Ivars Austers started his career in social psychology by studying social groups. He was also interested in human ability of perspective-taking, namely, under what conditions people are good enough in guessing what other people have in their minds. By doing this research Ivars earned his doctoral degree from Stockholm University as well as a job position at University of Latvia where he currently holds the position of Professor of Social Psychology.

His research interests are in social identity, perspective-taking, human decision-making, and traffic psychology. “A nicely done experiment in social psychology carries an aesthetic beauty” - he uses to say.

Director of agriculture and acting County Governor. Director General of the Norwegian Institute of Land Inventory, and the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, director of Research at NIBIO, now special adviser at NIBIO. Key interests: Bioeconomy, food security and geopolitics, climate risk assessment, mitigation and adaptation, soil protection, sustainable food systems, policy advice and knowledge dissemination.

Prof. Hicks specializing in metrics for science and technology policy.

First author on the Leiden Manifesto for research metrics published in Nature, which has been translated into 24 languages and won the 2016 Ziman award of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology.

Her work has informed policymakers in the U.S., Europe and Japan. She has advised the OECD, Flanders, the Czech Republic, and Sweden on national research evaluation systems.

Chaired the School of Public Policy for 10 years and currently co-chairs the international Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy and has been an editor of Journal of Research Evaluation.

Prof. Hicks has taught at the School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley; SPRU, University of Sussex, and worked at NISTEP in Tokyo.

Henrik Lund is a highly ranked world-leading researcher. He is listed among ISI Highly Cited researchers ranking him among the top 1% researchers in the world within engineering and on the Stanford list of top 2% scientists.

Henrik Lund is Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s high-impact journal Energy with annual 10000+ submissions.

Henrik Lund is the author of more than 500 books and articles including the book ''Renewable Energy Systems”. He is the architect behind the advanced energy system analysis software EnergyPLAN, which is a freeware used worldwide that have form the basis of more than 300 peer reviewed journal papers around the world.

Signe Mežinska holds Dr.sc.soc. in Sociology, MA in Philosophy and MSc in Bioethics, and is teaching medical ethics, bioethics, and research ethics for more than 20 years. Her scientific interests include biomedical research ethics, ethical and social aspects of biobanking and biotechnologies, human reproductive ethics and rational use of medicines. S. Mežinska is serving as member of UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, research ethics expert for WHO, European Commission and several research ethics committees in Latvia.

Medical doctor, specialised in internal medicine and nephrology. Scientific interest in bacteriophage possible application to treat multi-drug resistant biofilm associated infections, the role of bacterial biofilms in disease development.

Focuses also on renal research, examining the pathology of IgA nephropathy, different biomarker role in kidney disease development, e.g., investigating shrunken pore syndrome.

Karina Silina is a group leader at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) where they study the interactions between cancer cells and immune cells with the aim to identify novel ways to treat cancer. They work with cancer patient samples as well as experimental tumor models in mice to research the development and function of the so-called tertiary lymphoid structures. These are dense clusters of immune cells similar to lymph nodes and are located in the direct vicinity of tumors. Stimulation of these structures may offer a novel approach to stimulate anti-tumor immune response.

Liviu ȘTIRBĂȚ is a Head of Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. He leads a policy team exploring the future of industry (Industry 5.0) and the future of science (Artificial Intelligence for research).

Previously, he was Deputy Head of Adaptation in the Climate Action Directorate-General of the Commission and has worked on better regulation (for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe) as well as EU innovation policy.  He also had working experience in the World Bank and the OECD. His academic background is in astrophysics and development economics.

Pēteris Zilgalvis is a Judge at the General Court of the EU, Court of Justice of the European Union. Previously, he worked on new technologies at the European Commission, Council of Europe, and the World Bank, and in Latvian ministries. He has a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Southern California, and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford.