From 1982 until 1994 Sergio Ascari was research assistant, research director and lecturer in Energy and Environmental Economics at the Institute of Energy Economics at Bocconi University, Milan and at the University of Pavia.

Between 1997 and 2006 he worked at the Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity where he was in charge of Gas Tariffs, Environmental Affairs and later of International Co-operation. He has worked extensively for the promotion and harmonisation of Energy Regulation, notably in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Turkey, and Ukraine.

From 2007 to 2009 he was Gas Expert in the Regulatory Section of the Energy Community Secretariat in Vienna. Since January 2009 he is a Senior Consultant with REF (Ricerche per l’Economia e la Finanza), Milan, Italy and collaborates on several national and international research and assistance projects, mainly in the gas sector.

Sergio graduated in Economics at the University of Pavia and holds a M.Sc. (Econ.) from the University of York.

Prof Nash joined ITS as Lecturer in Rail Transport more than 40 years ago. He was appointed Professor of Transport Economics in 1989, and spent 7 years as Director of ITS. He has coordinated major international research projects on rail regulation and infrastructure charging for the European Commission and the Community of European Railways, as well as leading relevant projects for ORR and the Department for Transport. He has acted as advisor to many bodies, including the European Commission High Level Group on Transport Infrastructure Charging, the European Union Committee of the House of Lords, the Transport Committee of the House of Commons and the Railways Group of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport. He has acted as advisor on appraisal of high speed rail to HS2 Ltd, Network Rail, the US Transportation Research Board, the International Transport Forum and the Australian Department of Infrastructure and Transport. He has also undertaken projects on rail transport in Australia, China and South Korea. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Transport Economics and Policy (of which he is a former editor) and of the International Journal of Transport Economics. He co-chaired the advisory board of the Italian transport regulator from 2017 to 2020 and was a member of the Scientific Committee of the Shift2rail research programme.

Stefan Tangermann was until end-2008 Director for Trade and Agriculture at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris. He is now professor emeritus at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, University of Göttingen, Germany.

Before joining the OECD in 2002, Mr Tangermann was a professor of economics and agricultural economics at the universities of Frankfurt/Main and Göttingen. His academic work has focused, among other topics, on the need and options for reforming agricultural policies in OECD countries, on the analysis of global markets for food and agricultural products, and on strengthening the rules for agricultural trade, with a particular emphasis on the WTO.

Mr Tangermann is a Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities and was its President from 2012 to 2016. For a long time he was a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture, and he also served as a member of Germany’s Science Council. From 2001 to 2025 he was a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security. Mr. Tangermann has advised several governments, including those of the USA and China, the European Commission and various international organisations.

Mr Tangermann was awarded the Order of Merit, First Class, by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is a Fellow of the European Association of Agricultural Economists and of the German Agricultural Economics Association.

Michael Mehling is Deputy Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. In his work, he focuses on climate policy design and implementation at the intersection with environmental, energy, financial market and trade policy, advising decision makers in over a dozen countries and serving as an expert in climate litigation and arbitration cases. Previously, he was a Professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and President of Ecologic Institute in Washington, DC.

He has helped pioneer several initiatives in the areas of climate law and policy, and is a founding board member of, inter alia, the Blockchain & Climate Institute (BCI) in London, the European Association of Climate Law (EACL) in Berlin, and the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition (ERCST) in Brussels. He is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Carbon & Climate Law Review (CCLR), the first academic journal focused on climate law and regulation.

His publications include a dozen monographs and edited volumes, as well as over 100 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. He is a frequent commentator on climate policy developments, and has been featured in several mainstream media outlets including The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. As a German and American citizen, he has lived for extended periods of time in​ Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

Alan Matthews is Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research interests include EU agricultural policy, agricultural trade policy, and agricultural trade and development issues. He is a former President of the European Association of Agricultural Economists and incoming President of the UK Agricultural Economics Society in its centenary year 2026. He has contributed to policy reports on food and agricultural issues for the FAO, the OECD, and the European Parliament, among others, has participated in several WTO dispute and arbitration panels, and is a former member of Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council. He is a regular contributor to the blog capreform.eu on issues relating to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

Nina is currently holding a position of the Professor Sustainable Tourism and Transport and Lead of Centre for Sustainable Tourism Transport at Breda University. She is an experienced project and program manger, team lead and researcher on the topics of decarbonisation of transport, tourism, mobility management and mobility governance.
Nina’s previous roles include:
– Team lead Smart and Sustainable Mobility at the Breda University, leading national and European research on urban mobility
– Research Scientist at the Netherlands Organisation of Applied Research, working on urban freight and sustainable transport.
– Consultant and researcher at Panteia, working on road, rail, maritime and IWW transport.
– Intern, between others, at the European Commission and the World Bank.

Nina holds a PhD in Economic Sciences (specialisation on transport) from the Aix-Marseille University in France and two Master degrees, on Logistics (France) and on International Economics (Russia). Within tourism transport Nina focus lies on facilitation of the sustainable travel modes in tourism encouraging modal shift to more environmentally friendly forms of leisure and tourism travel.

Patricia Perennes has been working in rail transport since 2011. After completing a Phd thesis in economics and taking up her first position at RFF/SNCF Réseau, she joined the strategy department of SNCF holding company. She has been working for Rail Public Transport Authority since 2017: first as Transport Advisor for regional PTA association (Régions de France), then as a Deputy Transport Director in the Region Centre-Val de Loire. She is now a consultant for Trans-Missions consulting firm, working for the French Region to help them tender their Rail Public Service Obligation Contracts.