Mr Christian Tauch studied history, international relations and literature in Germany and the US and worked and did research in the UK and Italy. From 1995 to 2005 he was head of the international department of the German Rectors’ Conference HRK in Bonn. Between 2001 and 2005 he co-authored several comparative studies related to the European Higher Education Reform (in particular the EUA “Trends reports”). From 2005 to 2010 he worked in the European Commission in Brussels, in the Higher Ed ucation Unit of the Directorate General for Education and Culture. Since then he has been back with the German Rectors’ Conference where he is in charge of the education department, dealing inter alia with university-business relations.