Biekpe is currently Professor of Development Finance and Econometrics, and Program Director of the MCom in Development Finance at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. He is also President of Africagrowth Institute and Executive Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Development Finance. He has an MSc in Applied Statistics and Operational Research (London) and PhD in International Finance (Queens, UK). Biekpe is a Chartered Statistician and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain and a Chartered Scientist of the Science Council of the United Kingdom. He is the Executive Editor of the African Finance Journal, Executive Editor of Review of Development Finance and Managing Editor Africagrowth Agenda Journal and Managing Editor of the Development Finance Agenda Magazine. Biekpe is a member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (ASSAf), a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (FAAS) and a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

BouJaoude joined the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1993 where he is now professor of science education. At AUB he served as chairman of the Department of Education, director of the Science and Math Education Center, and is now director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. He has published in local, regional, and international education journals, written chapters in books in English and Arabic, and co-edited a book on science education in the Arab States. He serves on the editorial boards of regional and international science education journals and has been a presenter at local, regional and international science education conferences. He has also served as international coordinator, National Association for Research in Science Teaching, and is a member of the executive board, Supreme Education Council, State of Qatar.

Cerda is prof. at the College of Business Administration, U. de Talca, Talca, Chile. He obtained his PhD (1991), MSc (1989), and MBA (1991) at Oregon State U., USA. At the U. de Talca, he is Director of The Graduate School (University of Talca) and former dean of Faculty of Economic and Business Administration and served as dir. of the Entrepreneurial Development Center. He was also head of the Department of Economics and director of the Center of Resource Economics and Master Degree Program on Environmental and Resource Economics at the Univ. de Concepción, Chile. He is the leading environmental and resource economist in Latin America. His work on the theory and practice of valuation of environmental and econometrics is world class. He has also been instrumental in building capacity in environmental economics in Latin America and was president of the Latin American and the Caribbean Assoc. of Environmental and Natural Resources Economics (2007-09).

Cheung (PhD, University of Minnesota 1975; BA, UC Berkeley 1970) is currently Emeritus Professor and formerly Choh-ming Li Professor of Psychology and Vice-President (Research), Chinese University of Hong Kong; Founder, Gender Research Centre at CUHK; Past-President and Fellow of International Test Commission, Board of Directors of International Association of Applied Psychology; Fellow of American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and Hong Kong Psychological Society. Academic awards include IAAP Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology, Distinguished International Psychologist Award of APA Division 52, and Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals from the University of Minnesota. She served as Founding Chairperson of Hong Kong Equal Opportunities Commission. Community honours include Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) and Silver Bauhinia Star Award from the HKSAR Government.

Chopra (PhD, Delhi School of Economics,1969). She was formerly director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, where she was professor (1980-2009). She has been on the editorial and policy boards of several international journals including Environment and Development Economics, and Ecological Economics, and was Senior Associate of the Ecological and Environmental Economics Programme hosted by the ICTP, Trieste, Italy (2002-2006). She was member, Assessment Panel of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2001-2005) and co-chair of its Working Group on Response Options. She is a fellow of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm and of the South Asia Network of Development and Environmental Economics. She was President of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (2010-2012 and 1998-2000) and President of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics (2004). Currently, she co-edits " Ecology, Economy and Society: the Journal of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics

Anthony Clayton is the Professor of Caribbean Sustainable Development at the University of the West Indies, Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey and Affiliated Scholar at Florida International University. He was formerly a Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh, Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology (Jamaica), and an International Associate at the University of St Andrews. He is a Fellow of the Caribbean Academy of Sciences and Distinguished Fellow of the Caribbean Association of Eastern European Trained Professionals. He has over thirty years of international experience in policy development in national security and policing, energy security, environment and resources, and planning and development. He is the Chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica. In 2015 he was awarded Jamaica's Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander.

Dasgupta is Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Univ. of Cambridge and fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Memberships include: fellow, British Academy and the Royal Society; member, Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; hon. fellow, London School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge, for. hon. member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; for. assoc., US National Academy of Sciences; and for. member, American Philosophical Society and Royal Swedish Academy of Science. His honours include: Volvo Environment Prize (2002), John Kenneth Galbraith Prize of the American Agricultural Economics Association (2007), Zayed International Prize for the Environment (2011), Blue Planet Prize (2015), and Tyler Prize (2016). He was made Knight Bachelor in 2002, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by, among other universities, University of Bologna in 2012 and Harvard University in 2013.

Ghosh is Distinguished James McGill Prof. and Macdonald Prof. of Education, McGill University, Montréal, Canada. Dean of Education (1998-­‐2003), she is Fellow, Royal Society of Canada (chaired the Standing Committee: Advancement for Women in Scholarship for two terms); Member, Order of Canada (2000); Officer, Order of Quebec (2005); and Full Member, European Acad. of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Paris (1999). A recipient of several national and international awards she is past pres., American Comparative and International Education Society (2011-­‐12) and former pres., Shastri Indo-­‐Canadian Institute (1988-­‐90). Her research spans Asia, Africa, Latin America and Canada. Author of several books including Education and the Politics of Difference (2004, 2013), Redefining Multicultural Education (1996, 2004, 2014), on editorial boards of several international journals, and was featured in Time Magazine, Canadian Ed., (13.10.2003) in an article on 'Canada's Best in Education'. Her current research on the role of education in countering violent extremism (religious and right-wing) has resulted in several important publications, grants, conference presentations and keynote speeches.

Gingrich is full professor at the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Real member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and Director of the Institute for Social Anthropology of the ÖAW. Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Member of the Publishing House Committee of the ÖAW. He obtained his PhD in 1979 at the University of Vienna. He has served as a Delegate in the Assembly of the Austrian Science Fund. He was a founding member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and he was a Panel Chair for the European Research Council, Advanced Grant SH2. His awards include the Wittgenstein Prize, City of Vienna Award in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Cultural and Legal Studies.

Hassan holds BSC (1977) & MSC (1983) in Agric Econ from Univ of Khartoum, Sudan & MSC (1988) and PhD (1989) in Economics from Iowa State Univ. He is the ex-director of the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA), at the University of Pretoria and previously held positions with CSIR in South Africa, and CIMMYT International. He has served as member of the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP); Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Science Committee; CGIAR Science Council (ISPC); Human Sciences Research Council of SA; CGIAR Climate Change Challenge Program (CCCP) Board; Academic Advisory Panel for The World Development Report on Climate Change; Board of Stockholm Resilience Centre; GEF Science and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP IV); Science Panel of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. His honours include, member, Academy of Sciences of South Africa (since 2005); University of Pretoria Chancellor Medal for Research (2011); Four times Univ. of Pretoria “Achiever: Academic Excellence” (2005 to 2014). He is founding chief editor of the African Journal of Agric. and Resource Economics and has published more than 140 refereed publications including 12 books.

Dr. Jikun Huang is Professor at School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences and Honorary Director of China Center for Agricultural Policy (CCAP) and Director of New Rural Development Institute in Peking University, Fellow TWAS, Honorary Life Member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), and Fellow of Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). He is vice-president of Chinese Association of Agro-technology Economics. He received his BS degree from Nanjing Agricultural University in 1984 and PhD in agricultural economics from University of the Philippines at Los Banos in 1990. His research covers a wide range of issues on China's agricultural economics, policies and rural development. He received Award for China’s Outstanding Youth Scientists in 2002, Outstanding Achievement Award for Overseas Returning Chinese in 2003, Fudan Prize for Eminent Contributor to Management Science in 2008, and IRRI’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 2010. He has published more than 600 journal papers, including the papers published in Science, Nature and many leading journals in development economics. He is co-author of 20 books.

Mihajlo Jakovljevic MD PhD MAE is the only representative of Serbia ever elected in UNESCO-TWAS Academy Membership. Since 2018, he is appointed to top tier EACHR Committee, World Health Organization. Holds Professorship at Hosei University Tokyo, Japan, funded by the JSPS; Expert Affiliate of the Center for Health Trend and Forecasts, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington since 2016; held Forte-funded Senior Visiting position at Lund University, Sweden, 2018-2020. He published app.300 papers in refeered journals (72,000 citations, Hirsch factor 64). In 2015, he was the first ever nominated candidate based in Eastern Europe for the elections of the International Health Economics Association Board of Directors. In Editor-in-Chief capacity he leads prestigious CERA, BMC journal (IF=2.803) Founding Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Health Economics 2016 - 2021 (IF=6.461). Ordinary Fellow of Academia Europaea, London as the first representative of Serbia Elected to the Section Clinical and Veterinary Medicine amongst app. 800 members. Jakovljevic’s long term focus remains on health financing and affordability issues in the emerging global markets.

Yansui Liu is the TWAS Fellow, GSC Fellow, Top 1% Scientist, TWAS Prize awardee(2018), the Global Highly Cited Researchers since 2018, Associate Editor of Land Use Policy; Professor of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the University of CAS; Chair, International Geographical Union’s Commission on Agricultural Geography and Land Engineering(IGU-AGLE); Chair, ANSO-Alliance of Poverty Reduction and Development (ANSO-APRD); Director General, Center for Assessment and Research on Targeted Poverty Alleviation, CAS, and China Urban-Rural Development Think Tank Alliance; the Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of Beijing Normal University, Honorary advisory board member of the Universal Scientific Education and Research Network. He is also the Head of Specialist Group for Third-party Assessment on the Effectiveness of Targeted Poverty Alleviation, Modern land engineering and Rural Revitalization in China. His prizes include China’s National Excellent Scientist Award, the second award of the Scientific and Technological Progress of the State，and National Innovation Award for Overcoming Poverty, among many others.

Lu is a Chair Professor of Xiamen Uni., former Co-Director, Res. Center for Eco-Environmental Scs., Chinese Acad. of Scs.. He is a foreign member of Academia Europaea, and Russian Academy of Sciences; Fellow of Int. Sci Coucil; 10-Member Group of UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism for SDGs; Pres., Pacific Science Association; Past Pres., Scientific Committee on Problems of the Env. (SCOPE); Sc. Advisor, IUCN; UNEP Intl. Resource Panel member; and was a member of ICSU Committee on Scientific Planning and Review. He has authored +360 papers in envl. ecology and envl. management related peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Science, Science Advances, PNAS and authored 17 books. He is a highly cited international scientist. He is founding Editor-in-Chief of Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, Assoc. Ed. of Sc. Advances, founder and Assoc. Ed. of Envl. Dev., and an editorial board member of several peer-reviewed journals. He has served on several expert consultation groups on Sc. and Tech., and envl. decision-making at various levels. Lu has obtained numerous awards and honours including the 2nd Natl. Prize for Advancement of Sc. and Tech., and SCOPE Dist. Achievement Award.

Munasinghe is founder chairman, Munasinghe Inst. for Development; Chairman, Presidential Expert Committee on Sustainable Sri Lanka 2030 Vision; distinguished guest prof., Peking Univ; and hon. senior adviser, Sri Lanka Govt. He has degrees in physics, engg. and economics from Cambridge U., UK; MIT, USA, and McGill and Concordia U., Canada. He was sr. energy adviser to the Pres. of Sri Lanka; advisor, US President's Council on Envir. Quality; sr. adviser/director, World Bank; vice chair, Intergov. Panel on Climate Change; chairman, Computer and Inf. Tech. Council, Sri Lanka; and chancellor, Int. Water Acad., Oslo. He shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and won many major research awards, incl. 2021 Blue Planet Prize Laureate; Eminence in Engineering; award, Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, 2014; Lifetime outstanding achievement in energy award from President of Sri Lanka, 2016; Officer of French Legion of Honour decoration from French President, 2018; and highest national award "Deshmanya" from Sri Lanka President, 2019. He has authored over 120 scientific books and 350 papers. He is fellow of 10 science academies, and editorial board member of 21 journals.

Reis is Prof. of Political Sociology at the Federal U. of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She obtained her BA (sociology) and MA (political science) in Brazil and her PhD (political science) from MIT. She has been visiting professor at several universities including UC San Diego, Columbia U., MIT, and the Ludwig Maximilian Universität, Munich. She chairs the Interdisciplinary Res. Network on Inequality (NIED) at UFRJ. She is former president of the Natl. Ass. for the Social Sciences. (ANPOCS); former secretary general of Brazilian Sociological Society; she has also served in the Executive Committee of both the International Political Science Association (1988-1994) and the International Sociological Association (2006-2010), and was vice-president of the International Science Council (2018-2021).

Trindade Lima has been President of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) since 2017, the first woman in this position in its 120 years of history. From 2011–2016 she was Vice-President of Education, Information and Communication of Fiocruz. She holds a PhD in Sociology and a master’s degree in political science. She is a Senior Researcher at Fiocruz’s Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, and a Professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. She is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and has authored books and articles with an emphasis on Brazilian social thinking, history of ideas in public health, and the Brazilian processes of construction of the National State. She established a Fiocruz Strategy on 2030 Agenda, which incorporates the UN document into its strategic development and work programme in all fields. She has coordinated the Fiocruz institutional efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Committee, and co-chaired the Economic Recovery Steering Group of the UN Research Roadmap for the recovery of COVID-19. She was awarded in September 2021 the degree of Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honor of France.

van Ginkel is a social scientist with special interest in the application of geographical knowledge in society. He was rector, UNU, Tokyo, Japan and Under Secretary-General of the UN 1997-2007; longest serving Dutch univ. rector, Utrecht Univ., 1986-97; and member, Social Sciences Council, KNAW, 1990-98. His interests include urban and regional planning, public housing, housing markets and public administration. He has prepared and led thematic debates on higher education and sustainable human development. He is a member of Academia Europea; KNAG and hon. fellow, Intl. Training Ctr. for Geo-Info. Sciences and Remote Sensing, ITC, Enschede. He received a Knighthood, Order of the Netherlands Lion, 1994; Order of the Rising Sun, Grand Cordon, Japan, 2007; and 5 hon. doctorates (Cluj, Rumania; Sacramento-Cal., USA; Accra, Ghana; Zvolen, Slovakia; Mc.Master, Canada). He is board chair, Inst. of Social Sciences, ISS, The Hague, and board chair, German Ctr. for Dev. Research, ZEF, Bonn.

Von Braun is Distinguished Professor (em.) for Economic and Technological Change at Bonn University, Germany, in the Center for Development Research (ZEF). His research is on economic development, science and technology policy, poverty reduction, food and nutrition security, agriculture, resource economics, climate, and trade. He is President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Vatican, and of various academies of science. In 2020 and 2021 he served as Chair of the Scientific Group for the Food Systems Summit 2021 of the UN Secretary General. From 2002 to 2009, he was Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) based in Washington DC, USA. He was elected as President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), and received several national and international honors and awards.

Wang (PhD 1986, Inst. of Systems Sci., CAS) is a Changjiang Chair prof., Acad. of Math. and Systems Sci., Chinese Acad. of Sci. (CAS) in Beijing, chief economist and founding director of the Center for Forecasting Sci., CAS, and Dean of School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is/was president of Intl. Soc. of Knowledge and Systems Sci., and pres. of China Soc. of Systems Eng., a vice pres. of the Chinese Acad. of Mgt. and an advisor of several ministries of China. His honours include research fellow, Dutch Royal Acad. of Sciences, 1987-88; Croucher Foundation fellow, Hong Kong, 1993; China Sci and Tech Prize for Young Scientists, 1994; Japan Sci. Promotion Soc. fellow, 1994; foreign prof. of Tsukuba U. Japan, 2000-01, 2003-04; Fudan Prize of Mgt., 2008; Chairmanship Award of Intl. Soc. of Multiple Criteria Decision Making, 2009; Academician, Intl. Acad. of Systems and Cybernetics Sci., Wien, 2010 and Scott Award, Moskow,2014.

Yang (PhD) is a professor, Institute of Psychology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has been working on psycholinguistics and comparative studies between language and music processing, with over 200 papers published on journals in the fields of psychology, linguistic sciences and cognitive neurosciences. She is a member of Standing Committee, and Fellow, Chinese Psychological Society; member of Division of Phonetics, Chinese Society of Linguistics; President, Society of Neurolinguistics, Society for Chinese Language Modernization (2020-2022). She was Director, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1997-2006; President of Chinese Psychological Society, 2009-2013; Chief-editor for Acta Psycologica Sinica, 2006-2009, and Advances in Psychological Sciences, 1997-2006. She received awards: National Excellent Scientist from China Association of Science and Technology, 2014; Life span achievements, 2015, and Achievements in academic development, 2016, from Chinese Psychological Society.

Zeng (PhD, 1986, Brussels Free University; Post-doc 1986-1987, Princeton University) is tenured professor of National School of Development at Peking University, Honorary Director of Center for Healthy Aging and Development Study at Peking University. He is also tenured professor of Center for Study of Aging and Human Development and Geriatric Division, School of Medicine, and Director of Center for Chinese Population and Socioeconomic Studies, Duke University. He is a foreign member of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Distinguished Research Scholar of Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany. Up to July 2021, he published 369 articles (196 in English,173 in Chinese) and 31 academic books (11 in English, 20 in Chinese); he submitted 51 policy reports to government agencies; his articles/books have been cited over 14,354 times in other scholars’ publications, his h-index is 54 and i10-index is 174; he was awarded 4 international academic prizes and 16 national academic prizes.