Annika Zorn is the Director of PhD Programmes and Digital Learning at the Hertie School. Previously, she worked at the European University Institute (EUI) and was responsible for the academic and professional development programme for early-stage researchers. Before that, she was the Executive Director of the Florence School of Banking and Finance and Deputy Director at the Florence School of Regulation, both at the Robert Schuman Centre at the EUI. She is also the founder of an online school bridging academic thinking and the world of practitioners in the area of energy and climate.

Her areas of expertise are in early-stage researcher development, digital strategies in higher education, as well as teaching and learning. She is the editor of the book Higher Education in the Digital Age. Moving Academia Online (Edward Elgar, 2018).

Annika has been working with international organisations and academic institutions on training and teaching strategies since many years and she is a member of the training team of the Max Planck Academy. Annika received her PhD from the European University Institute.

Kenneth Button is a professor of public policy at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government and a world-renowned expert on transportation policy. He has published, or has in press, some 80 books and more than 400 academic papers in the field of transport economics, transport planning, environmental analysis, and industrial organization.

Before coming to the Schar School, Button was an advisor to the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development where he headed up the OECD work on International Aviation (which produced The Future of International Air Transport Policy: Responding to Global Change).

Russell Pittman is Director of Economic Research in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  He is also a visiting professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and has previously taught at the New Economic School (Moscow), Korea University, and Georgetown University.  Among his most influential papers have been those on productivity measurement in the presence of negative externalities, in the 1983 Economic Journal; on the IBM antitrust litigation, in the 1984 International Journal of Industrial Organization; on U.S. railways regulation, in the 2010 Journal of Regulatory Economics, the 2010 Administrative Law Review, and elsewhere; and on Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian railways restructuring, in various journals and books.  In the 1990’s especially, he was a member of DOJ/FTC teams consulting with developing and transition country governments on competition and regulatory policies. He was a member of the World Bank’s World Development Report team in 2001; a co-author of the 2004 report of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, Regulatory Reform of Railways in Russia; and part of the ECMT team consulting with the Mexican government on the establishment of its freight rail regulatory agency in 2015.  In 2022 he received the Antitrust Division’s William F. Baxter award “in recognition of the lifetime contributions in economic analysis and contributions made to the effective enforcement of antitrust law by an economist.

Aurore Laget-Annamayer (PhD Law, Université Paris Cité) is Full Professor of public law at the University Paris Dauphine-PSL in Paris.

Her research is focused on regulation of network industries, in particular railways, telecommunications and energy, and public business law. She has expended her fields of research on international and european environmental law and sustainable mobility. She has published many scientific articles notably on regulation of networks industry, independent regulation, competition in the rail transport sector and sustainable mobility. Her most recent books are « Economic public order” (LGDJ coll. Droit et économie, 2018) and “The opening up to competition of passenger rail transport in Europe : Comparative law perspectives” (Bruylant, 2023)

Enrico is Principal at DFC Economics, a boutique consulting firm specialized in the energy sector based in Milan, Italy.

Enrico started his career as trader and risk manager in the gas&power sector, before moving to the consulting industry. Enrico regularly advises regulators, system operators, exchanges, private companies and institutions across Europe on a wide range of regulatory issues in energy markets, including market design, regulatory frameworks supporting low-carbon technologies, price regulation, expert testimonies and dispute resolutions, contracts and asset evaluation. Enrico also regularly advises on matters related to electricity and gas market liberalization in non-European markets (most recently in Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Georgia).

Enrico regularly collaborates with the Florence School of Regulation on matters related to natural gas regulation, most recently with a focus on the LNG value chain.

Enrico holds and MSc in Physics from the University of Milan and a PhD in Physics from the University of Strathclyde, UK.

Ronnie Belmans received his MSc degree in electrical engineering in 1979 and a PhD degree in 1984, both from KU Leuven, Belgium. In 1989 he added a Special Doctorate from the KU Leuven and in 1993 a ‘Habilitierung’, from the RWTH, Aachen, Germany. Currently, Ronnie Belmans is full professor at KU Leuven. His research interests include smart grids, security of energy supply, techno-economic aspects of the liberalisation of the electricity market and energy system modelling.

In Belgium, Prof. dr. ir. Ronnie Belmans was co-founder and chairman of EnergyVille, a research collaboration in Genk specializing in sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems, in cooperation with VITO, imec & UHasselt.

From 2016 till 2022 he was chairman of the board of directors of the VREG, the Flemisch regulator for electricity & gas markets.

He is also member of the board of directors of Niko and SCK/CEN and president of Scone.

Ronnie Belmans is also honorary chairman of the board of directors of ELIA, the Belgian transmission system operator.

Paul Ekins has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London and is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London. Paul Ekins’ academic work, published in numerous books, articles and scientific papers, focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. He has been working in the area of energy and climate change since the early 1990s, and in 2007 was a Specialist Adviser to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Climate Change Bill. From 2015-2018 he was a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Panel of the European Decarbonisation Pathways Initiative, the final report of which was published in November 2018. His books on energy and climate change are: His co-edited books include Global Warming and Energy Demand (Routledge, 1995), Carbon-Energy Taxation: Lessons from Europe (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009), Energy 2050: the Transition to a Secure, Low-Carbon Energy System for the UK (Earthscan, London), and Global Energy: Issues, Potentials and Policy Implications (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015). His most recent book, Stopping Climate Change: Policies for Real Zero, was published by Routledge, in November 2023. In the UK New Year’s Honours List for 2015 he received an OBE for services to environmental policy.

Maria is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, specializing in the Quantification, Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (QMRV) of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions. She recently earned her PhD (2020-2024) in Chemical Engineering from Queen Mary University of London. Her doctoral research focused on bridging the gap between scientific research, technologies, and policies to monitor and mitigate methane emissions from industrial sites, including biogas plants.

A College of Europe alumna, Maria has a strong academic foundation in European policy and regulation. In 2022, she joined the Environmental Defense Fund as a consultant, where she conducted research on coal mine methane and methane policies within the context of liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading. Prior to this role, she spent five years as a Research Associate at the European University Institute’s Florence School of Regulation Gas Area. During this time, she concentrated on policy and regulatory frameworks aimed at reducing methane emissions, decarbonizing the EU gas market, and advancing the role of low-carbon hydrogen and biogas/biomethane.

Maria began her professional career at the Polish Ministry of the Environment, where she played an active role in the preparations and proceedings of the COP19/CMP9 as a member of the Polish Presidency Team.

Steven Truxal is Full Professor of Air and Space Law and Director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University. He is an alumnus of The George Washington University and the University of Westminster. His studies in international relations, economics and law have informed his research, which focuses on multilevel economic and environmental regulation of air transport. He has held past appointments at the University of London, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He regularly advises and provides trainings for governments and industry stakeholders on a range of legal and regulatory matters affecting air transport. He is also frequently invited to speak at academic conferences and diplomatic meetings, to international media and at industry events.

He serves on the advisory boards of the Zeitschrift für Luft- und Weltraumrecht (German Journal of Air and Space Law) and the Indian Review of Air and Space Law. In addition to his track record of publications on air law and policy, he has produced two monographs: Competition and Regulation in the Airline Industry: Puppets in Chaos (Routledge, 2012) and Economic and Environmental Regulation of International Aviation: From Inter-National to Global Governance (Routledge 2017).

Prof. Rodriguez de las Heras Ballel is Associate Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid. Her research interests range from Digital law in commercial transactions and business activities (platforms, intermediary liability, privacy, IA and other emerging technologies, big data, smart contracts, Fintech, Insurtech, Regtech, crowdfunding), international business transactions (legal harmonization), secured transactions and finance law.

Prof. Rodriguez de las Heras Ballel is very active in policy making at European and international level. Indeed, she is a Member of the EU Commission Expert Group on Liability/Technologies formation on Artificial Intelligence, and of the Observatory on the Online Platform Economy, as well as of the UNIDROIT Study Group on MAC Protocol to the Cape Town Convention on international interests.

She is a member of the Council of the European Law Institute, and an arbitrator at the Madrid Court of Arbitration, and at the Spanish Court of Arbitration.

Elena Fumagalli is Associate Professor of Energy Economics at Politecnico di Milano, Dep. of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Research Fellow at Bocconi University, Center for Research on Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (IEFE), and a member of the extended faculty at Florence School of Regulation, European University Institute.

Her research interests include incentive regulation in energy networks, competition in electricity markets, technology policy and diffusion.