Dr. Cara Blaisdell is a Lecturer in Early Years Education at the University of Strathclyde. She is an experienced early years practitioner whose work focuses on children's rights and early learning and childcare. She is particularly interested in exploring how young children's voice, agency and contributions to social life are recognized, and how recognition occurs within interdependent social relationships. She also works on methodology and ethics in research with children.

I work in the Department of Social and Policy Science in the University of Bath (UK). My expertise is in comparative social policy analysis and the political economy of welfare and its governance, both nationally and trans-nationally. I have been conducting research and have published extensively on conceptual and empirical aspects of familistic welfare regimes, especially on the socio-political impact of austerity measures following the sovereign debt crisis in Southern Europe, as well as in East/South East Asia and South America. My current research focuses on how the role of the family as a collective socio-economic actor is institutionalized in the political economy of welfare. I am an Executive Board Member (elected) of the Social Policy Association (UK), Editorial Board Member (elected) of the 'Journal of Social Policy', Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Scientific Review 'Social Cohesion and Development', Scientific Committee Member of the 'Greek Review of Social Research'.

Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé works with the questions of fair and sustainable urban futures at an independent Nordic think tank called Demos Helsinki. With her colleagues at the Urban Transformations team, she aims to enable future-proof cities through progressive coalitions of the current urban era. Kaisa has a research background in Urban Studies. In her dissertation she studied the tension between urban development megaprojects and place-based regeneration.

Jessica is a Research Assistant with the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath. She provides assistance to the Research Programme Lead and Director of the IPR across a range of current and developing research projects and initiatives. She is currently working on data-driven policy initiatives in Mongolia. https://www.bath.ac.uk/profiles/ipr-research-assistant-jessica-lloyd-evans/