Mary-Louise Kearney,

Mary-Louise Kearney is Director of the Secretariat of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge. Funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), this project focuses on research systems and involves government policy-makers, academia and civil society, including the private sector.

Born in 1948, Ms Kearney holds  degrees in Education : BA, MA (Honours),  and a Diploma in Teaching from Auckland  University, New Zealand, and two doctorates  ( in Linguistics and in Education and Culture) from the Université de Paris III, la Sorbonne Nouvelle.  She has qualifications in Spanish from the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, and management and finance training from the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD), Fontainebleau, France.  

On joining UNESCO in 1985 after 15 years in university teaching and educational consulting,
Ms Kearney was responsible for university cooperation and partnerships in   the Division of Higher Education of UNESCO.  In 1998, she was in charge of the organization of the World Conference on Higher Education (WCHE) and then became Director for the WCHE Follow up in 1999.  In 2000, she was appointed Director of the Division for Relations with National Commissions and New Partnerships (ERC/NCP) dealing with mobilization of the 192 National Commissions worldwide. 

Ms Kearney is a Senior Research Fellow in Higher Education at Oxford University, United Kingdom and   a Vice President of Society for Research into Higher Education (SHRE).  She is active in the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) and the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (IFBPW) and has authored numerous publications and research papers on Higher Education.