Gard Titlestad works for his company Nordic Insight. He develops strategies and analysis for international organisations and international initiatives in education, research, innovation and digital transformation. He is the project manager for the Erasmus+ project IDOCOS, Innovative Doctoral Courses for Sustainability, and is an Erasmus+ external expert for Norway. He is a governing board member for the UNESCO Institute for IT in Education.
Gard has comprehensive experience as senior manager. He has been working for the Nordic countries, for the European Union and globally.
He was the secretary general for the International Council for Open and Distance Education, ICDE, 2011-2018. In ICDE he worked in close partnership with UNESCO for the new Sustainable Development Goals. Collaboration between institutions, associations, companies and individuals was a key priority for him, on a regional, global and north-south-south basis.
2005 – 2011 Gard led the Department for Knowledge and Welfare in the Nordic Council of Ministers, in Copenhagen, Denmark. He managed the secretariat for the ministers for education and research, health and social affairs, the ministers for labor affairs and for a shorter period the ministers for enterprise and the ministers for finance.
Before joining the NCM, Gard served as the Research Counsellor for Norway in Brussels and as member of the executive team for the Norwegian delegation to the European Union. Prior to this, he was a senior officer in the European Commission, Directorate General Information Society. In Norway he worked in agencies for the Norwegian Government, like the the Norwegian Institute for Epidemiological Cancer Research, the Directorate for Administrative Development as well as the agency for eHealth. Before that as the President for the Norwegian union of bioengineers and as a board member of the Association for academics in Norway.