Konrad Osterwalder (born June 3, 1942) is a Swiss mathematician and physicist, former Undersecretary-General of the United Nations, former Rector of the United Nations University (UNU),[1] and Rector Emeritus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).
[3] He was responsible for ensuring that UNU's charter was amended by the United Nations General Assembly[4] in 2009 allowing the United Nations University to grant degrees, introducing UNU's degree programmes and creating a new concept in education, research and development by introducing the twin institute programmes.
Professor Osterwalder, Rector of ETH, was chosen by the conference as the Rapporteur of the Salamanca Process and the voice of Higher Education institutions.
The meeting concluded with a declaration and a report that led to the basis of Higher Education reform within the Bologna process and the EU.
Osterwalder's research focused on the mathematical structure of relativistic quantum field theory as well as on elementary particle physics and statistical mechanics.