Holger Schröder has recently taken over as Head of the Western Balkans Regional Cooperation and Programmes Unit in the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations. Over the past twenty years, he has held a variety of positions as EU official related to project and programme management in the enlargement context. These included assignments as Head of Cooperation in the EU Delegations to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey, as well as responsibilities in Brussels as Deputy Head of the Institution Building Unit and Head of the Resources Planning and IT Unit. Previous assignments related to higher education and education cooperation, first as Head of the International Project Unit of the German Academic Exchange Service in Bonn, and then relating to the Comenius and Tempus programmes in DG Education and Culture in Brussels. He holds a PhD in political sciences from Marburg University in Germany, a master in international relations from Saint Gall University in Switzerland, and an undergraduate degree in economics from the Free University Berlin. He has received scholarships from the Robert Schuman Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, and the German Academic Foundation.