Dr Igor Papič was born on 24 May 1966 in Ljubljana. He is a Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. From 2011 to 2013, he was the Vice Dean for the field of pedagogical work, from 2013 to 2017 the Dean of the Faculty, and from 2017 to 2021 the Rector of the University of Ljubljana.

He holds bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana. In the 1990s, he was a trainee at the Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution Department in Erlangen, Germany. In 2001 he was a visiting professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

He has led numerous national and international research and development projects. In 2009, together with his partners, he founded one of the first spin-off companies of the University of Ljubljana. He has been invited to lecture at the University of Manitoba, the University of Manchester, the University of Alberta, Sichuan University and elsewhere.

From 2006 to 2017, he was Chair of the Programme Council of the Smart Grid Technology Platform. He is President of the Electrotechnical Association of Slovenia. He was one of the initiators and the first President of the Rectors' Forum of the Universities of South-Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans, and in 2020 he was the first President of the EUTOPIA European University Alliance.

He is committed to a knowledge-based society and to accelerating the transfer of knowledge from academia to everyday life, which is a prerequisite for the successful development of Slovenia in the coming decades.