Patrick Saez is a senior policy fellow on loan from the UK’s Department for International Development where he serves as a Senior Humanitarian Adviser. His research focuses on the international response to humanitarian crises and reform of the international humanitarian system. Over the past decade he has advised the UK Government on a range of humanitarian policy issues, including protection of civilians and forced displacement, leadership in the humanitarian system, cash transfers in crises, and risk-based financing as well as DFID’s engagement with key UN, Red Cross, and other non-governmental humanitarian organisations. He co-authored the UK’s Strategy on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict and authored the latest UK Humanitarian Reform Policy. He was DFID’s lead adviser on the Syria crisis from the onset of the crisis to 2015 and was responsible for DFID’s £135m core humanitarian funding to the UN. Most recently he led DFID’s initial response to the crisis in Venezuela and its impact on neighbouring countries. Saez previously worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross where he headed the development of ICRC’s policy on the protection of civilians and served as delegate, protection co-ordinator and head of office in Colombia, Kosovo and Indonesia. He had previously worked with humanitarian NGOs in the Balkans, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sheffield. My book Hyper-active Governance shows why an inclusive approach to policy expertise is important for ensuring legitimate and effective policy decisions.

I am currently a Lecturer with the Singapore University of Social Sciences teaching climate science and its impacts on society. I had graduated with my PhD from the Australian National University where I examined the institutional and societal factors behind individuals' environmental valuations. Prior to this, I had worked briefly as a Researcher at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) writing on international trade among APEC economies, and had previously been a Research Assistant examining European countries' external debt at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), National University of Singapore (NUS). Earlier, I had obtained my Master in Public Policy degree from the LKYSPP after a stint with the Energy Market Authority, Government of Singapore. My undergraduate degree is in Political Science where I graduated with First Class Honors from the NUS before I became a Teaching Assistant upon invitation.

Demetrios Sarantis is Postdoctoral Fellow at UNU-EGOV. Demetrios graduated in Electrical and Computer Engineering by the National Technical University of Athens, holds a MSc in Operational Research and Information Systems from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD in e-Government from the National Technical University of Athens. He has been employed in software industry and in the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT), deploying and managing information systems and services and supporting database information infrastructures. He has also worked as researcher in e-Government Unit in Decision Systems Laboratory of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), participating in national and international research projects, in the areas of Government Transformation, Interoperability Frameworks, eParticipation, eGovernment, Process Modelling and Re-engineering in Public Sector. He has worked as researcher in Yale University (USA) in the area of Ontology Data Modelling in Biomedicine. His current research interests are Data Modelling-Ontologies, e-Governance. Public Administration, Information Systems Interoperability and Smart Cities.