: Capacity Building in Ethnographic Comparison (Berghan 2020), co-editor of the JRAI special issue Towards an Anthropology of Data (JRAI 2021) and co-editor of The Handbook of the Anthropology of Technology (Palgrave 2022).
Berit Eika, Pro-Rector, Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
Berit Eika became Prorector for Education at Aarhus University on 1 June 2014 and works with the University´s strategy and policies for education and chairs the committee of education. Before she was vice-dean at the Faculty of Health, a position held since 2011. As vice-dean, she developed medical teaching and education and established the AU Centre for Health Sciences Education.
She graduated as a medical doctor (MD) in 1986 and received her PhD degree in 1994 from Aarhus University. Her thesis examined the role of bladder diseases related to diabetes and was partly carried out during a research stay in 1991 at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (US). Berit has two master’s degrees in health informatics (from the University of Aalborg) and in Health Professions Education (from the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands). In 2005 she became the first Danish medical professor of Health Education.
Andrew Gibson, Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
I am Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Education, at Trinity College Dublin, where I am also co-director of the Cultures, Academic Values in Education (CAVE) research centre. I have worked in higher education policy research since 2012, and have consulted for the OECD on the HEInnovate series of reviews of the national higher education systems of Ireland, the Netherlands, and Austria. Prior to starting in Trinity, I worked in Aarhus University on the "Research for impact: Integrating research and societal impact in the humanities PhD" project led by P.I. Søren Bengtsen. My interests are broadly within the philosophy of higher education and higher education policy. My current research focuses on the ontology of policy, humanities research policy, and normative arguments about the humanities as a meta-disciplinary space.
Barbara Grant, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Barbara Grant is Associate Professor in the School of Critical Studies in Education at Waipapa Taumata Rau/University of Auckland. She researches in the field of critical university studies, with a particular interest in doctoral education, including the supervision of graduate students, academic work and identities, and activism within the university. She has also written about research methodologies and academic writing. She is currently writing a book about women doctoral supervisors in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Davydd Greenwood, Emeritus Professor, Cornell University, US
Davydd Greenwood, Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, Director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies (1983-1995) and Director, Institute for European Studies (2000-2008) at Cornell University, he served as President of the Association of International Education Administrators in 1993-94. A Corresponding Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (1996), he has published 10 books and scores of articles on the anthropology of Spain, universities, and action research for democratic organizational change, including Morten Levin and Davydd Greenwood, Creating a New Public University and Reviving Democracy: An Action Research Approach, Berghahn, 2016.
Jens Vraa-Jensen, Trade Union Advisor, Danish labour union for academic professionals, DM
Jens Vraa-Jensen, Trade union adviser at DM in Denmark. Jens holds a MSc. in Geography from University of Copenhagen.
He has been active over many years in Education International (EI) and its European region ETUCE. Member for 20 years of Higher Education and Research Standing Committee of ETUCE and served as chair of the Committee for 10 years.
Jens has been representing teacher trade unions in UNESCO, OECD, WTO, EU, Council of Europe, Magna Charta Observatory, Bologna process etc.
He has been involved in work and campaigns for the promotion of academic freedom and education as a human right and a public good. Academic freedom is under attack from ongoing marketisation, as well as political initiatives in many countries.
Niels Nørkjær Johannsen, Associate Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
We haven’t received photo or bio-note.
Hanne Leth-Andersen, Rector, Professor, Roskilde University, Denmark
Hanne Leth Andersen is Rector and Professor at Roskilde University, where she has served since 2010. She holds a Master of Arts in Romance Philology, a PhD in French Language (both from UCPH) and is an education expert with extensive experience in strategy and international consultancy. She has previously served as professor, director of studies, vice-dean and centre director at AU, as director and professor at CBS Learning Lab, and has held numerous memberships and chairs of official committees, including chair of the Danish Universities' Education Policy Committee. In addition, she holds board positions mainly in research, education and culture.
Hanne is the author of more than 130 scientific articles in Danish and international journals and several monographs, with research in the fields of education, quality assurance, evaluation, language and culture. She has broad experience in supervision, assessment, peer review and editorial work, and is a popular lecturer and panellist.
Sharon Rider, Professor, Uppsala University, Sweden
Sharon Rider is Professor of Philosophy at Uppsala University, where she was Vice Dean of the Faculty of Arts 2008-2014. She is Deputy Director for the Higher Education and Research as Objects of Study (HERO) research centre at the Department of the History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University. Rider is a government-appointed member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Swedish International Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Humanities at Uppsala. Publications related to higher education include Post-truth, Fake News: Viral Modernity and Higher Education (Springer 2018), World Class Universities: A Contested Concept (Springer 2020) and Transformations in Research, Higher Education and the Academic Market: The Breakdown of Scientific Thought, (Springer 2013). Den tveksamme bekännaren (The Doubtful Confessor), a collection of her essays in Swedish, was published in 2021.
Andreas Roepstorff, Head of School, Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
We haven’t received photo or bio-note.
Thomas Ryberg, Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark
Thomas Ryberg is Professor of PBL and digital learning and Director of Institute for Advanced Study in PBL (IAS PBL). His primary research interests are within the fields of Networked Learning and Problem Based Learning (PBL). In particular, he is interested in Problem Based Learning, and how new media and technologies transform our ways of thinking about and designing for networked and hybrid learning.
He is co-chair of the International Networked Learning Conference and co-editor of the Springer book series ‘Research in Networked Learning’. He has participated in European and international research projects and networks (EQUEL, Kaledioscope, COMBLE, PlaceMe, EATrain2, ODEdu), and in development projects in South East Asia and Latin America (VISCA, VO@NET, ELAC). He was recently engaged in the PBL future project which is developing new directions for PBL in a digital age.
Taina Saarinen, Professor, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Taina Saarinen is Research Professor of Higher Education at the University of Jyväskylä, with a previous position in language policy and language education policy. She has published widely on language policies of higher education and the links between equity and language in university contexts, recently in journals such as Higher Education, Journal of International Students, and Nordic Journal of English Studies. Her recent monograph Higher Education, Language and New Nationalism in Finland: Recycled Histories (2020, Palgrave) analyses the historically recycled and new nationalist language policy discourses in Finnish higher education, linking questions of language to academic communities. In an edited volume New Materialist Explorations into Language Education (2023, Springer), co-edited with Johanna Ennser-Kananen, she explores socio-materialism in language education. Recently, she has turned towards questions of well-being in academic work. She particularly enjoys multidisciplinary, historical, and comparative contexts, which often make unobserved gaps in the existing research visible.
Cris Shore, Professor, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Cris Shore is Professor of Anthropology at Goldsmiths University of London and Research Director at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2022-2023). Between 2002-2017 he was Professor of Anthropology, Head of Department, and founding director of its Europe Institute at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His main research is in political and legal anthropology, particularly the study of organisations, European integration, governance, corruption, university reform and academic capitalism. With Susan Wright, his work has helped pioneer ‘policy’ as a new field of anthropology and he is founding co-editor of Stanford University Press’s Anthropology of Policy series. He is author and editor of 17 books including The Shapeshifting Crown (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Death of the Public University (Berghahn, 2017) and most recently (also with Susan Wright), Audit Culture: How Indicators, Rankings and Ratings Re-order the World’ (Pluto, in press). Cris is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ) and the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).
Wesley Shumar, Professor, Drexel University, US
Wesley Shumar is a cultural anthropologist at Drexel University. He is a professor in the Department of Communication and is an affiliated professor in the School of Education. His research foci include, cultural change in higher education; conceptions of value and entrepreneurship in education; digital media to support learning interactions; and mathematics education. His work in higher education has focused on the commodification of universities, the spatial transformation of American universities within the consumer spaces of cities and towns, and more recently the production and transformation of value in higher education. He is author of College for Sale: A Critique of the Commodification of Higher Education, Falmer Press, 1997, and co-editor of Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, Routledge, 2008. Other publications include co-editor of Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace, Cambridge, 2001 and Inside Mathforum.org: Analysis of an Internet-Based Education Community, Cambridge, 2017.
Krystian Szadkowski, Associate Professor, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland
Krystian Szadkowski, PhD, is a researcher at the Scholarly Communication Research Group of Adam Mickiewicz University. His interests cover Marxist political economy and transformations of higher education systems in Central Eastern Europe, as well as the issues of the public and the common in higher education. He worked as a researcher for Education International (Brussels, Belgium) and as a consultant in policy projects funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. He is an active member of the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society (PATHES), as well as the Early Career Higher Education Researchers Network (ECHER). Currently he has been working on two book projects: Capital in Higher Education: Critique of the Political Economy of the Sector (forthcoming, Palgrave) and Critique as a Method in Higher Education Research: From Political Ontology to the Common (together with Jakub Krzeski)(forthcoming, Springer).
Dr Jakob Williams Ørberg
Jakob Williams Ørberg is Senior Advisor and Head of the India Branch Office in NNF India under the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Before this, he served as Counsellor Innovation, Research and Higher Education at Royal Danish Embassy in New Delhi. Jakob has a research background from Aarhus University, where he worked on European and Indian higher education systems, as well as significant experience in Danish and European higher education policy making from the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science.
