Ligia Deca, member of the Arqus International Advisory Board, visits the University of Granada

On 22 April, the University of Granada welcomed Ligia Deca, member of the Arqus International Advisory Board (IAB), Vice-Rector of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration of Bucharest and former Romanian Minister of Education. The meeting was chaired by Pedro Mercado, Rector of the University of Granada. Guadalupe Soriano, Arqus Institutional Coordinator at the University of Granada, spoke as well on the role of Arqus in Granada, its institutional support of the Alliance and its coordinating functions. The event brought together some thirty teaching and administrative staff to discuss the future of the European Universities Initiative.

As a member of the Arqus International Advisory Board, Ligia Deca underlined the role of universities as guarantors of European democratic values and drivers of the political reforms that Europe must promote to enhance integration, both in universities and the European Higher Education Area.  

In her speech, Ligia Deca defended the key role of the Arqus Alliance in community building and warned of the fundamental role that universities must play in an era of misinformation, in which the truth and the scientific method are in question. She also encouraged participants to communicate, counter extremist discourse and be guarantors of scientific and technological progress in the face of the rise of what she called “extremist forces”.

She highlighted the strong leading role of the Arqus Alliance, which was one of the first European Alliances to receive funding from the Commission, and the increasingly important role of the student body, which is always present in Arqus. Finally, Ligia Deca encouraged the Governing Team of the University of Granada to continue building synergies to promote the construction of future European universities in a sustainable way.

About Ligia Deca

Ligia Deca is currently the Vice-Rector for Institutional Cooperation and Strategic Projects of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) of Bucharest and Secretary-General of the Romanian National Commission for UNESCO.

From 2022 to 2024, Ligia Deca was the Romanian Minister of Education. In this position, she coordinated the establishment of a new national legal framework for compulsory and higher education in 2023. Between 2019 and 2022, she was the Romanian Presidential Adviser for Education and Research. Ligia Deca is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Fulbright Commission in Romania. Currently, Dr. Deca is part of the International Advisory Board of two European University Alliances: Arqus and EU-CONEXUS.

Ligia Deca co-led the Action Track 3: Teachers, Teaching and the Teaching Profession within the framework of the UN Education Transformation Summit in 2022 and was a member of the High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession convened by the UN Secretary-General. As Minister of Education, she also represented Romania in the UNESCO SDG 4-Education 2030 High-Level Steering Committee in 2023 and 2024. Between 2010 and 2012, she headed the Bologna Secretariat, supporting the Bologna Follow-up Group in the framework of the European Higher Education Area.

Ligia Deca has worked as an expert for the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), among others.  She was President of the European Students’ Union from 2008 to 2010. In 2014, she was invited to join the Science in Education Expert Group set up by the European Commission.

In 2016, Ligia Deca obtained her PhD in political science from the University of Luxembourg for her research on the internationalisation of higher education.

She also received the EAIE 2023 Award for Vision and Leadership for her outstanding achievements and contributions to international education throughout her career.

To know more about Ligia Deca, visit the Arqus International Advisory Board page.