László Palkovics was born in 1965 in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary.
He started his studies in 1984 at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Transportation Engineering, where he received his master’s degree in engineering. Between 1989 and 1991 he participated in the scholarship program of the Committee of Scientific Qualifications of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), where he obtained his PhD degree. He started working as Assistant Lecturer at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Transportation Engineering, Department of Automobiles as Assistant Lecturer. In 1994 he was appointed associate professor and head of the department, which he led until 2002. In 2000 he became Research Fellow of the HAS Institute for Computer Science and Control (SZTAKI).
In 2007 he was elected Corresponding Member and in 2013 Member of HAS.
In 2009 he was elected Vice-rector of the College of Kecskemét, where his tasks included the organisation of the accreditation of the vehicle engineering study program, the establishment of the new Department of Vehicle Engineering and the implementation of the unified curriculum development together with the Faculty of Transport and Vehicle Engineering of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
In 2010 he worked as Research Professor at the Széchenyi István University. In 2012 he restored his status to the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, where at the Faculty of Transportation Engineering and Vehicle Engineering he became the Head of the Department of Automobiles and Vehicle Manufacturing created by the integration of the Department of Automobiles and the Department of Vehicle Manufacturing and Repairing.
He gained extensive experience in the corporate sector when in 1995 he became Development Director of the Hungarian subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse. Between 2001 and 2003, he was the European Electronic Development Director of the same company in Germany, and later he was promoted to European Research and System Development Director.
From 2014 he served as Minister of State for Higher Education and from 2016 as Minister of State for Education of the Ministry of Human Capacities.
Since May 2018 he has been Minister of the newly established Ministry for Innovation and Technology.
Since May 2019 he has been responsible as Government Commissioner for the coordination of the tasks related to the modernization of Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line.
Since 1 February 2019 Minister Palkovics as Government Commissioner has been responsible for the coordination of the tasks prescribed in Act XXIV of 2016 on the promulgation of the Agreement between the Government of Hungary and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the development, implementation and financing of the Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade Railway Reconstruction Project.
Dr. habil György Fábri (1964) is an habilitated associate professor (Institute of research on Adult Education and Knowledge Management, Faculty of Education and Psychology of Eötvös Loránd University), head of the Social Communication Research Group. Areas of research: university philosophy, sociology of higher education and science, science communication, social communication, church sociology. His monograph was published on the transformation of Hungarian higher education during the change of regime (1992 Wien) and on university rankings (2017 Budapest). He has edited several scientific journals, and his university courses and publications cover communication theory, university philosophy, science communication, social representation, media and social philosophy, ethics, and church sociology.
Dr. Mircea Dumitru is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest (since 2004). Rector of the University of Bucharest (since 2011). President of the European Society of Analytic Philosophy (2011 – 2014). Corresponding Fellow of the Romanian Academy (since 2014). Minister of Education and Scientific Research (July 2016 – January 2017). Visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University (2017 – 2022). President of the International Institute of Philosophy (2017 – 2020). President of Balkan Universities Association (2019 – 2020). He holds a PhD in Philosophy at Tulane University, New Orleans, USA (1998) with a topic in modal logic and philosophy of mathematics, and another PhD in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest (1998) with a topic in philosophy of language. Invited Professor at Tulsa University (USA), CUNY (USA), NYU (USA), Lyon 3, ENS Lyon, University of Helsinki, CUPL (Beijing, China), Pekin University (Beijing, China). Main area of research: philosophical logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. Main publications: Modality and Incompleteness (UMI, Ann Arbor, 1998); Modalitate si incompletitudine, (Paideia Publishing House, 2001, in Romanian; the book received the Mircea Florian Prize of the Romanian Academy); Logic and Philosophical Explorations (Humanitas, Bucharest, 2004, in Romanian); Words, Theories, and Things. Quine in Focus (ed.) (Pelican, 2009); Truth (ed.) (Bucharest University Publishing House, 2013); article on the Philosophy of Kit Fine, in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, the Third Edition, Robert Audi (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality. Themes from Kit Fine (ed.) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Mr. Degli Esposti is Full Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Deputy Rector Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Dean of Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, Head of Service for the health and safety of people in the workplace, President of the Alma Mater Foundation and Delegate for Rankings.
Ben joined QS in 2002 and has led institutional performance insights function of QS since its emergence following the early success of the QS World University Rankings®. His team is, today, responsible for the operational management of all major QS research projects including the QS World University Rankings® and variants by region and subject. Comprising over 60 people in five international locations, the team also operate a widely adopted university rating system – QS Stars – and a range of commissioned business intelligence and strategic advisory services.Ben has travelled to over 50 countries and spoken on his research in almost 40. He has personally visited over 50 of the world’s top 100 universities amongst countless others and is a regular and sought after speaker on the conference circuit.Ben is married and has two sons; if he had any free time it would be spent reading, watching movies and skiing.
Anna Urbanovics is a PhD student at Doctoral School of Public Administration Sciences of the University of Public Service, and studies Sociology Master of Arts at the Corvinus University of Budapest. She is graduated in International Security Studies Master of Arts at the University of Public Service. She does research in Scientometrics and International Relations.
He is the past President of the Health and Health Care Economics Section of the Hungarian Economics Association.
Based in Berlin, Zuzanna Gorenstein is Head of Project of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) service project “International University Rankings” since 2019. Her work at HRK encompasses the conceptual development and implementation of targeted advisory, networking, and communication measures for German universities’ ranking officers. Before joining the HRK, Zuzanna Gorenstein herself served as ranking officer of Freie Universität Berlin.
His books on mathematical modeling of chemical, biological, and other complex systems have been published by Princeton University Press, MIT Press, Springer Publishing house. His new book RANKING: The Unwritten Rules of the Social Game We All Play was published recently by the Oxford University Press, and is already under translation for several languages.
