Resilient Communities Empowered by Collective Intelligence

Professor Remus PRICOPIE,

Rector of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania.

Remus PRICOPIE served as Minister of National Education from December 2012 to December 2014. His activity within the Romanian Ministry of National Education began in 1996, and includes positions such as Spokesperson, Secretary General and Deputy Minister – (Secretary of State) for Higher Education, International Relations and Teacher Training. Professor Pricopie is a communication professor and Rector of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, since March 2012. He holds a PhD in Political Science at SNSPA and is a Millennium Fulbright alumnus. His educational background includes a rich international experience especially in the United States of America and European Union.

Dr. Remus Pricopie has been Chair of the Task Force on Fostering and Building Human Capital (FBHC) of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and President of the Board of Directors of the Romanian-US Fulbright Commission, to name just a few of the significant activities of representation he carried out during his professional career. The activity of Remus Pricopie encompasses trans-disciplinary research in the areas of higher education management, internationalization of higher education, public communication, public participation and collaborative public management.

H. E. Tamar BERUCHASHVILI

Ambassador of Georgia in Bucharest, Romania

H. E. Tamar BERUCHASHVILI, is a distinguished diplomat and academic with an extensive career in both the diplomatic and academic spheres. She currently serves as the Ambassador of Georgia to Romania, a position she has held since November 2022. Her professional journey reflects a commitment to advancing Georgia’s international relations, particularly in the areas of European and Euro-Atlantic integration, trade, and diplomatic affairs.

Her extensive diplomatic career includes positions such as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia (2014-2015), Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2016-2020), and Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

H. E. Tamar Beruchashvili has been instrumental in advancing Georgia’s integration into European and international institutions, particularly during her tenure as Deputy State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. She played a key role in Georgia's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2000.

In academia, she has been an associate professor at Ilia State University since 2011 and has lectured widely on international trade and EU-Georgia relations. She holds a PhD in Economics from Tbilisi State University and an MPA from Indiana University, USA.

Recognized for her expertise, H. E. has published extensively on EU trade policy and Georgia’s foreign relations, contributing significantly to both diplomacy and scholarship.

Dumitru-Dorin PRUNARIU

Romanian pilot and cosmonaut who was the first Romanian citizen in space. 

Dumitru-Dorin PRUNARIU earned a degree in aerospace engineering from the Polytechnic University in Bucharest in 1976. In 1978 he became a senior lieutenant in the air force and was selected for spaceflight training as part of the Intercosmos program. The non-Soviet cosmonauts of Intercosmos flew alongside Soviet crews on missions intended to demonstrate unity between Warsaw Pact and other countries sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Prunariu finished his training at the top of his class and was chosen to accompany Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Popov for a joint spaceflight. Prunariu and Popov launched on May 14, 1981, aboard Soyuz 40 and docked with the space station Salyut 6. The crew spent nearly eight days in space conducting experiments in the fields of biology, medicine, and physics. They returned to Earth on May 22, 1981.

Prunariu returned to the Romanian air force as the chief inspector for aerospace activities and taught courses in aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic University. From 1992 to 1995 he was the secretary of the Romanian Space Agency (ASR). He was also the chief inspector for aerospace activities on the General Staff of Aviation and Air Defense from 1991 to 1998. In 1999 he graduated from the National Defense College in Bucharest with a Ph.D. in spaceflight dynamics. From 1998 to 2004 he was president of the ASR, and from 2004 to 2005 he was the Romanian ambassador to Russia and chair of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Exploration of Outer Space.

He currently holds the rank of general.

Professor Diana-Camelia IANCU

Dean @ Faculty of Public Administration, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania.

Prof. Diana-Camelia Iancu holds a PhD in public administration (2008) and is senior lecturer in comparative public management at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Bucharest, Romania). She has previously worked for Radboud University, Nijmegen School of Management (the Netherlands) and assumed different academic assignments in Slovenia, France, Spain, USA and Greece. Since 2012 she is the Dean of the Faculty of Public Administration at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania). Diana has worked as a quality assurance expert for the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation (EAPAA) and the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS) and starting with 2018 she serves a four years mandate as an independent expert of the Group on the European Charter of Local Self-Government of the Council of Europe. Her research interests include political-administrative relations in transitional democracies, local government development and sustainability in higher education. In preparation for the IAU 2020 General Conference, she contributes to the creation of the “IAU at 70” celebration publication.

Professor Eglė VAIDELYTĖ,

Vice-Dean for Education @ Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania

Egle VAIDELYTĖ holds a PhD in Sociology and is a full professor in Sociology and Public Administration as well as the Vice-Dean for Education at  Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania).  She has a huge exeperience in national and international projects related to civic participation, citizen science, higher education, including the most recent H2020 projects: “Empowering Youth and Co-creating Social Innovations and Policy-Making Through Youth Citizen Social Science (YouCount ), Future-oriented Science Education to enhance Responsibility and Engagement in the Society of Acceleration and Uncertainty.  Currently she is also a chief researcher in H2020 project “Catalysation of institutional transformations of higher education institutions through the adoption of acceleration services” (CATALISI).

E. Vaidelyte has been a external expert at European Commision for number of research programmes including the most recents: Asylum, Migration and Intergration Fund (AMIF) 2023, Horizons,Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) 2022-2023.  She also serves as a national representative at  the Network of Directors of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration (DISPA) and a member  of Board of Management as well as the vice-president for Europe at International Asociation of Schools and Institutes of Public Administration (IASIA). E. Vaidelyte often speaks at various national and international conferences, gives training to civil servants and communities,  is an author or co-author of over 40 research articles, chapters and books on citizen science, public governance and civil society, corruption, migration issues.

Keynote on: The role of citizen science as a part of open science in current higher education

Professor Florina PÎNZARU,

Dean @ Faculty of Management, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania.

Professor dr. habil. Florina PINZARU is Dean of the Faculty of Management of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania, where she teaches Management, Organizational Design in the Digital Age, and Strategic Marketing.

Florina Pinzaru holds a PhD in Economics and International Business from the Bucharest Business University ASE, a MA in Strategic Marketing, a BA in Economics and International Business from the same university, a BA in Communication and Public Relations from the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration SNSPA and she was Visiting Student at Sciences-Po Paris. She is habilitated to coordinate PhD thesis in Management and teaches regularly abroad, being Visiting Professor at ISIT Paris, France and at the University of Siedlce, Poland.

Florina Pinzaru has more than 10 years of experience as consultant and trainer in Management and Marketing for important Romanian enterprises and multinational corporations in furniture, energy and utilities.

Professor Ioana PETRESCU

National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania.

Dr. Ioana PETRESCU runs the Center for Leadership and Innovation at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, where she writes about space economics. She is also the President of Pur și Simplu Verde, an environmental NGO, and serves as a European Climate Pact Ambassador in Romania. Ioana is also a World Bank consultant focusing on issues related to center of government strategic management.

She was Romania’s first female finance minister and, after stepping down, joined Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she held research appointments at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. In the past, she has also served as an expert for the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels. Ioana was an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.

She writes and presents extensively on space, particularly the role of government in the space industry.  Some of her papers include “Balancing Regulation, Sustainability, and Growth in the Space Industry: Insights from Industry Interviews” and “Government Support and Policy Frameworks: Fostering Sustainable Growth in the Space Economy”. She also writes op-eds in “The Hill” as an opinion contributor, covering a wide range of topics from AI regulation to taxation.

Professor Alexander PROSSER

WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business), Department of Information Systems and Operations Management

Prof. Alexander PROSSER habilitated at WU in 1998 and held positions at HEC, Paris and the University of Technology, Sydney. His research fields are eGovernment and electronic citizen participation. He co-chairs the Forum eGovernment and is member of the board and Treasurer of the Austrian Computer Society.

Alexander has well over 150 academic publications including 20+ academic book publications.

He co-chairs the Central and Eastern European eGov and eDem Days.

Alexander’s teaching focus has been on ERP and business intelligence using SAP systems since 1994. He built up the SAP-based teaching programmes at the University of Technology Sydney and WU. All subjects he designed and currently teaches are SAP-certified.

Professor Lasse BERNTZEN,

University of South-Eastern Norway

Lasse BERNTZEN is a professor in Information Systems at University of South-Eastern Norway. His research has focused on the digital society, e-government, e-participation, and "smart cities". His research examines how cities can make better decisions by using data, analytics, and visualization. He is currently doing research on how Internet-of-Things and big data can be used in some of the subdomains of smart cities, such as "smart traffic", "smart public transportation", "smart parking", "environmental monitoring", "smart waste management", "smart energy" and, "crime prevention".

Professor Vasile BALTAC,

National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania.

Vasile BALTAC is professor of eGovernment at Faculty of Public Administration, SNSPA (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration), member of the boards of ECDL Foundation, Ireland and LanguageCert, UK. He is the coordinator of SoftNet Group, an IT venture more that is more than 20 years old.

Professor Milena YORDANOVA-KRUMOVA,

European Institute for Technologies, Education and Digitalisation (EITED)

Milena YORDANOVA-KRUMOVA is an associate professor in General engineering, Ph.D. in Professional field "Economics" and Ph.D in Professional field "Electrical Engineering, Electronics, and Automation".

Professor Christian SCHACHTNER,

RheinMain University of applied Sciencesy

Christian Schachtner is a professor of Public Management and doctor of Business Administration as well as Consultant and Intrapreneuer in the public management sector. The main focus is research in Agil Management, Behavioural Economics and Public Economics. Current projects are 'Public Management development within the competency-based view, new work in favour of social change and digitalization with the aspect on mindset and project based development.

Professor Ana-Maria BERCU

"Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iasi, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Dr. Ana-Maria Bercu is a Full Professor at "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iasi, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Finance, Money, and Public Administration, where she has been working since 2002. She graduated from a bachelor’s program in Public Administration (2001) with Magna Cum Laude distinction, pursued postgraduate studies in Resource Management in Public Administration (2002), and completed her doctoral studies in Management (2008). She was qualified to coordinate doctoral theses in the field of administrative sciences starting in 2019. In the fall semester of 2022, she was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Illinois, Chicago, College of Urban Studies and Public Affairs, specializing in Human Resource Management in Public Administration. From 2015 to 2016, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel. Dr. Bercu is the director of the Jean Monnet Chair, where she conducted studies on integration and resilience in public administration in the EU – EU-PAIR (2021-2024) and served as coordinator of the JM EURCOMP module (2014-2017), as well as project leader for the Erasmus+ partnership project KA2 European Citizenship Initiative: from A to Z (2020-2022). She has been a coordinator and/or member of the scientific team for over 25 European projects, with experience in international teaching through the Erasmus and Erasmus+ programs. Additionally, she has been a member of the European Center of Excellence (within the Center of European Studies) since 2009, the JM EUFIRE Chair (2016-2019), and JM EUFIRE-RE Centre of Excellence (2022-2025). Her teaching and research activities encompass human resource management and performance management in public administration, strategic management in the public sector, public policy analysis, and labor relations management in the European Union.

Gabriel LAZĂR

R&D Director, Ascendia S.A.

Dr. Gabriel Lazar is an experienced education professional, accumulating more than three decades of teaching expertise. He has also university and company-based experience as project manager in national and international projects in education management and e-learning. He graduated from the University of Bucharest and was awarded a master’s degree in engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Physics, with a postdoc stage in France at Jules Verne University, Amiens. Holding a position as a university professor, has coordinated or has been a member of numerous research projects, with national or international funding, has published over 150 articles in scientific journals indexed in international databases or at scientific conferences, with more than 2000 citations. Since 2017 he has focused on the field of scientific research for the education sector and as project manager for IT projects. His current research is in the field of the use of artificial intelligence and digital tools in education, as Director of Research and Development Department at Ascendia S.A., a Romanian e-learning company.