David Morris is a distinguished international expert on risks and opportunities in the international business environment. He has had a global career as diplomat, senior political adviser and international consultant. He was an Australian diplomat for a decade and recently represented the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in China as Pacific Trade and Investment Commissioner. He is Vice Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Business Network for Asia Pacific, which advises the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). His international consultancy, David Morris Projects OÜ, harnesses a global network of experts to consult to organisations in Asia Pacific and Europe. David is Senior Expert for China, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific with LM Prisk Political Risk & Strategic Advisory; Special Adviser, Sustainable Development, for Trans Pacific Advisory; independent non-executive director of AustChina Holdings Limited; and a member of the international advisory boards of the World Green Organisation and the Institute for Cultural Relations Policy. He is Senior Research Fellow, Research Center for Pacific Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Research Fellow, Corvinus University of Budapest, where he is conducting an Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Research Network on Europe-Asia relations and completing a PhD in international relations. He has an MBA from Henley Business School and BA (Honours) from the University of Sydney.

Reza Hasmath (Ph.D., Cambridge) is a Full Professor in Political Science at the University of Alberta. He has previously held faculty positions in management, sociology and political science at the Universities of Toronto, Melbourne and Oxford, and has worked for think-tanks, consultancies, development agencies, and NGOs in the USA, Canada, Australia, UK and China. His award-winning research looks at evolving state-society relationships in authoritarian contexts; ethnic minorities’ life course experiences; and, how the behaviour of emerging state/non-state actors potentially affect salient theories, practices and assumptions in international development.

Małgorzata Jakimów is an assistant professor in East Asian Politics at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. She joined the SGIA department in 2018 after holding a lecturer post at University of Sheffield. She was awarded her PhD in 2015 from University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the question of citizenship and civil society in China, critical citizenship theory, transnational civil society, political economy of labour in China, and the normative element of EU-China relations, with special interest in the role of Belt and Road Initiative in normative changes in Central-Eastern Europe. She published academic articles in journals such as Citizenship Studies, Asia-Europe Journal, Journal of Contemporary China and Positions: Asia Critique, several book chapters and a book with Manchester University Press. Her research in the field of citizenship studies is based on ethnographic fieldwork in China conducted among migrant worker NGOs, international NGOs and international organisations, such as UNDP and EU. In 2014, she received European Union funding to take 1 year-long post as a visiting scholar at the School of Government, Peking University. She is currently a Visiting Researcher in residence at University of Lodz, Institute of East Asia.

Doktor nauk społecznych w zakresie nauk o polityce (2013), absolwentka politologii oraz stosunków międzynarodowe na Wydziale Studiów Międzynarodowych i Politycznych UJ. Członek Towarzystwa Naukowego Australii, Nowej Zelandii i Oceanii (od 2009). W latach 2014-2020 prowadziła zajęcia na kierunku bezpieczeństwo narodowe i administracja w Bydgoskiej Szkole Wyższej. Obecnie zatrudniona na stanowisku adiunkta w Katedrze Studiów Politycznych Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie (od 2020). Międzynarodowe staże i kwerendy odbyła na Massey University’s Wellington campus w Centre for Defence and Security Studies (Wellington, Nowa Zelandia) oraz University of Sydney i Australia State Library of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). Autorka licznych publikacji naukowych i recenzentka prac poświęconych przede wszystkim Nowej Zelandii, Australii i państwom Oceanii. Jej główne zainteresowania badawcze koncentrują się wokół ustrojów politycznych oraz problematyki praw i wolności człowieka w państwach anglosaskich, zwłaszcza w regionie Australii i Oceanii, konstytucyjnego i prawnomiędzynarodowego statusu współczesnych minipaństw, stosunków międzynarodowych i bezpieczeństwa państw Azji Wschodniej i Pacyfiku, znaczenia geopolityki dla bezpieczeństwa regionalnego oraz relacji transatlantyckich.

Professor Marian Edward Haliżak - political scientist, professor of humanities, academic teacher at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw. In 1975, he graduated from the Institute of International Relations at the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science of the University of Warsaw. In 1980, he obtained a doctoral degree and in 1988, the degree of habilitated doctor in humanities. In 1999 he was awarded the title of professor. He completed internships at American universities: Kent State University (1985), Pittsburg University (1994), University of California, San Diego (1997). In 2011, he became a member of the Political Science Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is also the chairman of the Polish Association for International Studies. He specializes in Asia and the Pacific region.

Emeritus Professor Roberto Rabel is a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies. He has been affiliated to the Centre since retiring from his management role as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International Engagement) at Victoria University of Wellington in 2016 after 10 years overseeing the University’s internationalisation strategies and activities. He holds a BA Honours degree in History and International Politics from Victoria University of Wellington and a PhD in History from Duke University, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1986 to 2006, Professor Rabel taught in the History Department and then held management roles at the University of Otago. His publications include an official history, New Zealand and the Vietnam War: Politics and Diplomacy (2005). He is National Vice-President of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Professor Rabel has previously chaired the Advisory Boards for the Centre for Strategic Studies and the Victoria Institute for Links with Latin America. He was a trustee of the Greater Mekong Subregion Tertiary Education Consortium and served as Establishment Director for the Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence. Professor Rabel holds a Gold Cross of Merit and a “Bene Merito” award for services to Poland abroad from the Polish Government as well as an award “For the Advancement of Vietnam’s Education Cause” from the Vietnamese Government.

Ph.D. Jakub Zajączkowski – Dean's Plenipotentiary for international cooperation and international research projects. Head of the Department of Area and Global Studies, Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw. In 2016–2019, director of the Institute of International Relations at the University of Warsaw.

Dr. Ruairidh J.Brown was born in the Scottish Highlands; he first completed his BA(Hons) in Scottish History and Politics at the University of Stirling. He moved to the University of St Andrews for his postgraduate studies in International Political Theory in 2012,  receiving the St Andrews School of International Relations Scholarship in 2013 and graduating with his PhD in 2017. Ruairidh initially taught politics, philosophy, and history in Scotland whilst completing his PhD. After graduation he took up a position in mainland China, where he was primarily tasked with introducing predominantly mainland Chinese students to a ‘western’ style university education. Ruairidh was awarded the University of Nottingham’s Lord Dearing Award for his success in this endeavor in 2019. Teaching in China also gave Ruairidh a great opportunity to explore and travel, including volunteering in a panda conservation center and teaching young monks in a Nepalese Monastery. He also in this time became a fellow with the Higher Education Academy. Ruairidh joined Forward College in 2021 and has since taught International Political Theory and International Relations at Forward’s Lisbon campus. 

Simone Dossi is an Associate Professor of Political Science (SPS/04), DILHPS – Department of International Legal, Historical and Political Studies, University of Milan. From 01/07/2019 to 30/06/2022 he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science, DILHPS – Department of International Legal, Historical and Political Studies, University of Milan. He earned a PhD D in Political Science at the SUM – Italian Institute of Human Sciences, Florence and MA in International Relations, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Milan.

Dr Csaba István Moldicz, Head of the Center for International Economy, Mathias Corvinus College in Hungary. His field of expertise is Economic Development, Economic Policy Analysis and Developing Countries.

Dr Monique Taylor is a Senior Researcher in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki and Research Affiliate at the Lau China Institute, King's College London. Previously, she was University Lecturer in World Politics at the University of Helsinki, Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, Postdoctoral Fellow at Nanyang Technological University, and Lecturer at the University of Queensland. Monique is a political economy and international relations scholar. Her current research focuses on the geopolitics of technology and the changing security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region. She also has a long-standing interest in China’s political economy, focusing on state capitalism and the political economy of state-owned enterprises, through empirical examination of strategic sectors such as the oil industry and the information and communications technology sector. In other work she has explored China’s digital authoritarianism, the political economy of fintech, and aspects of regionalism and global governance. From 2023-2025, she will be co-coordinator and senior researcher in a €1.5 million Horizon Europe Twinning project called ‘The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region’ (EUVIP), in partnership with Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. Her work has been published in a range of international scholarly journals and edited volumes. In 2014, her first book titled The Chinese State, Oil and Energy Security was published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book received positive reviews in top academic journals including The China Quarterly. Her latest book, China's Digital Authoritarianism: A Governance Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan) was published in August 2022. At the University of Helsinki Monique has been responsible for teaching GPC-E314 Historical Development of Economic Theories in Context, GPC-E312 Explaining the Scope for Differences in Global Political Economy, GPC-E350 and E360 MA Thesis Seminars in Global Polltical Economy, PVK-Y202 Globalization and Global Governance, PVK-M202 Foreign Policy and Security, and PVM-M302 Working Seminar (World Politics).