Jan Palmowski has been Secretary-General of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities since its creation in 2016. A contemporary historian, he started his career at the University of Oxford before moving to King’s College London where he taught European politics and EU integration. He was Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London (2008-12), and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Academic Vice-President at the University of Warwick from 2013 to 2018. He is Professor at the University of Warwick, and adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo.
His wider international engagements include membership in the German Science Council’s Strategy Commission (2013-16), and the German Excellence Commission’s joint expert Group (2016-18). He also served on the Humanities panel of the Comparative Expert Assessment of Lithuanian Universities (2018), acting as its co-Chair in 2023. He was founding chair of the Strategic Advisory Council of the Université Paris Cité (2019-24), and member of the Global Advisory Board of Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (2021-25).
A frequent commentator for a range of publications (most notably the Times Higher Education and Research Professional), in his academic capacity Jan has recently published on European higher education policy, with recent publications including In the shadow of the EU’s crises: the changing dynamics of the European knowledge area, 2014-25 with Åse Gornitzka in Journal of European Integration and A Paradigm Shift in European transnational collaboration? European University Alliances as communities of practice with Jo Angouri in Globalisation, Societies and Education. He also co-authored The Guild’s most recent Insight paper with Jo Angouri called European Universities Alliances: Pilots without Pathways?.