COVID-19 ROUND TABLE

Nelly Niwa; University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Anne Zimmermann; University of Bern, CDE, Switzerland

Hilligje van't Land

Dr. Hilligje van’t Land is the Secretary General of the International Association of Universities (IAU). Educated in France, the Netherlands and Canada, she obtained her PhD in comparative francophone literature from Groningen University, NL, and completed a post doc research project at Laval University, in Québec. She taught at Universities in the Netherlands, Canada and France. She is pleased to serve the global higher education community as Secretary General of IAU, the Global Voice of Higher Education.

Over the past two decades she has worked on membership development and retention, the coordination of the preparation of IAU international events and the overall management of the IAU thematic priorities linked to Intercultural Learning and Dialogue, Innovative Approaches to Doctoral Education in Africa, and in particular Higher Education and Research for Sustainable Development (HESD). She published on a number of issues relating to Higher Education; is Editor of the magazine ‘IAU Horizons’ ; sits on various working groups and expert Committees including at UNESCO, the UN and the Council of Europe.

⭢ www.iau-aiu.net; www.iau-hesd.net

Giorgio Zanetti

Giorgio Zanetti is currently vice-rector of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in charge of education and student affairs. He is also chairman of the Service of Hospital Preventive Medicine (since 2010) and Chief Physician in the Service of Infectious Diseases, both at the University Hospital of Lausanne. Giorgio Zanetti graduated as MD at the University of Lausanne and got a Master of science in clinical epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a board-certified physician in infectious diseases and in internal medicine. As a full professor at the Faculty of Biology of Medicine at the University of Lausanne, he teaches the epidemiology of infections and clinical infectiology. He has been Director of the Medical School of this Faculty. His research focuses on prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections and on optimization of antibiotic use in the context of growing bacterial resistance. As a vice-rector since 2016, however, he is fully dedicated to the governance of the University of Lausanne and to the organization of teaching and learning, which includes responding to major challenges such as sustainability and the digital transformation of society.

Marie-Claire Graf

Marie-Claire Graf is a Swiss youth advocate, activist and change maker for just sustainable development and ambitious climate action through her diverse engagement in several initiatives around all dimensions of sustainability on a local, national and international level. Her aspiration is to inspire and empower youth to take meaningful, impactful and positive action to create a momentum for change. She initiated and is leading several associations and initiatives in the fields of education for sustainable development, climate action, youth and women’s empowerment such as the Sustainability Week International. She is part of the student sustainability committees at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Recently she was awarded the title of Youth Climate Champion of Switzerland and appointed as Champion for the UN Food Systems Summit by the UN Secretary General. Next to her studies in political sciences at the University of Zurich she received a mandate from the Swiss government for Action for Climate Empowerment and was elected to serve the youth constituency of the UNFCCC.

9th Africa Students and Youth Summit: “THE GLOBAL YOUTH COMPACT TO BUILD BACK BETTER POST-COVID-19” (held on 3 December 2020)

⭢ Summit Outcome Document