Social Affairs

Emeritus and Visiting Professor at the University of Louvain, where he held the Hoover Chair in Economic and Social Ethics from 1991 to 2016. Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. Visiting Professor at Harvard (2004-2010); Oxford (2011-2015) and Robert Schuman Fellow at the European University Institute (Florence) (2016). Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium and the British Academy, he is one of the founders of the Basic Income Earth Network, chairing its International Board.

He is one of the world's most prominent economic historians. His journey has taken him to Scotland to the California sunshine, stopping off at King's College, Cambridge and Harvard, as well as Stanford and Michigan. He is Professor of Economics at UC-Davis, Chairman of the Steering Committee of the All-UC Economic History Group and Associate of the Centre for Poverty Research at UC-Davis.

He teaches economics and strategy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and researches areas including the impact of technology and management practices on aggregate economic variables such as wage distribution, productivity or economic growth. He also researches ways to prevent a new economic crisis in the eurozone. In this context, and with the «Euronomics» group of economists, he has been proposing solutions, such as European Safe Bonds – ESBies, which are being officially considered by the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

He is Professor of Economics at the European University Institute, Lead Researcher at the Centre for Economic Policy Studies and the Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA), Member of the European Economic Association and Honorary Member of the Spanish Economics Association, of which he was President in 2001. His primary research areas are econometric theory, labour economics and applied macroeconomics, on which he has published ten books and around 70 articles. Between 2003 and 2010, he was a member of the Economic Policy Analysis Group (GEPA) during the Romano Prodi and José Manuel Durão Barroso.presidencies of the European Commission.

Specialist in macroeconomics and social security and pensions and expert in the sustainability of social welfare systems and the regulation and supervision of pension systems. She is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Turin (Faculty of Economics) and Scientific Coordinator of the Centre for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, the first research centre in Italy (and one of the first in Europe) specifically focused on the economic analysis of pensions, aging and public policies typified by the concept of the welfare state. She was Minister of Labor, Social Policies and Gender Equality in Mario Monti's government, where she conceived and designed a series of labour market and pension reforms that were crucial to Italy’s exit from the excessive deficit procedure applied by the European Union. She sought to launch a series of measures that would guarantee a truly intergenerational redistribution of income in the long term.

She is the Social Policy Editor of the weekly magazine «The Economist», where she has published articles and opinion columns on education, human capital and the social impacts of government policies and private investment. She has a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and began her career as a researcher, scriptwriter and reporter at «Independent Television News» (ITN). Before becoming Senior Editor at «The Economist», she was Correspondent and Editor for the Asia section; Chief Reporter and Editor for Climate Change; made special reports on issues such as the Middle East, domestic politics, university education, the media business, the food and transport industry; was Correspondent in Delhi and covered countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; and was Editor of the fortnightly magazine 1843. An advisor to the George Orwell Trust and Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College (Oxford), she has collaborated with publications such as «The Evening Standard», «The Sunday Times», «The Daily Telegraph», «Vogue» and «Cosmopolitan» and also writes a regular column in «The Times». She is the author of «Breaking the Curfew», a book about Pakistan's politics and society.

She is best known for her roles in «Slumdog Millionaire» (2008), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress, and Planet of the Apes (2011). Before her acting career, she studied English literature, psychology and economics at St. Xavier's College in Bombay and worked as a model. In addition to her film work, especially in Hollywood productions, she promotes humanitarian causes around the world and is especially dedicated to women's rights and living conditions. She is a global ambassador for Plan International's «Because I AM a Girl» programme, which promotes gender equality to lift millions of girls out of poverty, and also collaborates with the NGO We Do It Together, which funds films and documentaries focused on women's empowerment.

A journalist with over 20 years' experience, she presents a political affairs programme on the American television channel TRT World and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. She began her career as a political correspondent for a leading Middle Eastern newspaper based in the UK. She later joined the Aljazeera television channel in NY as Editor-in-Chief, where she covered the September 11 attacks. She was a journalist on the war scenes in Iraq and Afghanistan following the US invasion in 2003. She conducted in-depth interviews with senior US officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. HER work included following the UN extensively, covering the Security Council and the General Assembly. For the UN, she travelled with Kofi Annan throughout the Middle East and Africa, with whom she carried out several in-depth interviews during his 10-year tenure. Her experience as a political journalist includes interviews with various heads of state and government, including Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A journalist, he was Director of News at RTP and TVI, simultaneously editing and presenting Telejornal (RTP) and Jornal das 8 (TVI). He began his career in radio and, in 1992, was part of the team that founded the first private television station in Portugal, SIC, where he presented Jornal da Noite. He taught at the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social and co-coordinated the Postgraduate Course in Journalism at ISCTE/Media Capital. At the invitation of the President of the Republic, he inaugurated the programme «Journalists in Belém Palace» in 2018.

Social psychologist and Eugene Higgins Professor at Princeton University, USA.
She has studied social cognition, an area of science dedicated to understanding how people understand the emotions, thoughts, intentions and social behaviours of others. She has mainly focused on understanding stereotypes and prejudices, including sexism or age-related prejudices, based on cultural, interpersonal and neuroscientific data.
She is the author of over 400 publications and has received numerous scientific awards, as well as being elected to the American Academy of Sciences.

Last updated: May 2021