At its meeting in December, the council at the University of Luxembourg supported the president’s proposal to nominate Professor Romain Martin and Professor Tonie van Dam for vice-presidents with a broad majority, meaning there will be new faces at the University of Luxembourg's management team.
Romain Martin, a Luxembourg national, has been professor of psychology and empirical educational research at the University of Luxembourg since 2003. He is currently heading the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET) and is study director of the "Bachelor en Sciences de l’Éducation" (primary school teacher education programme). The 47 year-old is supervising a number of research projects on the development of computer-based assessment methods in the education sector and coordinates the scientific part of the national PISA test for Luxembourg. In his function as vice-president as of March 2016, Martin will focus on academic affairs and in particular on the "Learning Centre" project - the new central library planned for the University in the "Maison du Livre" on the Belval Campus.
As of 2017, the management team of University President Rainer Klump will be further reinforced by the addition of another vice-president, Professor Tonie van Dam. The 55-year-old American has been professor of physical geodesy (the science of measuring and monitoring the size and shape of the Earth) at the University since 2006. As new vice-president, she will be primarily concerned with further expanding the doctoral schools as well as with international relations and gender issues.
The term of office for a vice-president at the University of Luxembourg is five years. The term for the previous vice-president of international relations and organisation, Professor Franck Leprévost, concluded on 14 December 2015. University President Rainer Klump recognised Franck Leprévost for his performance, personal commitment and perseverance in building a global network of partner universities, comprising nearly 80 institutions today.
The vice-president for academic affairs, Professor Eric Tschirhart, will hold office until beginning of 2017. After spending nearly 10 years in the management team, initially as “chargé de mission” of research, later as director of administration and finally as vice-president of academic affairs, Eric Tschirhart will focus on expanding the continuing education programmes and managing contacts with businesses and employers in the last six months of his term.
The reorganisation of the rectorate will be submitted to the University’s board of governors, then to the government for approval in early 2016. Personnel changes and reorganisation at the executive level are embedded in the strategy process the University President launched recently. The strategy is intended to lead the University, founded in 2003, into its next phase of development. Together with the new vice-presidents as well as with vice-president for research Professor Ludwig Neyses and director of administration Alfred Funk, whose term of office was extended for another five years, Rainer Klump wants to determine the approach and goals for the coming years.
Rainer Klump stated "After a decade of successful development, we now turn to a decade devoted to the shaping of an enduring reputation and to the establishment of the University as an indelible, internationally recognised research institute and a driving force for scientific, societal and economic innovation."
The University of Luxembourg was founded in 2003 and is a multilingual, international research university with nearly 6,300 students and members of staff from all over the world. The main focus areas for its research are computational sciences, European law, finance and educational sciences, together with interdisciplinary research at the "Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust" (SnT) and the "Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine" (LCSB).
