Professional Summary
A Swiss citizen born in Lausanne, Luc Weber studied both economics and political science, gaining a Ph.D. in economics and business at the University of Lausanne. He was a full professor of public economics at the University of Geneva from 1975 to 2008 and a visiting professor at the universities of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Lausanne and Fribourg. As a trained economist, he has published five books and advised the Swiss federal government and various canton governments; from 1977 to 1980, he was a member of the Swiss Council of Economic Advisers.
From 1982 onwards, Dr Weber spent more than 10 years in university administration and higher education and research policy in Switzerland. He was Vice-Rector (Vice-President), than Rector (President) of the University of Geneva, as well as President and then Consul for international affairs of the Swiss Universities Rectors’ Conference.
Since the end of this double mandate, Luc Weber has served multiple governmental organizations and international associations active in the field of higher education and research. He is often invited to advise national governments and to evaluate research universities or faculties; he also contributes to books, writes reviews and delivers talks about his areas of interest — the autonomy, governance and financing of universities, quality assurance, research policy and management, the Bologna process, public responsibility for higher education and research, and the responsibilities of universities, as well as the organization of national university systems.
He was notably a founding member of the European University Association (EUA) and a member of its first bureau from 2001 to 2005. He also served for eight years on the Bureau of the Steering Committee for Higher Education and Research (CDESR) of the Council of Europe, the last two years as chair. He was Vice-President and Treasurer of the International Association of Universities (IAU) from 2002 to 2008. Professor Weber was a member of the Strategy Committee of the German Science Council in charge of selecting elite universities in the framework of the German excellence initiative. He is a member of the Austrian Accreditation Council for private universities and carries out missions for the World Bank. He was recently nominated for the administrative board of the recently merged University of Strasbourg. In 1998, he co-founded — and has since been a leader of — the Glion colloquia, a respected think tank dedicated to the future of research universities in a knowledge-driven global economy. He is currently organizing the 7th colloquium. For his dedication to higher education and research, he was awarded a Doctorate honoris causa by the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve in 2006.
As part of his personal and social commitment within his own region, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, he has been a member, since its creation, of the executive committee of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, based in Lausanne. He is also a member of the Foundation Board of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, in Geneva. Dr Weber has also served as chair of the Foundation Board of the autonomous Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Geneva.
