Serhan Ada is an Assistant Professor at the faculty of Art and Cultural Management Department since 25 years, and Director of Cultural Policy and Management Research Center at İstanbul Bilgi University. He is also the Head of UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Cultural Diplomacy of the same university. Ada has been a visiting professor in various universities in Paris, Barcelona, Lyon, Beirut, Turin, Hildesheim, Venice, Warwick and New Jersey. Ada is the chief editor of Cultural Policy Yearbook a bi-lingual journal published in English and Turkish and the editor and writer of the books titled Introduction to Cultural Policy in Turkey (2009) and also Turkish Cultural Policy Report: A Civil Perspective (2011) focusing on the civil society’s perspective on cultural policy in Turkey. Ada has written extensively on cultural policy, cities and art theory. Between 2012-2022, he collaborated to Izmir Mediterranean Academy as Culture Coordinator. He works as an expert of the Culture Committee of UCLG. He also collaborated to Istanbul European Capital of Culture (2010) as Urban Culture and Big Events Director and has been the founding director of santralistanbul (2007) a derelict power plant of the Ottoman state transformed into an arts, culture and education center in Istanbul.

Ada is a member of the Scientific Board of the UNESCO Regional Bureau in Venice since December 2022.

He also writes poetry and essays. Lately in 2021 he was the curator of the retrospective exhibition of the American-Lebanese artist Etel Adnan “The Impossible Homecoming” in Pera Museum, Istanbul.

Born in Muğla in 1954, Raşit Çavaş has worked for various publishing houses since 1972. Apart from his short-term copywriting, he worked as a proofreader, reductor, editor in publishing houses, and worked as a manager and article writer in dictionaries and encyclopedias (AnaBritannica and Turkish Historical Society’s Istanbul Encyclopedia).

Çavaş worked at the Süleymaniye Library between the years 1975-1976 and at the Istanbul Atatürk Cultural Center between 1978-1980. In 2005, he left his job as the Editor-in-Chief of Oğlak Publications, which he founded with his partner in 1993.

Serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Yapı Kredi Publications (YKY) between 2005 and 2013, Çavaş has published about 1500 books and created serials.

During his years at YKY, he initiated the establishment of Koç University Press and acted as a consultant to the Editorial Board. Between 2020-2022, he founded a publishing house at Izmir University of Economics, built the corporate identity of the publishing house, and published books.

He has been working as the Editor-in-Chief of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Publications since the fall of 2022. Cavas is a devoted Tax Willer fan.

Güven Eken graduated from Ege University, Faculty of Medicine in 1996. Between 2002 and 2004, he worked as the Ecological Networks Coordinator at BirdLife International in the Netherlands. Between 2004 and 2014, Eken served as the general manager and then the president of Doğa Foundation. Between 2001 and 2005, he worked as the nature editor of Atlas Magazine and editor of Yeşil Atlas. He worked as a columnist for Radikal Newspaper from 2009 and 2012.

The Key Biodiversity Areas approach, which Eken and his colleagues devised in 2004 and published in BioScience magazine, was adopted by IUCN (World Union for the Conservation of Nature) in 2016 as the international standard for determining the protected natural areas.

Through a 2004 publication, Eken established that Anatolia was counted as one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots. Key Biodiversity Areas of Turkey, a two-volume inventory edited by Eken, was published by Doğa Foundation in 2006.

Eken, who contributed to the support of opinion leaders to Doğa Foundation, contributed to the development of the movement against dams and hydroelectric power plants in Turkey, especially in Hasankeyf. He was selected as one of Turkey’s difference makers in May 2011 due to his work on nature.

Eken, who published four books and many articles, founded Seferihisar Nature School in 2013 with the partnership of Doğa Foundation and Seferihisar Municipality. Since 2019, he has been working as the Consular to the Mayor in Izmir Metropolitan Municipality.

Eken carries out studies on the planning of circular cultural cities within the scope of his duty at Izmir Metropolitan Municipality.

Thierry Fabre is an essayist, researcher and exhibition curator. Rencontres d’Averroès, which he founded in 1994, invites a wide audience of researchers, historians and thinkers to think about contemporary, historical and international issues every November in Marseille.

He was the director of the Mediterranean Program of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IMéRA) at the University of Aix-Marseille until 2023.

He was the general curator of the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations’s (MuCEM) opening exhibition “Le Noir et le Bleu. Un rêve méditerranéen” [Black and Blue. A Mediterranean dream], the editor-in-chief of La Pensée de midi magazine and the director of at Actes Sud Publishing’s BLUE collection.

He is the author of numerous texts, books, catalogs and articles inspired by the Mediterranean.

Hanane Hajj Ali is an actress, author, and cultural activist, as well as a prominent figure on the Lebanese cultural and artistic scene.  As a researcher, she has contributed to the writing and editing of numerous works, including “Introduction to Cultural Policies in the Arab World” and “Theatre of Beirut”.

Hajj Ali is a founder and member of the board of directors of several cultural institutions and artistic organizations such as “Culture Resource” [Al Mawred Athaqafi], “Action for Hope” and “Ettijahate”.

In 2015, she was elected a member of the UNESCO Expert Fund for “the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. In 2017, she was decorated “Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters” by the French Ministry of Culture.

Her latest performance, “Jogging”, was awarded the “Vertebra Prize for Best Actor” at the Fringe / Edinburgh International Festival. In addition to her artistic activity, Hanane Hajj Ali teaches in the theatrical studies department of the Institute for Stage, Audiovisual and Cinematographic Studies (IESAV) at Saint Joseph University.

Sarp Keskiner has been writing, recording and designing content since 1994. He has also been composing and producing music for theater plays, radio dramas, documentaries and contemporary art projects since late 90’s.

As an editor and journalist, some of the independent cultural institutions that Keskiner had contributed to their establishment or continuity are as follows; Radioactive, Açık Radyo, ROLL, Express, REC, Rock World, Karga Magazine and Sanatatak. He has released more than thirty albums up to this date; as well as running numerous bands as a founder member.

Since 1996, Keskiner has been developing programs based on resource and audience development, networking, strengthening accessibility to culture, sustainable content development and continuity in documentation, with various initiatives, collectives and associations of which he is a founding member and director. Currently he provides consultancy to independent initiatives, cultural venues, publications, non-governmental organizations and local governments, operating in various cities in cooperation with national and international networks of which he is a member of.

Elif Kocabıyık Savasta is an instructor at Izmir University of Economics Department of Industrial Design. She received her Ph.D. degree from Istanbul Technical University Department of Industrial Product Design (2012) and was a visiting researcher at Sheffield Hallam University in the academic year of 2008-2009.

Her research interests include the historical, cultural and social context of design, design policy, theory and methodology in design. Her research focuses on the design culture and evolution of everyday objects and methods of working with collections.

She has undertaken various tasks and organised events to increase the design culture and capacity of Izmir on an international scale: Agrindustrial Design conferences, Izmir’s World Design Capital application, World Design Talks Co-living Izmir event, World Industrial Design Day celebration events, Good Design Izmir events.

She was the chairperson of Industrial Designers’ Society of Turkey Izmir

Ioanna Kuçuradi was born on October 4, 1936 in Istanbul. She graduated from Zapyon Girls’ High School in 1954 and attended Istanbul University’s Department of Philosophy in 1959. She received her Ph.D. in 1965. Kuçuradi worked as an Assisant Professor at Erzurum Atatürk University between the years 1965-1968.  She became Associate Professor of Philosophy in 1970 and Professor in 1978.

She was appointed to Hacettepe University in 1968. She served as the Head of the Department of Philosophy, from the year it was founded in 1969 until her retirement in 2003. She was the Founding Director of the Centre for Research and Application of the Philosophy of Human Rights, Hacettepe University (1997-2005). She is the holder of the UNESCO Chair on Philosophy and Human Rights since 1998.

Appointed to Maltepe University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy in 2006, Kuçuradi is the Director of the Human Rights Research and Application Center and the Head of the Human Rights Department of the same University. She has been the president of the Philosophical Society of Turkey since 1979.

She is the president of the Philosophy Committee of the UNESCO National Commission in Turkey.

Prof. Eyüp Özveren graduated from the Economics Department of the Middle East Technical University (METU). He completed his graduate studies at the State University of New York-Binghamton. He worked at the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations of the same university. He received his Ph.D. degree (1990) with his thesis “An Ottoman Port City: Beirut, Its Land and the World Economy in the Nineteenth-Century.”

He worked as a faculty member at METU from 1991 until his retirement in 2018. He was a visiting researcher and professor at Atatürk Institute for the Study of Modern Turkey at Boğaziçi University, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris, France) and Institüt für Interkulturelle und Internationale Studien, Bremen Universität (Germany).

As of the 1990s, he took part in major international networks and events in the field of Mediterranean Studies, and contributed to the field with numerous publications in Turkish and English in history, literature and art. Among these are “Port-Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, 1800-1914” he co-edited with Çağlar Keyder and Donald Quataert as a special issue of Review, a journal of the Fernand Braudel Center (1993), as well as his outlier transdisciplinary work, Akdeniz’de Bir Doğu (An Orient in the Mediterranean, in Turkish, Dost Publishing House, Ankara, 2000).

He also has several publications on İzmir. The book Mediterranean Port Cities: Connectivity in Modern Times, he co-edited with Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu and Tülin Selvi Ünlü will be published by Springer in 2023.

Zeyno Pekünlü (b. 1980, Izmir) She obtained her M.A. from University of Barcelona, her Ph.D. from Mimar Sinan University. She is currently running Public Programmes of Istanbul Biennail, Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Program (ÇAP) and the Istanbul Cell of Fellowship for Situated Practice organized by BAK Utrecht. She is part of the editorial board of e-journal Red Thread and member of IRI (Institute of Radical Imagination). Together with artist Köekn Ergun she is co-founder of the initiative KIRIK.

Scanning a range of issues, from the construction of maleness and femaleness as gender roles to questioning knowledge and its distribution, her works aims to decipher “power” that encompasses the intimate and the social simultaneously. Her important shows include; 2022 The Real Show, CAC Brétigny, 2021 Once Upon a Time Inconceivable, Protocinema/ This Place, Yapı Kredi Arts and Culture/   39th EVA International-Ireland’s Biennial, 2020 Artists in Quarantine, The museum confederation L’Internationale, 2016-2017 Institute for New Feeling, Artist Film International/White Chapel Gallery/Hammer Museum/MAAT/Istanbul Modern Museum, 2016 Zeyno Pekünlü, SALT Ulus, 2015 Istanbul: Passion, Joy, Fury, MAXXI Museum/ Salt Water, 14^th Istanbul Biennial/ Neither Back Nor Forward: Acting in the Present, Jakarta Biennale/ Every Inclusion is an Exclusion of Other Possibilities, SALT Beyoglu/ Sights and Sounds: Turkey, Jewish Museum, New York

Catarina Vaz Pinto holds a Law degree from the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP), Lisbon (1983), and a post-graduation degree in European Studies from the College of Europe, Bruges (1986).

She previously was the State Secretary for Culture (1997-2000) and assistant to the Minister of Culture (1995-1997) in the government of Portugal. She has been Deputy-Mayor for Culture of the Lisbon City Council for 12 years (2009-2021), and served as the executive manager of the Gulbenkian Creativity and Artistic Creation Program/Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2003-2007).

Vaz Pinto is a cultural manager and independent consultant in the areas of cultural policy and development, cultural and artistic education, and a member of the European Cultural Foundation Supervisory Board since 2021.

Dr. Dea Vidović obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative literature and Indology from the University of Zagreb in 2012. With over twenty years of experience, she has worked as a manager, researcher, editor, and journalist. She has published professional and scientific articles and books, edited publications, participated in international conferences and public events, collaborated with various organizations and experts in Croatia and abroad, led and implemented international projects.

She has been the Director of Kultura Nova Foundation since 2012. She has taught cultural policy at the University of Zagreb’s Academy of Dramatic Arts, and since 2016, she has been teaching at the Zagreb School of Business.

Her interests span several fields, including governance, democratic innovation, cultural democracy, cultural participation, cultural adaptation, and environmental transition, systemic change, and post-growth economy.

She currently serves as a Vice-President of the European Network on Cultural Management and Policy (ENCATC) Board and Chief of Philea’s Art and Culture Thematic Collaboration.

Prof. Dr. Koray Velibeyoğlu is a professor and head of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Izmir Institute of Technology. After completing his undergraduate studies at Dokuz Eylül University, Department of City and Regional Planning (1994), he received his master’s (1998) and doctorate (2004) degrees at İzmir Institute of Technology. He completed his post-doctoral studies at METU Department of City and Regional Planning (2005) and Griffith University- Brisbane (2006).

Areas of his research are urban design, rural and regional planning, and urban theory and planning theories. The main foci of his research are knowledge management, asset based community development, nature-based solutions and smart cities.

Professor Velibeyoglu completed two EU-funded H2020 projects entitled “UrbanGreenUP: New Strategy for Re-Naturing Cities through Nature-Based Solutions” and “RURITAGE: Rural regeneration through systemic heritage-led strategies”. He also works as researcher in new Horizon Europe projects including EHHUR, Re-Value and CARDIMED.

Ümit Yalçın was born in Ankara in 1967. He graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of International Relations in 1989.

Yalçın joined the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1989, and served at the Rotterdam Turkish Consulate General and Baghdad and Moscow Embassies. He served as Consul General at the Plovdiv Turkish Consulate General between 2005-2009 and at the Turkish Consulate General in Dubai between 2009-2012. During this period, he also worked in various political departments (Eastern and Western Europe and Middle East Departments, and Special Advisor to the Minister) at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Appointed as the Turkish Ambassador to Kuwaiti in 2012, Yalçın was given the role of Deputy Undersecretary for North Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2016 and 2018.

Ümit Yalçın served as the Turkish Ambassador to the United Kingdom between 2018 and 2023.