Eric Froment is currently professor of economics and Vice-president of the University Lumière-Lyon 2, France, as well as an advisor for international relations at the French ministry of higher education. Founding President of the European University Association 2001-2005, he was previously chief executive of the French National Conference of Presidents (1998-2001) and treasurer of the Association of European Universities – CRE (1994-1998). At the University of Lyon 2, he was elected dean of the faculty of economics (1973-1977), Vice-president (1978-1981), and President (1991-1996). Eric Froment received a master's degree in economics and political science from the Université de Lyon, and a doctorate in economics from the Université de la Sorbonne (1971).

Jürgen Kohler is professor of private law and civil procedure at Greifswald University, Germany. He was rector of Greifswald University for six years and has participated in various European and national activities and projects related to higher education reform. These include, inter alia: representative of the German education institutions in the Committee on Higher Education and Research (CD-ESR) of the Council of Europe and member of its Bureau; member of the steering committee of the Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) of the EUA; chair of the German Accreditation Council (Akkreditierungsrat); chair of the EUA project Quality Culture I – Implementing Bologna Reforms and of the EUA project European Masters' New Evaluation Methodology; chair of the Council of Europe project on higher education governance.

Lewis Purser is assistant director (academic affairs) at the Irish Universities Association. From 1998-2005 he was programme manager at the EUA (and its predecessor CRE). A graduate of Trinity College Dublin and of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at the University of Geneva, he worked from 1989-1998 with various higher education institutions in Hungary, Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and with several United Nations agencies in educational, health and social fields.

Lesley Wilson joined the EUA at its creation in 2001 and formally took over as Secretary General in 2002. Previous to this she held a number of senior positions in higher education and research management at European level, in particular as Director of UNESCO’s European Centre for Higher Education in Bucharest (UNESCO-CEPES) from 1995 to late 1999, Head of the newly established Science Policy Unit at the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg (1994/1995) and Director of the EC TEMPUS Office in Brussels from 1990 to 1994. A graduate of the University of Glasgow and of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Européennes at the University of Strasbourg, she spent her early career as a scientific staff member of the German Science Council in Cologne before moving to Brussels in 1988 to join the newly established ERASMUS Bureau.