Ever since her university studies in Brussels and Heidelberg and PhD from Yale University (1994), Sybille Reichert has been focussing on Higher Education policy and strategy development and university reforms in Europe, at first for the European Commission and other European organisations, later also for individual universities and national Higher Education organisations all over Europe.
After several years of policy studies and strategy projects for European organisations and three years at ETH Zurich as head of strategic development, Reichert set up her own consultancy, an ETH spin-off, in 2004: Reichert Consulting: Policy and Strategy Development for Higher Education. Her mandates combine institutional reform agendas and change management with global higher education developments. Reichert has worked for a wide range of institutions all over Europe and beyond, from individual universities to national ministries, rectors’ conferences or European organisations such as the European University Association (EUA) or the League of European Research Universities (LERU).
From 2014 to 2016 Reichert was the chancellor of the University Erlangen-Nürnberg where she was responsible for finances, infrastructures, services, personnel and organisational development (CFO and COO). Highlights of her mandate include the consolidation of the institutional budget, successful lobbying and planning of major milestones of campus development as well as the introduction of systematic personnel development for administrative support staff.
In July 2016 she has resumed her international policy and strategy consulting activity. Recent mandates include strategy coaching in the context of German and French excellence initiatives and the development of European University Networks, policy studies on the role of universities in regional innovation ecosystems and higher education reform and capactiy building in Indonesia, Tunisia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Reichert also participates frequently in formative evaluations, at programme, faculty, institutional and system levels at universities all over the world, ranging from diverse functions such as Chair of the Accreditation Committee for the Central European University’s establishment in Austria, to reviewing Quality Assurance Systems in Indonesian Universities or evaluating a capacity building international masters programme for Sub-Saharan African Higher Educational professionals.
Professional service:
- Member of the Expert Advisory Group of the DAAD-Nuffic-British Council Project SHARE (European Union Support for Higher Education in the ASEAN Region), 2021-23.
- Member of the Steering Committee of European Knowledge Ecosystems in the New ERA Project of the European Commission, 2021-22.
- Member on the External Quality Board of the Aurora European Universities Alliance, since 2021.
- Chair of the AQ Austria Accreditation Committee for the Institutional Accreditation of the Central European University in Austria, 2019.
- Member of the Austrian Science Board (Österreichischer Wissenschaftsrat, ÖWR) since 2016.
- Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Université de Lyon, 2017 – 2020.
- Member of the Catalan Research and Innovation Council, 2009 -2012.
- Senior advisor to the European University Association, 2003 – 2010.
- Member of the Konstanz Wissenschaftsforum, 2006 – 2011.
In addition to international higher education sector expertise, Sybille Reichert offers intercultural sensitivity and competences to all mandates, including the ability to conduct strategic development and change management in German, English, French and Spanish. Reichert’s strategy and policy mandates and organisational coaching projects benefit from her capacity to translate between European, national, regional and institutional levels of policy and strategy development as well as between different disciplinary and cultural discourses.
