Delfim Leão is a Full Professor at the Institute of Classical Studies and a researcher at the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies at the University of Coimbra. His main research interests are ancient Greek history, law, and political theory, theatrical pragmatics, and the ancient novel. He has published around 200 works on these topics in international journals, books, and book chapters. He is also interested in open science and scholarly communication. He is currently Vice-Rector for Culture, Communication and Open Science at Coimbra University, member of the CoARA WG for Multilingualism, member of the Executive Assembly of OPERAS (ESFRI infrastructure), participating in European projects such as OPERAS-P, TRIPLE, OPERAS-PLUS, PALOMERA, ATRIUM, LUMEN. He is the head of the team responsible for developing the collaborative translation platform Mondaecus, and the Digital Joanina project. He is also an appointed member of the Scientific Council of the CNRS - Sciences Humaines & Sociales (2023-2028). He was a member of the UNESCO Open Science Advisory Committee, representing Electoral Group I, and was involved in preparing the initial draft of the “UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science”.

Eloy Rodrigues is the Director of the University of Minho Libraries. Eloy has been working on repositories, Open Access and Open Science for two decades, having established University of Minho institutional repository in 2003, and coordinating the UMinho team which works on RCAAP (Portugal Open Access Science Repositories) since 2008. He is a member of the EUA Expert Group on Open Science, representing the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, and has coordinated UMinho's participation in more than a dozen EU-funded projects related to repositories and open science. He was President of the Executive Board of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) between 2015 and 2021. Eloy is currently Vice-chair of the Executive Board of OpenAIRE AMKE and member of the Advisory Committee of SciELO Portugal.

In October 2025, was appointed Vice-president at FCT, responsible for all digital services related activities. In 2016, was appointed General Manager of the National Scientific Computing Unit of the Portuguese research funding agency, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia IP (FCT). This unit is responsible for developing and managing national digital research infrastructures, including networking, advanced computing and research data. In 2013, was appointed Member of the Board at FCT and was responsible for all ICT related activities. In 2013, was appointed President of the Board of Directors at Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN). In 1993 joined FCCN, as Technical Manager. In this period was responsible for a wide range of networking services and both national and international projects. The main focus of activity in this period was the connectivity services and projects of Rede Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade (RCTS), namely the implementation of a fiber optics network. Additionally has developed this platform for the advancement of Science and R&D in the context of the European research networks and the GÉANT network. He was also teacher at Universidade Atlântica and worked as an ICT specialist at Departamento de Informática at Universidade do Minho. Completed an MBA at Porto Business School in 2003. Earned an MSc in Data Communications, Networks and Distributed Systems from University College London in 1993. Completed a degree in Systems and Informatics Engineering at Universidade do Minho in 1991.

Manuel Aleixo is a cabinet expert in the cabinet of Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva. Formerly, he was a head of the unit at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation responsible for the ERA, Spreading Excellence, and Research Careers. Manuel has also worked in the European Parliament and as a diplomat in Portugal’s foreign ministry.

Maria Fernanda Rollo is a historian. She holds a PhD and Habilitation in Contemporary History. She is a full professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Nova University of Lisbon. She coordinates the PhD program in History, the Postgraduate Program in Science and Technology Policy and Management, and the Centre República (2011-). She is a member of the Research Council of the European Institute in Florence. She served as Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education (2015-2018), President of the Institute of Contemporary History (2011-2015), and was responsible for the design and coordination of the ROSSIO infrastructure (2011-2015). She was the National Commissioner for the Centenary of the Republic (2008-2011), Vice-President of the Institute of Contemporary History (…-2011), and Commander of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator. Her research areas include the history of Portugal in the 20th century; the history of the economy, society and innovation in contemporary Portugal; History of engineering in Portugal; Portugal's participation in European economic cooperation movements; institutional history, business history; history of science policies and organization in Portugal; open science, citizen science – dissemination and democratization of knowledge. Coordination of main ongoing research programs and projects: Memory for All; DESIR WP6 – DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for Arts and Humanities); History and Heritage of the PSP – Public Security Police; Memory of Insurance and Insurance Companies; Memories of Emigration and Portuguese Communities; Living Rivers, Erasmus+ Treasuring – Memories of Gorongosa, Mozambique; History of Sines and the Sines Industrial Complex; Biographies of the Presidents of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Martin Senftleben is Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director, Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. He also works as an Of Counsel at Bird & Bird, The Hague. His activities focus on the reconciliation of private intellectual property rights with competing public interests of a social, cultural or economic nature. Current research topics include generative AI systems and author remuneration; open science and digital autonomy of researchers; platform and digital ecosystem regulation; copyright data improvement and content recommender systems; behavioural advertising and consumer empowerment; the development of sustainable intellectual property policy. Professor Senftleben is a member of the Benelux Council for Intellectual Property. He provided advice to WIPO in copyright, trademark and unfair competition projects. For the European Commission, he prepared studies on data access and reuse in research contexts. He is a member of the Trademark Law Institute (TLI), the European Copyright Society (ECS) and the Executive Committee of the Association littéraire et artistique internationale (ALAI). As a visiting professor, he was invited to the National University of Singapore, the Engelberg Center at NYU Law School, the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, Tel Aviv University, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Xiamen University and Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome. His numerous publications include "Copyright, Limitations and the Three-Step Test" (2004), "European Trade Mark Law" (with Annette Kur, 2017), "The Copyright/Trademark Interface" (2020) and "Generative AI and Author Remuneration" (2023). As a guest lecturer, he teaches at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC), the Jagiellonian University Krakow and the University of Catania.

Mr. Hu presently serves as the Director of the Division of Science Policy and Basic Sciences at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since April 2023. He is coordinating the implementation of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development, leading the implementation of the UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Sciences, promoting international cooperation on basic sciences, science, technology and innovation policy formation and implementation, as well as capacity building, support STEM education, and science popularization, etc. Mr. Hu has worked in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for more than 20 years mostly in Asia Pacific. His responsibilities encompassed providing comprehensive policy and technical support, facilitating national strategy formulation and implementation, fostering institutional capacity, advancing science and technology dissemination, and enhancing public awareness. His primary focus centered on aiding developing countries in the region in implementing the Montreal Protocol and mitigating climate change challenges. Mr. Hu worked at the predecessor organization of China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment from 1994 to 1999. Preceding this, he engaged in four years of research work at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences. Mr. Hu earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from Peking University in China.