Cathy Xi Cao is an International development professional specialised in policy analysis (topics range from Migration, South South and Triangular Cooperation, China's development cooperation, Belt and Road Initiative), project management, strategy and partnership development. Experience includes two assignments with UNDP and IFAD, and field work/frontline social work in NGOs across Hong Kong, Singapore, Greece, and France. She was a scholar of Erasmus Mundus MA Advanced Development in Social Work (2015-2017), European Forum Alpbach (Austria) 2016 and Damasiswa Program (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) 2012. She received a Master of Social Science in Social Work degree in The Chinese University of Hong Kong(2010-2012) and a Bachelor of Management in Wuhan University of Science and Technology (2006-2010). She is passionate on forced migration, green social work, environmental justice, and sustainable development.

Professor Paul Spicker is a writer and commentator on social policy, covering issues of poverty, social protection and service delivery, and a Fellow of CROP. He is the author of 18 books, including Social Policy: Theory and Practice, The Welfare State and Arguments for Welfare. His website, An Introduction to Social Policy (http://spicker.uk/social-policy) is widely used internationally.

I am an associate professor of social work and the Executive Director of the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice at the University of Iowa in the United States. I conduct research on child welfare services and human services workforce issues. In the School of Social Work I teach courses in child welfare policy and practice (on-line), as well as research and organizational theory. I am happy to be a part of this network.

Jef Peeters, PhD sciences and MA philosophy, is a retired lecturer of Leuven University College (Belgium) where he has taught chemistry, ecology, philosophy of science and technology, social philosophy, social ethics and professional ethics. He is member of the independent Oikos, think-tank for social-ecological change. From 2005 till 2010 he headed a research project ‘Orientation of social work towards sustainable development’, he still continues as a volunteer researcher of the group Social Policy and Social Work of the University of Leuven, and of the Center for Citizenship and Participation (UC Leuven-Limburg). This resulted, in addition to some articles, in two books in Dutch language about this issue: A resilient society. Social work and sustainable development (2010) and Resilience and Citizenship. Social Work in Transition (2015). His current focus is on the relation between social-ecological concepts such as ‘resilience’ and politics and social change, and on the meaning of commons for a change oriented social work practice.