Marcella Milana is Associate Professor at the University of Verona, Italy, where she directs the International Research Centre for Global and Comparative Policy Studies on the Education and Learning of Adults (IRC-GloCoPoS), and Honorary Professor of Adult Education at the University of Nottingham. Her research deals with the politics, policy and governance of adult education and learning, from comparative and global perspectives. She is the current Chair of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA), and a joint convenor of the ESREA Network on Policy Studies on Adult Education, and of Network 23: Policy Studies and Politics of Education, under the European Educational Research Association (EERA).

Annette Rasmussen is Associate Professor at the Department of Culture and Communication, Aalborg University. Her research interests include ethnographic approaches to education policies and practices; especially issues of socialisation, evaluation, pedagogic and social differentiation, and inequality in education. In recent research and publications, she has focused on policies and practices of performativity and talent development.

Tore Bernt Sørensen is Lecturer in School of Education, University of Glasgow. His research interests include global education governance, globalisation and Europeanisation, the teaching profession, and policy learning. Before coming to Glasgow in late 2023, Tore worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Hertie School's Educational Governance Team (Berlin, Germany), Taube Centre for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland), and in Groupe interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur la Socialisation, l'Education et la Formation (GIRSEF), UC Louvain (Belgium). Tore is an executive editor for the European Educational Research Journal.

Annette Sprung is Professor of Migration and Education at the Department of Educational Science at the University of Graz (Austria). Her research focuses on adult learning and education in the context of migration, racisms, intersectionality, active citizenship and ageing. She is co-convener of the Network on Migration, Transnationalism and Racisms within the European Society of Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA).

Stefania Pontrandolfo (IPEP 2026 Lecturer) holds a PhD in Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She has participated in various roles, including coordination, in national and international research projects. She has carried out several ethnographic research projects, mainly dealing with the culture, history, and society of Roma groups in Southern Italy, those who migrated from Romania to Italy, and anti-gypsyism/anti-nomadism. She is the Representative of the Rector for International Cooperation for Development at Verona University and the Director of the CREAa (Centre for Ethnographic Research and Applied Anthropology) in the Department of Human Sciences (Verona University).

Isolde Quadranti (IPEP 2026 Lecturer) is the contact person for the UNHCR Manifesto Università Inclusiva network and the Scholars at Risk Italy network at the University of Verona. She is also Head Documentalist of the University's European Documentation Centre. She has contributed to and spoken at international forums, training courses, and seminars on complementary pathways for admission to third countries and on refugees and higher education, with a particular focus on the hosting and integration of scholars and students.

Marcelo Marques is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Luxembourg, specializing in comparative institutional and organizational analysis. His research explores transnational governance and regionalization processes in higher education and science, and their intersections with other policy domains. He currently serves as Senior Associate Editor of Comparative Education Review.

Paola Mattei is Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Italy. She is the Director of the Evidence-Based Policy and Research Action Hub (EPRA Hub) at the University of Milan. Her research to date has investigated public management reforms in public organisations; public accountability mechanisms, and citizens’ public engagement policies; globalization and education policies (see Handbook on Globalization and Education, published by Oxford University Press). Underlying her research is the problematic relationship between accountability, democracy, markets and the contemporary reforms of public services. Her book Democratizing Science was published in September 2023 by Bristol University Press.