Barbara Weitgruber is the Senior Advisor for Strategy and Coordination in the field of international relations with a special consideration for the Interface Science - Research - Education at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research in Vienna Austria.

She was founding staff member and then director of the Office for International Relations and lecturer at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria and Director of the Office for European Educational Co-operation of the Austrian Academic Exchange Service in Vienna, Austria. In December 1994 she joined the Austrian Ministry in charge of higher education and research as head of department and later became Deputy Director General for Higher Education and Director General for Scientific Research and International Relations.

Weitgruber holds a "Magister" degree in English/American and Interdisciplinary Studies, a Certificate in Mass Media and a Translator´s Diploma in English from Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria and a M.A. in Communications from the University of Illinois at Chicago, US, where she started her professional career as a Fulbright Scholar and Teaching Assistant.