Thomas Jørgensen

Thomas Ekman Jørgensen is Senior Policy Coordinator at EUA, European University Association. His responsibilities include ensuring coherent policies for universities as well as overall policy development and managing cross-cutting issues with policy relevance.

Jørgensen worked with EUA as Head of the Council for Doctoral Education for a number of years. He studied History and German Studies at the University of Copenhagen and the Free University Berlin. He received his PhD in History and Civilisation from the European University Institute in Florence in 2004 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen and at the Université libre de Bruxelles before coming to EUA. As a historian, he has worked on students and left-wing movements around 1968. He has also published on youth movements during World War I.

Rebecca Walton

Regional Director Europe, British Council

Rebecca took up the role of British Council Regional Director Europe in 2015. She is responsible for over 2,000 staff across 30 countries. The British Council in Europe is both a part of Britain’s international face in Europe, promoting links and long-term relationships through cultural engagement and joint educational endeavours and a set of fully commercial businesses in English Teaching and in Evaluation.

Since the EU referendum in the UK Rebecca’s professional life has focused on the cultural and educational relations between the UK and the rest of the EU, working with Ministries and heads of Cultural and Educational Institutions across the EU to protect the strong links that currently exist, and advise the UK’s official departments dealing with the Brexit negotiations on the most vital elements of these close links Britain currently enjoys across Europe.

Rebecca joined the British Council in 1985 and has worked extensively in Norway, Jordan, Pakistan and Russia. At the British Council’s London headquarters Rebecca has held a number of senior management roles. From 2005 - 07 she was Director Corporate Affairs, 2008 -11 she was Director Arts and from 2011 - 15 she held the new the role of Director, Partnerships and Business Development.

Rebecca’s fields of expertise are international cultural policy, cultural relations and education. She is educated to Masters level in the Economics of Education for Development and has worked internationally throughout her career.

Rebecca trained initially as a teacher and, many years ago, taught in the Isle of Man and at the Anglo-American School in Moscow.

L Alan Winters

L Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory in the University of Sussex, a leading contributor to the debate on Brexit.

From 2008 to 2011 he was Chief Economist at the British government’s Department for International Development (DFID), and from 2004 to 2007 Director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank. He is editor of The World Trade Review. He has also recently completed terms as Chairman of the Board of the Global Development Network, Membership of the Council of the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and Chair of its Research Committee and Chief Executive Officer of the Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.

He has advised, inter alia, various UK government departments, the OECD, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Commission, the European Parliament, UNCTAD, the WTO, and the Inter-American Development Bank. He was made a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 2012.

His current work is almost wholly devoted to research and policy analysis on the trade policy implications of Brexit.