After finishing her MA in Political Sciences and European Studies at Sorbonne Universityin Paris, Aurora Ailincai joined the Council of Europe in 2003 within the Directorate ofEducation, where she was responsible for activities related to inclusive interculturaleducation. From 2010 to 2020, she was Head of the Strategic Partnerships Unit andDeputy of the Roma and Travellers Division of the Council of Europe. During this timeAurora co-ordinated several pan-European programmes focusing on local governanceand active citizenship; promotion of inclusive education; teaching Roma and Travellerhistory and the Remembrance of the Roma Holocaust. Since April 2021, she has beenthe Executive Director of the Observatory on History Teaching in Europe. Aurora has aPhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Strasbourg and her PhD researchfocused on school mediation and related challenges in view of existing inequalities andstructural barriers in the education system. In 2020 she successfully completed theOxford Women's Leadership Development Programme at Saïd Business School,University of Oxford. Since 2009, Aurora has been a visiting lecturer in severaluniversities - such as the University of the West Indies and Guyana and the University ofFrench Polynesia - where she has been teaching programme design in multi-ethnic andmulti-cultural contexts, as well as the creation of networks and partnerships.

Semih Aktekin graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University. He received an MA degree in School Development and Continuous Professional Development and his Doctorate degree in Teacher Education at Nottingham University in the UK. He has been Rector of Nevşehir Haci Bektaş Veli University since March 2020. He served as a consultant at the Ministry of National Education (2013), General Director of Higher Education and International Education (2014-2016), and General Director of Teacher Training and Development (2016-2018) in Türkiye. At different dates, he served as a Bologna Expert, a member of the Teacher Training Working Group at the Higher Educational Council of Türkiye, a member of the TÜBİTAK Science and Society Programs, a board member of the UNESCO International Teacher Task Force, board member of the European Association of History Educators (EUROCLIO) and a board member of the OECD TALIS Project. He is a Bureau member of OHTE. His main academic interests are teacher education, history education, citizenship education and education policies.

Bilgin Ayata is Professor of Migration and Transnational Studies at the University ofGraz, Austria. She is the director of the NOMIS-funded research project Elastic Borders:Rethinking the Borders of the 21st Century, which examines the transformation ofcontemporary borders with a comprehensive study of the external frontiers of theEuropean Union. Her research and teaching focus on socio-political transformationsthrough the lens of migration, borders, citizenship, affect and emotions, and postcolonialstudies. With regional expertise in Europe and the MENA region, Ayata has publishedwidely on displacement, transnationalism, citizenship, memory, and the politics of affectand violence. Ayata is co-speaker of the research cluster Migration, Borders, andMobility within the field of excellence Dimensions of Europe at the University of Graz andco-president of the “Research Association Switzerland-Turkey”. She activelycollaborates with cultural organisations and public institutions to facilitate knowledgeexchange on memory, migration, and belonging, with previous projects in Berlin, Basel,and Graz. Her latest publication, The Affective Dynamics of Mass Protest: Midan2Moments and Political Transformation in Turkey and Egypt (Routledge, 2023, co-authored with Cilja Harders) examines emotions and affects in the context of urban massprotests.

Bjørn Berge serves as the Council of Europe’s Deputy Secretary General since 1 March2021. As the Deputy Secretary General, he is involved in a number of key areas of thework of the Organisation, including advising and overseeing the implementation of theSecretary General’s reform agenda, in line with the decisions and priorities of theCommittee of Ministers. His priorities include shaping the Programme and Budget, whileensuring that the Organisation’s activities have maximum impact in advancingdemocracy, human rights, and the rule of law. He also oversees the Council of Europe’sstaff policy, as well as other key areas of the work of the Organisation. Before taking uphis post, Bjørn Berge was for a period of four years Director General and Secretary tothe Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Between 2009-2017, he served asDirector of the Private Office of the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General,helping to prepare, co-ordinate and implement a number of comprehensive reforms ofthe Organisation. Bjørn Berge has over thirty years of international professionalexperience. As a former Norwegian diplomat, he served as International Adviser to thePrime Minister and as Deputy Director of the Foreign Minister’s Cabinet responsible forall matters related to Parliament. He also served as speechwriter to three NorwegianForeign Ministers. Berge has published several books on a range of issues relating tospeech writing and speeches, as well as articles on the Council of Europe’s mandate andwork. He was a Fulbright Scholar and holds a MA in International Relations from the PaulNitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University,Washington D.C., USA.

Célestin joined the Observatory on History Teaching in Europe in September 2021 asproject officer, after working for the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France andthen as a parliamentary assistant at the French National Assembly. He graduated inpublic law from the University of Strasbourg, where he now teaches the history of theinstitutions of the Fifth Republic and constitutional law, and graduated in public andEuropean administration from Sciences Po Strasbourg, his professional career has alsoenabled him to specialise in education policies and history teaching.

Yann Bouvier, a secondary school history and geopolitics teacher, lecturer on a Master2 programme in public history and associate researcher at the CMMC (Université Côted'Azur), has been producing popular history videos under the handle @yanntoutcourtsince 2020. With rigour and humour, he sets out to deconstruct preconceived ideas andpseudo-historical statements.

Tal Bruttmann is a researcher attached to the Cergy Paris University, working on thevarious anti-Jewish policies (French and German) implemented in France and on theHolocaust in Europe. He has published several books on the French administration rolein the anti-Jewish policies during the Vichy period (among them “La Logique desBourreaux”, Hachette, 2003, et “Au bureau des Affaires juives”, La Découverte, 2006).His latest works are focused on Auschwitz (“Auschwitz”, La Découverte, 2015) and theHolocaust in Europe (with Claire Zalc, eds., “Microhistories of The Holocaust”, BerghahnBooks, New York, 2016). His last book, with Christoph Kreutzmüller and Stefan Hördler,is an analysis of the “Lili Jacob’s album” photos, “Die fotografische Inszenierung desVerbrechens. Ein Album aus Auschwitz" (WBG, 2019)/ "L’Album d’Auschwitz. Commentles nazis ont photographié leurs crimes" (Le Seuil, 2023). He also curated exhibitions forvarious museums in France (Mémorial de la Shoah, ONACVG, Mémorial de Caen…)and, as an expert, worked on documentaries and movies for television and cinema.

Mario was fortunate to be born and live in Tetouan (Morocco), where life gave him a mixof cultures. He is Emeritus Professor at Autonoma University of Madrid. He received theGuggenheim scholarship and fellowships from the universities of Harvard, Stanford, EUI(Firenze), and La Sapienza (Rome). He currently co-ordinates the EU projectwww.making-histories.eu, whose objective is to optimise research and professionalpractice in teaching history from an interdisciplinary perspective and promote a complexunderstanding of the past, within the framework of democratic, reflective, and inclusivesocieties. With the support of the Spencer Foundation, he is studying the impact on theunderstanding of the history of new artistic and digital formats, through dialogue in theclassroom and with special attention to the development of identity in discriminatedminorities. His work (in Spanish and English) has been translated into French,Portuguese, Japanese and Basque. His two more disseminated books are ConstructingPatriotism. Teaching history and memories in global worlds (2011) and PalgraveHandbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education (2017). It is common to findhim writing in airport lounges, as well as on his IG, @mariomcarretero, even though hisfavourite place is any mediterranean island.

Assistant Professor in Twentieth-Century European History at Maynooth University,Ireland. He has previously worked as Lecturer in Modern European History at theUniversity of Leicester, Lecturer in European Studies at the Europa UniversitätFlensburg, Senior Research Associate at the European Centre for Minority Issues, andTeaching Fellow at University College London. He has held Research Fellowships at theVienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies and the Imre Kértesz Kolleg Jena. A Romanian national, he is currently residing in Flensburg, Germany. He is a member ofthe Barvalipe Academy of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) andCo-Convenor of the BASEES Study Group for Minority History. He is co-editor of thebook series 'A Modern History of Politics and Violence' at Bloomsbury. Raul has beenserving as the Vice-chair of the OHTE Scientific Advisory Council since its establishmentin June 2021 and as the SAC Chair ad interim since November 2024.

Marco Cokić is a PhD student in Economic History at LSE. His PhD thesis focuses onthe role of foreign trade in the macroeconomic development of Eastern Europe duringthe Cold War. A particular focus in his work is the relationship between foreign trade,innovation and structural change and the political economy context it is embedded in.Marco has been trained as an economist and economic historian at the University ofOxford, LSE and UCL. He is interested in topics related to international trade,industrialisation policies and political economy.

Harold J. Cook is the John F. Nickoll Professor of History at Brown University, andpreviously served as Director of the Welcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine atUniversity College London. He was awarded a Brown University President’s Award forExcellence in Faculty Governance. He has also acquired dual nationality, holding aBritish as well as US passport. His chief research interests are in the emergence of thenew medicines and sciences of early modern Europe; the co-production of science andcommerce; global knowledge exchanges; and processes of translation vis-à-vismaterialist exchanges. Recipient of the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society andthe Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, he is author ofnumerous articles and books, including Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine andScience in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), The YoungDescartes: Nobility, Rumor, and War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018),and editor of several others, most recently Translation at Work: Chinese Medicine in theFirst Global Age (Leiden: Brill, 2020).

Tomáš Drucker was appointed to the position of Minister of Education, Research,Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic on October 25, 2023. He is a Slovakmanager and politician. From 2012 to 2016, he led the Slovak Post, where heimplemented a recovery program, for which he received the prestigious Forbes and PwCaward “The Most Respected CEO” in 2017. From 2016 to 2018, he held the position ofMinister of Health of the Slovak Republic, and in 2016 he also led the EPSCO Councilwithin the Slovak Presidency of the EU. He also briefly held the position of Minister of theInterior.He studied computer science and automation at the Slovak Technical University inBratislava and law at the Trnava University, Slovak Republic. He graduated from theprestigious Sloan Master in Management and Leadership MA program at the LondonBusiness School, UK. In the past, he worked in several managerial positions, engagedin consulting in the field of process improvement and management.

Laura has been a passionate advocate for justice and social change from a young age.As a high school Vice-President and Amnesty International coordinator, she led initiativesthat raised awareness on human rights issues and better collaboration between differentgroups. Her lively spirit and empathy later fueled her involvement in other projects linkedto Democracy, the European Union or the empowerment of marginalised groupsincluding young caregivers of ill family members. Known for her wit and dedication, Lauracontinues to engage in initiatives that make the world around her a better place. Sheknows that together we can build a better world and especially to develop more efficientsystems, thus she wishes to meet likeminded individuals with whom to work together.For her, education is the key subject on which democratic societies should focus andinvest in if they want to have a brighter future. Laura is currently coordinating exchangesbetween the Faculty of Historical Sciences in Strasbourg and OHTE.

Involved in the civil society and political spheres for several years, Adel Eifert is an activemember of a citizen council, contributing to the fight against social inequalities.Additionally, he serves as vice-president of an association dedicated to promotingdemocratic values and intercultural dialogue, combating all forms of discrimination, andraising political awareness among young people. Adel is also actively engaged inadvocating for the recognition of young caregivers within society, working to raiseawareness of the unique challenges they face and calling for support measures tailoredto their needs. While participating in the World Forum for Democracy in November 2023,Adel learned about OHTE’s initiatives and became engaged with their mission, nowworking to facilitate exchanges between the Faculty of Historical Sciences in Strasbourgand OHTE. Guided by his convictions and commitments, Adel hopes to dedicate hisprofessional life to defending human rights and combating exclusion. He aspires to worktoward a society in which every individual can enjoy their personal freedoms with respectand dignity.

Born in 1963 in Salzburg (Austria), Gerhard studied history and pre- and proto-history inInnsbruck with terms in Southampton (UK) and Rome. From 1991 city archaeologist andmuseum curator in Aschaffenburg (Germany) he founded the Archaeological Spessart-Project (ASP) in 1997, an association dedicated to the research of the regional landscapewith citizen engagement. Since 2007 he worked solely for the ASP which became aresearch institute at the University of Würzburg in 2010. After advocating for Germany tosign the Valetta Convention, the contact with the Council of Europe become more intensewhen the European Landscape Convention was opened for signature in 2000 – firstrepresenting a European network of landscape related organisations in the Conferenceof the Convention and the Steering Committee for Culture, Heritage and Landscape(CDCPP), later as a representative of Civilscape also in the Conference of INGOs.Elected to the Standing Committee of the CINGO in 2017 he was elected president ofthe Conference in 2021 and re-elected in April 2024.

Tobias Flessenkemper was appointed Head of the Youth Department of the Council ofEurope on 1 September 2023. He previously served as Head of the Belgrade Office ofthe Council of Europe from 2018 to 2023. His previous postings include the EuropeanExternal Action Service (EEAS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Council of the EuropeanUnion in Brussels, Skopje, and Sarajevo, and the OSCE. From 2012 to 2013, he wasvisiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). In2013, he became managing director of the Berlin-based agency elbarlament.org -cultures of democracy. He regularly contributes to research and higher educationprogrammes with a focus on the practice and history of European cooperation. From1998 to 2001, he was Secretary General of the European Youth Forum. He holds an MAin Political Science from the University of Cologne, a European Master in InternationalHumanitarian Assistance (E.MA) from the Ruhr-University Bochum, and serves as amember of the Scientific Council of the Centre international de formationeuropéenne (CIFE), Nice.

Vincent Flibustier has been delivering conferences, workshops, and training sessions ondigital citizenship, fake news, online information verification, and web scams since 2016in many institutions (EPFC, IFPC, Amos Business School Lille, Narratiiv Paris, etc.).Each year, Vincent Flibustier trains several thousand students and 200 teachers inBelgium, working tirelessly to promote critical thinking. His interest in this topic wassparked in 2014 while making satirical news on Facebook. Through this experience, hediscovered how credulous people can be and the tricks of manipulation, as well as therole of the media, politics, and social media in the spread of misinformation. In his work,Vincent Flibustier tries to tackle these difficult questions with humour, working on thetheory of inoculation. He believes that pre-bunking and digital citizenship education arethe best weapons against disinformation. By using an engaging and light-heartedapproach, he aims to empower his audience to think critically about the information theyencounter online and their responsibility in sharing information on social media.

PhD in History & Social Sciences Education (2007) and MA in Pedagogical Supervisionand History Education, Portugal. In 2021, she was an Invited Professor in HistoryEducation at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. She was a history teacher for22 years prior to taking a university post in History Education, History textbooks authorand obtained a post-doctoral and doctoral research scholarship from Fundação para aCiência e a Tecnologia. She is an integrated researcher in Research Center in Education(CIEd) – Universidade do Minho, Portugal, and foreign researcher in Laboratório dePesquisa em Educação Histórica – Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil and DICSO,in Universidad de Murcia - Spain. Her main research interests are in historicalconsciousness, historical narrative, developing historical thinking and teacher education.

Luke Gauci is a graduate of the Department of History at the University of Malta, wherehe read for his undergraduate degree, BA(Hons.) European and Global History withArchaeology, between 2020 and 2023. While reading for his degree, he also worked withAIS Archaeology, conducting archaeological and historical research for HeadArchaeologist Mr Vincenzo Cherubini on sites, such as, the Royal Navy Hospital inMtarfa, Malta. Luke is also very active with the Malta University Historical Society and currently serves as their Events Coordinator. He is currently reading for his MA inEuropean and Global History (by Research) at the University of Malta, where hecontinues to work on medieval and crusading history under the supervision of Mr CharlesDalli. He currently works for Heritage Malta, as part of the Visitors’ Services Department,where among other duties, he conducts tours of the various Roman, Medieval and Early-Modern sites such as Fort St Angelo, the Inquisitor’s Palace, St Paul’s Catacombs, theDomus Romana, Abbatija Tad-Dejr and others. Luke is also very interested in antiquity,particularly Greek, Roman, and Punic cultures, as well as early modern Mediterraneancorsairing conducted by the Maltese and Hospitallers, British railway history andmedieval monastic communities.

Peter Gautschi is Professor of History Education at the University of Teacher Education,Lucerne. Between 1979 and 2004, he taught as a history teacher at all levels of Swisscompulsory education. Since 1989, he has taught and researched history education atuniversities. Among other things, he was Vice-Rector of the School of Education at theUniversity of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, honorary professorat the University of Teacher Education in Freiburg, Germany, and from 2012 until hisretirement in 2024, he headed the Institute for History Education and Memory Culturesat the University of Teacher Education, Lucerne. He conducts research on historyeducation and public history and develops educational media that have received multipleawards. He publishes regularly, is an editor of journals and book series, and is a memberof various scientific committees. Four of his most important publications are Good HistoryTeaching, and as a co-editor and co-author The Cold War in the Classroom, TheTeaching of the History of One's Own Country and Why History Education?.

Matjaž Gruden is Director for Democracy at the Council of Europe since May 2018. Hisresponsibilities include Council of Europe activities and programmes in the area ofeducation, such as education for democratic citizenship, youth cooperation, civil society,media freedom and journalist safety, culture and cultural heritage and sport. He wasasked by the former Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić,to lead the preparation of her annual reports on the state of democracy, human rights,and the rule of law in Europe. He also worked with Ms Pejčinović’spredecessor, Thorbjørn Jagland, on five similar reports on democratic security in Europe,which he helped to conceptualise and prepare.Matjaž Gruden previously served as Director of Policy Planning, Deputy Director of thePrivate Office of the Secretary General, Thorbjørn Jagland, political adviser andspeechwriter for the Secretary General, Terry Davis and President of the ParliamentaryAssembly of the Council of Europe, Lord Russell-Johnston. Prior to his career at theCouncil of Europe, he was a diplomat at the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, postedin Brussels. As a member of the first team of Slovenian diplomats accredited in Brusselsafter the recognition of independence of Slovenia, he contributed to the establishment offormal relations and the negotiations of first cooperation agreements with the EuropeanUnion. He was posted in Brussels between 1993 and 1995, when he joined the staff ofthe Council of Europe, following his country’s accession to this organisation. He holds alaw degree from the Law Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in1990 with the thesis The European communities and its participation in multilateralinternational conventions, which focused on prospects for an EC accession to theEuropean Convention on Human Rights. He continued his studies at the College ofEurope in Bruges, Belgium, where he obtained a post-graduate degree in EU law in 1991.Matjaž Gruden regularly publishes articles on European, human rights and democracyrelated issues, notably in the Slovenian media. A book of essays Long Live all the Nationswas published in 2018. He speaks English, French, Danish, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnianand lives in Strasbourg, France.

Ukrainian historian, public intellectual, Doctor of Historical Sciences and professor at theUkrainian Catholic University. Director of the Institute for Historical Studies of Ivan FrankoNational University of Lviv. Guest professor (1996-2009) at Central European Universityin Budapest; First Vice-President (1999-2005) of the International Association ofUkrainians. Chief editor of the scientific journal “Ukraine Modern”. He is member of theeditorial board of the journals Ab Imperio, Critique, Slavic Review, and a member of thesupervisory board of Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Honorary Professor of NaUKMA. Hehas also taught also at the Harvard and Columbia Universities, as well at the CentralEuropean Universities.He gained his PhD in 1987 at University of Lviv. Yaroslav Hrytsak passed his habilitationin 1996. He has been director of the Institute for Historical Research, Ivan FrankoNational University of Lviv since 1992. His published books include, “Overcoming thePast: Global History of Ukraine” (2021, in Ukrainian), Essays in Ukrainian History: Makingof Modern Ukrainian Nation (Kyiv, 1996, in Ukrainian), and The Spirit that Moves toBattle… A political portrait of Ivan Franko (1856-1916) (Lviv, 1990, in Ukrainian)

Anđela Jakšić-Stojanović, PhD, is the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation ofMontenegro. She worked as an Associate Professor at the University of Donja Gorica,Director of the Vatel International Hotel Management School in Montenegro and Deanof the Faculty of Culture and Tourism of the University of Donja Gorica. She also workedat the University of the Mediterranean, as Vice Rector for International Cooperation,Administrative Director, Deputy Executive Director and Dean of the Faculty of VisualArts. She was involved in the implementation of over 50 international and nationalscientific research projects. She is the author of four monographs and scientific books.She has published more than a hundred papers. She received her doctorate at theFaculty of Tourism, University of the Mediterranean, and completed her postdoctoralstudies at the Faculty of Economics, University of Split.

Alain Lamassoure is currently the Chair of the Governing Board of the Observatory onHistory Teaching in Europe. He previously served as a Minister Delegate for EuropeanAffairs of France and as a Member of the European Parliament. After a career as a seniorcivil servant in several ministries and in the General Secretariat of the Presidency of theFrench Republic, Alain Lamassoure held numerous political mandates at the local,regional, national and European levels. He ended his political activities in 2019 to devotehis time to teaching European Public Finance at Sciences Po Paris.

Ann-Laure Liéval is Professeure agrégée of History and Geography, teaching in theEuropean English section at the Lycée Fénelon and CPGE ECG (Classe préparatoireÉcole de Commerce) in Lille (Lycée Gaston Berger). She graduated from ArtoisUniversity (Arras, France) with a Master in Ancient Greek History, and passed theAgrégation externe d'Histoire in 2003 with Lille University (France). She also taught inMaster MEEF2 at the University of Lille to future teachers, after having been a memberof the jury of the external CAPES of History-Geography, and worked as a lecturer atSciences Po Lille (Undergraduate college 1st year) for 5 years. She is a teacher trainerand is involved in several Erasmus + projects, all dealing with the teaching of contestedand sensitive topics in History (Learning to disagree, Parallel Histories, Monumentalchallenges). Member of the APHG (Association des Professeurs d'Histoire-Géographie)Europe workshop, she is currently a Board member of EuroClio, a non-profit NGO andan international network of 84 associations of history teachers and trainers, whichcollaborates with the OHTE.

Slobodan G. Markovich is Professor in Political Anthropology and Political History ofSouth-East Europe. His books, edited volumes, and studies deal with British-Balkanrelations and cultural transfer Europe-Serbia. He has also published works on SigmundFreud and psychoanalytic anthropology and takes an interest in the history of Europeanpessimism.He has been the head of the Centre for British Studies at the Faculty of Political Sciencein Belgrade since its inception in 2017. He was a Research Associate at LSEE of theLondon School of Economics from 2012-2024 and has been an associate of LSE IDEASsince 2019. Since 2022, he has served as the head of the project “Cultural TransferEurope-Serbia from the 19th to the 21st Century”. In 2023, he was a Krzysztof MichalskiFellow at the Institute for Humanistic Sciences (IWM) in Vienna. Since 2024 he has beena member of Academia Europaea.

Artur Martirosyan was born in 1979 in Yerevan. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Sciencefrom Yerevan State University (YSU), where he also completed his Bachelor's andMaster’s degrees in International Relations. He is highly experienced in the fields ofeducation, science, culture, sport and youth with a robust background in political science,international relations, and community engagement. He was appointed Deputy Ministerof Education, Science, Culture, and Sport of the Republic of Armenia in February 2020.Currently serving as the Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport of theRepublic of Armenia, he has extensive expertise in public policy, development, etc. Inhis previous capacities he held leading positions in multiple sectors, including non-governmental organizations, international institutions, and academia, with a particularfocus on education, child protection, youth, community development and activecitizenship. As a Deputy Minister, he coordinates several sectors including strategicprograms, youth, monitoring, bilateral and multilateral relations in education, science,culture, sports and youth affairs, as well as diaspora-related educational-cultural affairsand foreign student admissions.

Claude Meisch joined the government as Minister of Education, Children and Youth,Minister for Higher Education and Research on 4 December 2013 and reappointed in2018. In late 2023, he was appointed Minister of Education, Children and Youth andMinister of Housing and Spatial Planning. A member of the Democratic Party (DP) since1994, he was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1999 while standing for the DP inthe district South. He was re-elected in 2004, 2009 and 2013. In Parliament, he assumed,among others, the roles of vice-chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee from2009 to 2013 as well as vice-chairman of the Committee for Family, Youth and EqualOpportunities from 2004 to 2006 and from 2009 to 2013. Claude Meisch has a degree infinancial mathematics from the University of Trier, in Germany.

Luuk van Middelaar (1973) is a political theorist and historian. He directs the BrusselsInstitute for Geopolitics, which he co-founded in 2022. He also is a professor of EU lawat Leiden University and a political commentator for NRC. Van Middelaar was the chiefspeechwriter and a political advisor to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy(2010-2014). He published his first book, Politicide, in 1999. Since its original publicationin 2009, his study The Passage to Europe has received the Socrates Prize for the bestDutch philosophy book and the European Book Prize 2012. His most recent books are Pandemonium: Saving Europe (2021), Le Réveil géopolitique de l’Europe (2022)and Alarums and Excursions: Improvising Politics on the European stage. He receivedhis PhD in philosophy from the University of Amsterdam (2009). He studied history andphilosophy at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (1991-1999) and did a postgraduate inPolitical studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris (1999-2000).

Ana Mocanu is a researcher specialising in the critical areas of transparency withinpublic administration and disinformation. Along with her team, she worked onseveral areas of research on the impact of disinformation on young people, perceptionsof the West, the war in Ukraine and vulnerable communities, as well as investigationsinto the use of bots in political page growth. Ana served as a local fixer for CNN,supporting their coverage of the Ukrainian refugee crisis following the outbreak of thewar. Her contributions as part of the CNN Worldwide team were recognised with theduPont-Columbia award in 2023. As one of the coordinators for Funky Citizens’ 2024elections campaign, she manages a national caravan focused on civic mobilisation andmedia literacy. Beyond her research, Ana actively fosters community building byconnecting local networks of NGOs, journalists, and young activists. These communitiesare engaged through mentorship and capacity building in enhancing media literacy,working for informed civic participation, and driving impactful advocacy actions. She isalso the curator and coordinator of an exhibition exploring fake news and propagandathroughout Romania's history to the present day, which has reached over 30,000 visitorsacross Romania in the lead-up to the elections.

Mathieu Mori, born in 1980 in France, has over 15 years of increasing responsibilities inpolitical organisations and European institutions. In 2020, he was appointed director ofthe European Union programme “Interreg North-West Europe”, which funds hundreds ofprojects in cities and regions across Europe. He was elected Secretary General of theCongress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe for a five-year termof office, on 25 October 2022. The Congress is the political assembly of the Council ofEurope responsible for upholding democracy, human rights, and the rule of law at localand regional level throughout its 46 Member States.

Caitríona Ní Cassaithe is an Assistant Professor of History Education in the School ofSTEM Education, Innovation & Global Studies in DCU’s Institute of Education. Caitríonawas a primary school teacher for 15 years but has been involved in history educationsince 2008. Her areas of interest include children’s historical thinking, epistemic cognitionin history and historical enquiry. Her other research interests include place-basededucation, teaching controversial issues, Irish Traveller history and culture anddisciplinary literacy. She is the author of a number of reports, articles, chapters in editedvolumes, and more recently, the co-editor of two books. Caitríona is co-chair of theHistory Educators International Research Network (HEIRNET), has sat on the executiveboard of Public History Weekly and is the Irish coordinator of the History TeachersEducation Network (HTEN). She is also on the steering committee of the Centre forHuman Rights and Citizenship at DCU and is the Irish PI for an international Erasmus Plus project on uncovering hidden histories of Europe through material culture usingobject-based and enquiry pedagogies.

Pap Ndiaye has been Ambassador and Permanent Representative of France to theCouncil of Europe since 1 August 2023. He is a historian and academic, and previouslyheld the posts of French Minister of National Education and Youth as well as DirectorGeneral of the Public Establishment of the Palais de la Porte Dorée. Since 2013, he hasalso been a university professor at Sciences Po Paris. Pap Ndiaye is a highly renownedauthor of numerous works and articles on the comparative history of minorities (UnitedStates and France). He has been a visiting professor at numerous foreign universitiesand has given lectures all over the world. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honour and ofthe National Order of Merit as well as Commander of the Order of Academic Palms.

Serhii Plokhiy is the Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and theDirector of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. His interests includethe intellectual, cultural, and international history of Eastern Europe, with an emphasison Ukraine. He is the author of, among others, The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return ofHistory (W.W. Norton, 2023); Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters(W.W. Norton, 2022); The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine's Past and Present (HURI,2021); Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (W. W. Norton, 2021);Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen behind the Soviet Lines andthe Collapse of the Grand Alliance (Oxford University Press, 2019); Chernobyl: TheHistory of a Nuclear Catastrophe (Basic Books, 2018); and The Gates of Europe: AHistory of Ukraine (Basic Books, 2015). His books have won numerous awards, includingthe Ballie Gifford Prize and the Shevchenko National Prize (2018).

Lauren Pray leads efforts with student representatives in crisis situations and facilitatesadvocacy efforts internationally. She works on EU-funded projects and organisesinternational networking events attended by EU political representatives and nationaldelegates. Her expertise extends to issues such as academic freedom, access to highereducation for minority and refugee students, Belarus, and Ukraine.Originally from Prague, Lauren began her student activism at university, leadingcampaigns and organising workshops for Ukraine, students in Iran, and other studentinitiatives. She was later selected as a delegate for the national representation ofuniversity students in the Czech Republic and continued as an analyst at the NationalAccreditation Bureau for Higher Education in the Czech Republic.Lauren's knowledge of foreign affairs, including foreign policy analysis, diplomaticoutreach, and public affairs, was developed through her work at the British and Americanembassies. Currently, she is completing her bachelor's degree in political science inPrague.

Villano Qiriazi is the Head of the Education Department of the Council of Europe sinceFebruary 2022. He graduated in philology (French language and literature) from theUniversity of Tirana in 1988. He joined the Council of Europe in 1996 and gained a richexperience in the development of Council of Europe policies and instruments related toquality education, democratic citizenship and human rights, digital citizenship education,fraud prevention in education, etc. Since 2012, he has been responsible for thesecretariat of the Intergovernmental Committee for Cooperation in Education and theStanding Conference of European Ministers of Education. He also served for three yearsas a special advisor to the Director General of the DGII. Throughout these years, he wasresponsible for the design of several official documents of the Committee of Ministers,the coordination of various publications and the establishment of European networks inthe fields of digital citizenship education and ethics, transparency, and integrity in highereducation.

Eve is a Project Officer working with the History Education Division of the Council ofEurope since 2021. She co-managed the HISTOLAB Joint Project between theEuropean Union and Council of Europe that produced the Toolkit for History Classes:Debunking Fake News and Fostering Critical Thinking, among a set of other activitiesaimed towards promoting innovation at all disciplinary levels of teaching history. Evecompleted her Masters in European Law in 2019, and has since worked on mental healthissues, children’s rights and education.

María Sabiote is a secondary school Geography and History teacher in Spain andmember of the DICSO research group specialising in Didactics of Social Sciences at theUniversity of Murcia. Drawing on her background in development cooperation, shecombines her teaching role with ongoing research and the creation of educationalmaterials. Additionally, she collaborates as part of the Social Sciences author team atVicens Vives Publishing House, contributing to the development of innovative learningresources.

Steffen Sammler studied history at the universities of Leipzig, Rouen and at the EuropeanUniversity Institute in Florence. He obtained his PhD in Modern History from LeipzigUniversity and his habilitation in modern and contemporary history and history educationfrom the Technical University of Braunschweig. After having taught at the universities ofLeipzig, Lyon 2 and EMLYON Business School, he is currently a senior researcher at theGeorg-Eckert-Institut (Leibniz Institute for Educational Media). There, he heads theEuropean Forum for Reconciliation and Cooperation in History and Social SciencesEducation (EFREC) while also teaching in the Department of History at the TechnicalUniversity of Braunschweig.His main research foci are the history of textbook production and the history and presentof bi- and multilateral textbook revision. He is committed to strengthening transnationalperspectives in history education as a member of the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUG), the Making Histories consortium (funded by a European UnionMaria Skłodowska-Curie Action), and the working group on global perspectives in historyeducation in the German Standing Conference on History Education (KGD).

Kristina Spohr is Professor of International History at the London School of Economicsand Political Science (LSE) and Senior Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for GlobalAffairs at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. She is the author and editorof a dozen books, most recently of Post Wall, Post Square: Rebuilding the World after1989 (William Collins, 2019; Yale UP, 2020) which also appeared in Spanish, Russianand the award-winning German version, voted “Das politikwissenschaftliche Buch" 2020,entitled Wendezeit (DVA, 2019). Other titles Include Arctic and World Order (2020), OpenDoor: NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security after the Cold War (2019), The Global Chancellor(2016) / Helmut Schmidt: Der Weltkanzler (2016). In 2023-24, she was InternationalCompetition Fellow at the Polar Institute of Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC,as she is currently writing a long durée global history of the Arctic. Her OpEds oninternational affairs can be found incl. in El Pais, Financial Times, The Guardian, andNew Statesman.

Alex Taylor has produced and presented TV and radio programmes for 30 years onEuropean politics and affairs, mainly on French TV and radio (France Télévisions, FranceInter), but also for international broadcasters (Euronews, TV5 Monde, ARTE, BBC). Hewas Programme Director for Radio France Internationale in charge of implementing thecurrent 24 hours news format. Parallel to journalism, he has hosted over 1 500international conferences on a wide variety of topics, especially environmental issues.He has also written a best seller on his passion, languages, of which he speaks (more orless) 7. He also once worked as a camel trainer in a circus. He tweets a lot on X as@AlexTaylorNews.

From 2014 to 2020, Mychailo Wynnyckyj served as an advisor to three Ministers ofEducation and Science of Ukraine, responsible for overseeing the implementation of theEU-recognised Doctor of Philosophy degree (replacing the Soviet Candidate of Sciencesdegree) in Ukraine. He participated in various working groups for drafting laws andimproving bylaws related to academic mobility, recognition of foreign diplomas inUkraine, and enhancing student self-governance.From 2019 to 2022, he headed the Secretariat of the National Agency for HigherEducation Quality Assurance. In 2002, he obtained his Master's and Doctor of Philosophydegrees in the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. For over 20 years, he hasbeen teaching at the Department of Sociology at the National University "Kyiv-MohylaAcademy" and also at the Mohyla School of Business and Lviv Business School(Ukrainian Catholic University). As of 19 May 2023, he was appointed to the position ofDeputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine.