Roberts Ķīlis


Roberts Ķīlis was a Latvian politician and social anthropologist who served as Minister for Education and Science of Latvia.

Biography

Ķīlis received a bachelor's degree from the University of Latvia in philosophy and a doctor's degree from Cambridge University in social anthropology. From 1994 onward he was an associate professor at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.
He served as the head of the Strategic Analysis Commission of the President of Latvia from 2008 to 2011. Ķīlis was appointed Minister for Education and Science of Latvia in October 2011 as a non-partisan member of the Zatlers' Reform Party. Due to health problems, he resigned from office in April 2013 and became a freelance education reform consultant to his successor, Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis.
In 2017, Ķīlis stated that he is "an anarchist and does not join political parties". Roberts Ķīlis passed away on 18 March 2022 after a lengthy illness.