Staff
The activities of the Observatory are currently led by a fellow-in-residence at the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education in Vienna:
Vienna, Quellenstrasse 51 | B423
Advisory Board
Chair: Dr Danièle Joly, University of Warwick/CADIS/EHESS
Danièle Joly is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Warwick, Associate researcher, College d’études mondiales (MSH-Paris). Formerly, European Commission Marie Curie Fellow at EHESS (CADIS); resident researcher at IEA-Paris. Prior to that, Joly was the Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick. Her publications include L'Emeute (2007), Muslims in Prison (2005), Blacks and Britannity (2001), Haven or Hell: Asylum Policy and Refugees in Europe (1996), Britannia's Crescent: Making a Place for Muslims in British Society (1995), The PCF and the Algerian War (1991). With K. Wadia, Muslim women and power (2017), winner of the PSA,WJM Mackensie Prize for Best Book in Political Sciences 2017-2018. Her research themes include Muslims in Europe, refugees and asylum policy in Europe, ethnic relations and integration; Muslim women in Europe and Kurdistan-Iraq.
Dr Santiago Amaya, Associate Professor, Universidad de los Andes
Santiago Amaya is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University de los Andes. He is working at the intersections of the philosophy of the mind and philosophy of action. He leads research projects of Latam Free Will agency and responsibility, funded by John Templeton Foundation, of the University de los Andes and the University of California in San Diego and Off the Rails: Moral Psychology Beyond Traditional Borders, funded by James S. McDonnell Foundation.
Dr Kwadwo Appigyei-Atua, Associate Professor, University of Ghana School of Law
Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua is an Associate Professor at the School of Law, University of Ghana. He is also lecturer in the LL.M Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa and a member of the Ghana Bar Association. He completed his LLB at the University of Ghana, Legon and his professional law degree at the Ghana School of Law. Kwadwo obtained his LLM from Dalhousie University and his DCL from McGill University. He was a Bank of Ireland Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland. Kwadwo recently completed his Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship at Lincoln University, UK where he conducted a research on “Building Academic Freedom and Democracy in Africa.” While at Lincoln, he served as a Monitor for Magna Charta Observatory, University of Bologna, Italy. Kwadwo is consulting for the African Union Commission on International Law (AUCIL) the slavery compensation project; and editing a book on COVID-19 and International Law in Africa.
Sjur Bergan, Head of Education Department, Council of Europe (CoE)
Sjur Bergan is Head of the Council of Europe’s Education Department. His work at the Council focuses on projects and recommendations on the purposes, values and democratic mission of higher education. Sjur is a member of the Bologna Follow-Up Group and Board and has chaired working groups that were involved in the implementation of structural education reforms. A prolific writer and expert on education, his bibliography is extensive. He is a main author of the ‘Lisbon Recognition Convention’ as well as of recommendations on public responsibility; academic freedom and institutional autonomy; and quality education. Bergan is series editor of the Council of Europe Higher Education Series and the author of Qualifications: Introduction to a Concept and Not by Bread Alone. He was also one of the editors of the Raabe Handbook on Leadership and Governance in Higher Education and coordinated sessions on the future of the European Higher Education Area at two of the Bologna Researchers’ Conferences.
Dr Ayşe Çağlar, Permanent Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences – Institut fur Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) and Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna
Ayşe Çağlar is University Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM). She received her PhD at McGill University, Department of Anthropology and Habilitation in Sociology and Social Anthropology at Free University, Berlin. Before joining University of Vienna, she was a professor and the chair of Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University, Budapest and was a Minerva Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen. Her most recent books are Urbaner Protest. Revolte in der neoliberalen Stadt (Passagen Verlag, 2019, edited), Migrants and City-Making: Dispossession, Displacement, and Urban Regeneration (Duke University Press, 2018m co-authored with N. Glick Schiller) and Locating Migration: Rescaling Cities and Migrants (Cornell University Press, 2010, co-edited with N. Glick Schiller).
Dr Que Anh Dang, The Institute for Global Education, Coventry University
Que Anh Dang is an inter-disciplinary researcher studying higher education and international development at the Centre for Global Learning: Education without Boundaries (GLEA). She read Sociology of Education (MA) at Aarhus University, Denmark, MSc in Development Studies at Copenhagen Business School, and earned a PhD degree in Sociology of Higher Education from Bristol University, UK with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Grant. She has been working in the education sector since 1996 and at universities in Denmark, Germany and England for over 15 years. She was Head of the 'Asia-Europe Education and Research Hub for Lifelong Learning' Secretariat based in Copenhagen. Before joining GLEA she worked as PhD Programmes Manager at Coventry Doctoral College and she has always been advocating academic freedom for early career researchers.
Dr Hilligje van't Land, Secretary General, the International Association of Universities (IAU)
Hilligje van’t Land is Secretary General of the International Association of Universities (IAU) - global NGO with UNESCO Associate Status, based at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Currently, she represents IAU in various working groups and expert committees including at the Council of Europe (CoE), UNESCO and the UN, including as member of the High Level Advisory Board to the UNESCO Futures of Education Initiative and Mission 4.7; the UNESCO ESD for 2030 Programme; the UNESCO and Bergen Expert Group on Universities and Sustainability; the CoE Ad hoc Working Groups on the Local Mission of the University and on Competences for a Democratic Culture, the CoE Steering Committee for Best Practice Programme in Promoting Academic Integrity; the Advisory Board to OneHE and Sulitest. Hilligje van’t Land holds a PhD in comparative francophone literature, speaks six languages and published on higher education issues of relevance locally and globally.
Dr Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy, former President of Al-Quds University
Sari Nusseibeh is a retired philosophy professor and former president of al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. He began his teaching career at Birzeit University in the West Bank in 1979, when he co-introduced a course on academic freedom and also co-founded the Palestinian Federation of University Faculty and Employees. Since then, he has actively participated in Palestinian political and civic life, both in resisting the occupation and in different efforts at peace-making and state-building.
Dr Robert C. Post, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Robert Post is Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He served as the School's 16th dean from 2009 until 2017. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. Post specializes in constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on the First Amendment. He is also a legal historian who is currently writing Volume X of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States, which will cover the period 1921-30 when William Howard Taft was Chief Justice. Post has written and edited numerous books, including Citizens Divided: A Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform (2014); Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (2012); For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Matthew M. Finkin, 2009); and Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law (2001). Post is a member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr Monika Steinel, Senior Policy Analyst, EUA
Monika is Senior Policy Analyst at the European University Association since 2010, supporting the Secretary General in overall policy development and association management. She also leads on the association’s work on university values and academic freedom. Until August 2012 she worked in EUA’s Governance, Autonomy and Funding unit, where she focused on the Autonomy Scorecard project, which maps and compares university autonomy and accountability in Europe’s higher education systems. Prior to working at EUA, Monika gained experience in European education and research programmes at the Liaison Office of German Research Organisations (KoWi) and at the European Centre for Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU) in Brussels. Steinel holds a PhD from University College London, an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of York.
Dr Michel Wievorka, Professor and Director of Research, EHESS
Michel Wieviorka is professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Wievorka has been President of the Board of the Foundation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH) from 2009 to 2020, as well as Director of the Center for Sociological Analysis and Intervention (CADIS, EHESS-CNRS,1993-2009) and President of the International Association of Sociology AIS / ISA from 2006 to 2010, and a member of the ERC (European Research Council) Scientific Council from 2014 to 2019. He was co-director with Georges Balandier of the journal Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie from 1991 to 2011, and now heads the journal SOCIO (with Laetitia Atlani-Duault), which he created in 2013, and Violence: An International Journal (with Scott Straus). His main books in English are: The Arena of Racism (Sage), The Making of Terrorism (University of Chicago Press), The Lure of Anti-Semitism (Brill), Violence: a New Approach (Sage), and Evil (Polity Press).