Ligia Deca
Secretary-General of Romania's National Commission to UNESCO
Ligia Deca currently serves as Secretary-General of Romania's National Commission to UNESCO and as Vice-Rector for institutional partnerships and strategic projects at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest. She previously held the position of Romania's Minister of Education from 2022 to 2024, during which she oversaw the adoption of a new national legal framework for compulsory and higher education in 2023. Prior to that, from 2015 to 2022, she served as the State Adviser and then the Presidential Adviser for Education and Research. She is also the President of the Fulbright Commission Board of Directors in Romania and sits on the International Advisory Boards for the European University Alliances ARQUS and EU-CONEXUS.
Deca has been actively involved in international education initiatives, co-leading Action Track 3 on teachers and teaching for the 2022 United Nations Transforming Education Summit and serving on the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on the Teaching Profession. As Minister, she represented Romania on UNESCO's SDG4 – Education 2030 High-Level Steering Committee from 2023 to 2024. Earlier roles include heading the Bologna Secretariat from 2010 to 2012 and presiding over the European Students’ Union from 2008 to 2010. She has worked as an expert for organizations like the Council of Europe, European Commission, and EQAR, and was part of the Commission's ‘Science in Education’ Expert Group in 2014. Deca holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Luxembourg (2016), focusing on higher education internationalization, and received the 2023 EAIE Award for Vision and Leadership in international education. She has published extensively in various international journals and is co-editor of several of the publications arising from the Bologna Process Researchers’ Conferences.
