Prior to his appointment as director of the UNESCO-European Center for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) in Bucharest, Romania, Jan Sadlak was chief of the Section for Higher Education Policy and Reform for UNESCO, in Paris. Sadlak is a member of the governing boards and scientific councils of various bodies and organizations and is on the editorial boards of the leading journals in the field of higher education and science policy.

He received a number of high rank academic and national distinctions, including four honorary doctorates (Doctor Honoris Causa) from prestigious universities in Romania, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine. In addition, Sadlak is a corresponding member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities - Academia Europensis - in Paris, France, and a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, San Francisco, USA. He is a founding member of the International Rankings Expert Group (IREG). He has authored several books and numerous articles on higher education and science policy. His recent work includes, among other things, a book jointly edited with Nian Liu, entitled World-Class University and Ranking: Aiming Beyond Status (UNESCO-CEPES, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Cluj University Press, 2007).

Sadlak holds a master of arts in economics from the Oskar Lange Economics Academy in Wrocław, Poland, and a Ph.D. in educational administration from SUNY - Buffalo.

• Validity of University Ranking and Its Ascending Impact on Higher Education in Europe (December 2006)