Simon Curtis is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of East Anglia since 2009, after completing his doctorate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he held the LSE International Relations Department’s Michael Leifer Scholarship. He is a Senior Fellow on Global Cities at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a Senior Research Fellow at UCL's City Leadership Initiative. His new book, Global Cities and Global Order (Oxford University Press) is shortlisted for the 2017 British Studies Association Susan Strange Book Prize. His core research interests include international theory, the history of international society, international political economy, and global cities.

Matthew Gabel is the Associate Chair of the department of Political Science at Washington University.  He was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow from 2010-2011 and a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy from 1996-1998. His research interests are comparative politics; legislative; judicial; mass behavior; European politics; and health policy He studies a variety of topics relevant to politics in democratic regimes.  He currently is working on two NSF-funded research projects focusing on: (a) comparative judicial politics and constitutional review, involving cross-national comparisons as well as the intensive study of the European Court of Justice and (b) on how parties manage (or fail to manage) legislative voting behavior through manipulation of roll-call votes, including parties in national, subnational, and international sttings.  He has long-standing interest in public opinion and how elites shape mass attitudes.  Finally, he is involved in research on Alzheimer's disease (AD). That research spans topics ranging from diagnosis of AD to disclosure of diagnostic information to study subjects.

Giorgos Kallis is an environmental scientist working on ecological economics and political ecology. He is ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science & Technology (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). A Marie Curie International Fellow at the Energy and Resources Group of the University of California at Berkeley before coming to Barcelona Giorgos holds a PhD in Environmental Policy and Planning from the University of the Aegean in Greece, a Masters in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and a Masters in Environmental Engineering and a Bachelors in Chemistry from Imperial College, London. His research forms part of the inter-disciplinary field of environmental studies, that is, the study of the social and bio-physical causes of environmental degradation.

Michael Keating is Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen, part-time Professor at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the ESRC Centre on Constitutional Change. He has a BA from the University of Oxford and in 1975 was the first PhD graduate from what is now Glasgow Caledonian University. He has taught in several universities including Strathclyde, Western Ontario and the European University Institute, as well as universities in Spain and France.  He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Social Sciences. Michael Keating is the author or editor of over thirty books on Scottish politics, European politics, nationalism and regionalism. Among his recent books are The Independence of Scotland (Oxford University Press, 2009) and Rescaling the European State (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Martin Shaw is a historical sociologist of global politics, war and genocide. His books include Marxism and Social Science (1974), Dialectics of War (1988), Post-Military Society (1991), Civil Society and Media in Global Crises (1996), Theory of the Global State (2000), War and Genocide (2003), The New Western Way of War (2005), What is Genocide? (2007) and most recently Genocide and International Relations: Changing Patterns in the Transitions of the Late Modern World (2013). He is Research Professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Professorial Fellow in International Relations and Human Rights at the University of Roehampton, London, and Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex.

Lurdes Vidal is Head of the Arab and Mediterranean World Department at the IEMed. She holds a degree in Translation and Interpretation from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and studied International Relations. She is Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal afkar/ideas and contributes to diverse media. She lectures on the subject of Arab Politics in the Master on the Arab and Islamic World at the University of Barcelona. Her notable publications include “Democracia islámica: ¿un debate envenenado?”, in Ámbitos de Política y Sociedad (2008), Los retos de la educación básica en países del Mediterráneo Sur, Fundación Carolina/CeALCI/IEMed (2006); “Islam político y democracia, riesgo u oportunidad?”, in Ámbitos de Política y Sociedad (2006), “El reto del desarrollo en Egipto”, in DCidob (2006), “Syria, Vertigo in the Face of a Radicalised Revolution and an Uncertain Future”, a Med.2012 IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook (2012), “Perceptions on Democracy and Islamism: Hypotheses and Second-Guessed Predictions”, a Euromed Survey 2011 (2012) y “Blogs y redes sociales: la rebelión de los jóvenes árabes” (2013), Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo (en prensa). She lived in Damascus (Syria) in 1998, where she studied Arabic.

Pere Vilanova is a Professor of Political Science and the Administration, Faculty of Law, UB. Lecturer in the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science, Faculty of Law, UB. From 1994 to 1999 he was Head of Studies for the degree course in Political Science and the Administration, and from 1999 to 2003 he was director of the department’s. He has given classes and seminars in Nicaragua, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Holland, Mexico, the United States, Canada, the Middle East, China, Japan and other countries. From 1993 to 2003 he was a magistrate in the Constitutional Court of Andorra, and from 2000 to 2002, he was the court's president. In 1996, he was head of the legal office of EUAM (European Union Administration of Mostar). Adviser to Mr Carlos Westendorp, Head of the OHR (Office of the High Representative) in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1998 and 2000. From 2003 to 2005 he was a European Union adviser to the PNA (Palestinian National Authority) in the area of constitutional reform. He has taken part in exploratory missions and as an electoral observer in places such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Palestinian territories, Indonesia, Central Asia and Haiti. From 2008 to August 2010 he was director of the Strategic Affairs and Security Division of the Ministry of Defence, and in September 2010 he rejoined the UB. Areas of interest: International studies, regional studies, security, Middle East, Central Asia. Member of the International Advisory Board of the Journal of Peace Research, PRIO, Oslo.