Karim Khakzar has been President of the Fulda University of Applied Sciences (Germany) since 2008. In 2016, he took office as Vice President of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) and Spokesman of the Universities of Applied Sciences within the HRK. Professor Khakzar (born 1960) studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Stuttgart. After graduating in 1986, he received his doctorate in 1991. In 1996, he was appointed a professor at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences in the Faculty of Computer Science. Before becoming the university’s president, he served as Dean of this faculty and as Vice President for Research and Development.

Ulla Preeden has been the rector of Tartu Health Care College in Estonia since 2016. She is passionate about improving the quality of higher education and the image of applied sciences. She is convinced that higher education institutions have an important role to play in serving the community and good opportunities to do so. Dr Preeden belongs to the Rectors’ Conference of Universities of Applied Sciences of Estonia and is a chairperson of the Supervisory Board of Estonian Quality Agency for Higher and Vocational Education.

Baiba Pētersone is the Director of the International Department at Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU, Latvia). She is responsible for the university’s internationalisation strategy, including international admissions and collaborations. Her experience in higher education spans 15 years. Before joining RSU, she was at Middlesex University in London, Zayed University in Dubai, and the University of Maryland (College Park) in the United States. Dr Pētersone has also worked in the non-profit sector in Washington, D.C. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Maryland and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (U.S.).

Vilma Bijeikiene received her PhD, with research focusing on gender and linguistic indirectness in British parliamentary discourse, from the University of Bergen. She works at VMU as an associate professor at the Institute of Foreign Languages; she also held the positions of Deputy Director and Director and served as the chair of VMU Senate. She is an executive editor of the international Scopus indexed journal Sustainable Multilingualism, and a member of the Board of the European Language Council. Her main research interests are applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, plurilingual competence development, ESP, EAP, EMI, CLIL and LST.

Vesa Taatila works as the rector and president of Turku University of Applied Sciences, as a member of the National Research and Innovation Council in Finland, and as an adjunct professor of innovation pedagogy in the University of Turku. Previously he worked in executive and expert positions both in academia and in the multinational business sector. His main area of interest is the creation of worldclass practical excellence and the implementation of new innovations, either through continuous development in existing organisations or by establishing start-up companies.

Fredrik Sunnemark is an associate professor of the history of ideas at University West, Sweden. He is the director of the international master’s programme in work-integrated political studies, which he also was a part of developing, and is involved in the university’s Ph.D. programme in work-integrated learning. His current research interests relate to epistemological perspectives of work-integrated learning and developing cooperative processes for social sustainability and inclusion.