Navigating Educational Reform: Decolonization and Quality Assurance in Transition Countries | Reflections and Experiences from Azerbaijan in An International Context

This book offers insights into developing internal quality control, especially for educational settings which have yet to establish quality system infrastructures to match leading European models. It focuses on the interest in post-control economies which have a global reach, and provides a basis for discussion of the challenges faced by institutions and governments in emerging neo-liberal economies. This book also questions the relationship of quality and neo-liberal aspiration for education and the intrinsic issues this creates. It builds on the experience of the Azerbaijani higher education institutions and regulators and offers options in an empathetic way in which emerging post-Soviet countries can establish units of internal quality assurance. It equips professionals with concise, actionable insights, enabling them to implement a robust Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) system tailored to their institution’s specific needs and objectives.

Dr. Paul Thomas Gibbs is an emeritus professor of Middlesex University, United Kingdom (UK), where he was a founder of the Centre for Education Research and Scholarship. He is a professor at the East European University, Georgia, and head of the Doctoral and Higher Education Research Centre. He is also a visiting professor at University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and the Azerbaijan and East European Universities. He is a fellow of ATLAS (Texas University), and of the Centre for Higher Education Policy, New College Oxford. He is an educator and researcher, having taught notions of transdisciplinarity alongside social realism and Heideggerian hermeneutics, and has over thirty successful transdisciplinary professional doctorate students. He has published over twenty peer-reviewed books on topics ranging from the marketing of higher education to vocationalism and higher education, and has published more than hundred academic articles and chapters. He is also the founding series editor of the book series “SpringerBriefs on Key Thinkers in Education”.

Dr. Achim Hopbach has extensive experience in the development and implementation of quality assurance legislation, systems, and processes in Europe, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. He has served as a panel member and chair of evaluation panels for the national audit and evaluation of quality assurance agencies in Germany, Austria, Italy, Ireland, Malta, Oman, Indonesia, Malaysia, Haiti, and East African countries. His consultancy activities focus on the areas of cross-border higher education and branch campuses, design of quality assurance systems, and setting up higher education institutions. He also served as a senior expert in an EU-funded capacity building project for a national quality assurance agency in Azerbaijan. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Tuebingen, and a Masters in History, Political Science and Law from the Heidelberg University in Germany.

Ryan Guffey, PhD, is the Executive Vice President for Webster International. Prior to Webster, Guffey was Vice President of Student Development and Global Affairs at Lindenwood University, where he was also an Associate Professor of International Relations and Education and Chair of the departments of International Relations and Chinese Studies. He is a two-time United States Fulbright recipient. His first Fulbright Scholar Award took him to Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, followed by a Fulbright Specialist Award with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Guffey holds bachelor’s degrees in Political Science, Public Management and Nonprofit Administration from Lindenwood University; an MA in International Politics from the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland; a MBA from Lindenwood University; a MS in Finance from Webster University and a PhD in Higher Education from Saint Louis University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Institute of Educational Management program.

Dr. Ulkar Sattarova is a director of the State Agency for Science and Higher Education under the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and served as the chairperson of the Executive Board for the Education Quality Assurance Agency before that. Prior to this, she held the position of Advisor to the Minister of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2020-2021). Her previous roles include Vice-rector for Strategic Development (2018–2020), Head of the Strategic Planning Department at the Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction (2014–2018), and Researcher at the Institute of Control Systems of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences November (2004–2016). She obtained her B.Sc. degree in Applied Mathematics from Baku State University, followed by an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in ICT from the Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction, as well as PhD in Governance from Maastricht University.

Ilham Humbatov is a higher education expert in quality assurance and internationalization with extensive experience in both public and private sectors. He holds the position of Quality Assurance Manager at Webster Geneva. His previous work experience includes serving as Board Member of Education Quality Assurance Agency (TKTA), Director of Quality Assurance Department of TKTA, Senior Research Fellow of Economic Scientific Research Institute under the Ministry of Economy, Supervisory Board Member of Youth Foundation under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Director of Science Department at Azerbaijan National Anti-Doping Agency, as well as various positions in the Ministry of Science and Education of Azerbaijan. He also served as a higher education expert for the EU and Asian Development Bank funded projects. He is National Contact Point for Horizon Europe and National Correspondent for the COST Action Programme for Azerbaijan. Currently, he is actively pursuing a PhD in Economics at Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

Dr. Elmar Mustafayev is the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Karabakh University. From 2021 to 2024, he served as Head of the Accreditation and Licensing Unit at the Education Quality Assurance Agency (TKTA). Prior to that, from 2016 to 2021, he was Academic Coordinator and Head of the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Khazar University. In 2019, Dr. Mustafayev was awarded an Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Module grant, serving as both project manager and lead academic. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from La Sapienza University of Rome, funded through the State Program on Education of Azerbaijani Youth Abroad (2007–2015). During his graduate studies, he completed internships at the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Italy and at the European Parliament in Brussels. Following his M.A., Elmar Mustafayev pursued a Ph.D. in the History of Europe at La Sapienza University of Rome, successfully defending his dissertation in 2019.