Lisandra Flach has been director of the Center for International Economics at the ifo Institute, Munich, since July 2020. She is also Professor of Economics at the LMU Munich. After her undergraduate studies in Brazil, she received her PhD from the University of Mannheim in 2012 and was an assistant professor at LMU Munich from 2012 to 2020. She has been a research visitor at Harvard University, Columbia University, University of California San Diego and at the Brazilian Statistical Office.

Hernán D. Seoane has been Associate Professor at the Economics Department of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid since June 2017. Before that, he was Assistant Professor at the same University from 2011. He received his PhD from Duke University in 2011 under the supervision of Professor Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez. His main research focuses on International Macroeconomics and Finance, Bayesian Econometrics and Numerical Methods and his research interest are related to macroeconomic instability episodes in open and emerging economies, sovereign debt crisis and financial fragility.

Vitezslav Titl is an Assistant Professor of Law & Economics at Utrecht University and an affiliated researcher at KU Leuven. He has received his PhD from KU Leuven and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Vitezslav’s research is focused on legal and political aspects of public procurement markets. His work was published in leading academic journals, such as European Economic Review. He also publishes policy-oriented articles in IDEA CERGE-EI studies and VoxEU columns.

Mihály Fazekas is an assistant professor at the Central European University, School of Public Policy, with a focus on using Big Data methods to understand the quality of government globally. He is also the scientific director of an innovative think-tank, the Government Transparency Institute, while serving as a non-resident research fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Johannes Hahn has been the Commissioner for Budget and Administration in the European Commission since 2019. He has been with the Commission since 2010, where he previously served as the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, and the European Commissioner for Regional Policy.

Sebastian Blesse is a researcher at the department of Corporate Taxation and Public Finance at ZEW Mannheim and a PhD candidate at the University of Frankfurt. He studied international economics with a focus on public finance and econometrics at the Universities of Göttingen and Antwerp. His research interests lie in public finance, political economy and applied econometrics. In addition, within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 884 "The Political Economy of Reforms", he studies the decision-making behavior of political decision-makers.

Dr Jörg Kukies has been State Secretary for financial market policy and European policy at the Federal Ministry of Finance since April 2018. He previously spent 14 years with Goldman Sachs International, beginning as an associate in the product development team in London, before becoming Head of Equities Division for Germany and Austria.

Panu Poutvaara’s main research interests are migration, public economics, and political economics. His work has been covered in titles including the Economist, New York Times, Newsweek, the Atlantic, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NPR, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the Sun, the Daily Mail, Wall Street Journal, der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and El Español.

Jennifer has been a journalist in print, radio and television for more than 20 years, the last 10+ specialising in EU policy and legislation in the technology sector — from data protection and privacy to trade agreements; antitrust cases to copyright law; national security to public transparency. Jennifer is originally from Ireland, and after university in Northern Ireland and France, worked in Dublin as a radio journalist. After a few years, she moved to Malta to pursue a career in print media.

Monika Jones is one of Germany's leading bilingual journalists and presenters. As an English speaking news anchor at Germany's global TV broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, she is familiar to a wide international audience, especially in North America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Monika is also one of Germany's leading bilingual presenters of international conferences and business events. Her regular clients include top multinational companies, government ministries, European institutions and NGOs.