Keynote speakers

Professor Vinayagum Chinapah

Vinayagum Chinapah (Sweden and Mauritius) is Professor, Chair Holder and Head of the Institute of International Education (IIE), Department of Education, Stockholm University, Sweden since 2009.

He joined IIE in 1976 and served in different professional and research capacities from a lecturer up to the present position as Professor and Director. He had a Master Degree in Pedagogy with Honors at Charles University, Prague (1977) and a PhD in International and Comparative Education at Stockholm University (1983).

He served as Deputy-Director (vice prefekt) of IIE for the period 1983-1992. Professor Chinapah took leave from IIE in 1992 to be at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris as Director of the Joint UNESCO-UNICEF International Program on Monitoring the Quality of Education and Learning Achievement which covered some 80 countries world-wide during the period (1992-2006). He also served for one year as UNESCO Regional Educational Adviser for the Arab States, UNESCO Regional Office, Beirut, Lebanon (2007-2008) before returning back to lead IIE in January 2009.

Professor Chinapah is member of various research associations and research councils and author and co-author of some 70 books, chapters in books, scientific journal articles as well as some 160 reports, conference papers, training manuals and prototypes for capacity building workshops world-wide. He has done research, training, and consultancies for several UN agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF. UNDP, FAO); International agencies (The World Bank, OECD); bilateral agencies (SIDA, Finnish CIMO, CIDA, Commonwealth Secretariat) and several national governments and institutions in some 140 countries world-wide over the past 35 years.

He has supervised and co-supervised more than 50 PhD students and some 450 MA students who successfully completed their thesis and graduated during the period 1981-2017. He has also served in many examination committees abroad as external examiner, as well as faculty opponent and external examiner at SU for several PhD and MA theses.

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Milena Dragicevic-Sesic

Milena Dragicevic-Sesic is a former president of the University of Arts, Belgrade, where she now holds the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management. Dragicevic-Sesic received master’s degrees in Theatre Studies (Paris VIII), Cultural policy (University of Arts Belgrade) and a PhD in Sociology of Culture (University of Belgrade). Her research interest covers wide scope of topics in cultural policies and management, urban policies, cultural and media studies, popular culture.

Dragicevic-Sesic is the author of 16 books and 150 essays, translated in 17 languages. She has been editor of numerous journals and book series. Member of National Council of Science (2006-2010); Member of Advisory Boards of Interuniversity Centre, Dubrovnik; European Diploma in Cultural Project Management, Brussels, etc.

Expert in cultural policy and management for the EU, European Cultural Foundation, Council of Europe, UNESCO. She has guest lectured at numerous universities (Lyon, Grenoble, Moscow, Budapest, Krakow, CUNY and Columbia University NY, University of Buffalo, Jyvaskyla, Vilnius, Lasalle Singapore).

Dragicevic Sesic is a civil society activist offering her volunteer support to the development of critical thinking and artivism in country and abroad. In 2002, she received the Commandeur dans l`Ordre des Palmes Academiques (the Ministry of National Education and Research of France).

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Professor Arjen Wals

Arjen Wals is Professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability at Wageningen University in The Netherlands.

Furthermore he is the Carl Bennet Guest Professor in Education for Sustainable Development at IDPP, Gothenburg University and a senior advisor to the Gothenburg Centre for Environment and Sustainability.

He is also a UNESCO Chair of Social Learning and Sustainable Development. His teaching and research focus on designing learning processes and learning spaces that enable people to contribute meaningfully sustainability. He maintains a blog at https://transformativelearning.nl/

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