Calvin Ming Tsun Lai is a research associate and doctoral candidate in the Research Training Group KRITIS and the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt. His research focuses on smart and sustainable urban development, urban policy analysis, and developing assessment tools for city development. His current work examines the societal impacts of urban digital transformation, particularly emphasizing the mobility sector. Calvin has five years of experience working in Hong Kong and Germany’s research institutions, including the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University and the research unit Urban Transitions at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. He holds an MSc in Urban Planning from the University of Duisburg-Essen and a BEng in Industrial Engineering from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Professor Alistair Cole is a Professor of Political Science at the Political Science Department, Sciences Po Lyon, Lyon, France. He obtained a First in Government and History from the LSE (1980, awarded the Bassett Prize for Political Science) and a D. Phil from Balliol College, Oxford (1986, funded by a BA grant). He held positions in Oxford, Caen, Aston, Keele and Bradford before being named as Professor of European Politics at Cardiff University, Wales, UK in 1999. From 2019 to 2024, Professor Cole was Head of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published extensively, mainly in the field of French, British, and European politics. His publications are widely cited (with an H Index of 37 according to Google Scholar). His latest book, Analysing the Trust-Transparency Nexus: multi-level governance in the UK, France and Germany (with Ian Stafford and Dominic Heinz), was published by Policy Press on March 21st 2022.

Dionysios Stivas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University. He completed his Bachelor's degree in International Law at The Hague University, The Netherlands. Subsequently, he acquired a Master's degree in European Law from Maastricht University and a second Master of Arts in International Relations and Diplomacy of the European Union from the College of Europe in Bruges. In 2020, he finalized his Ph.D. in Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. Since then, he has held the positions of Research Fellow and part-time Lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. At Hong Kong Baptist University, he was the principal project coordinator of a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and a Jean Monnet Module. He joined the Department of International Studies as an Assistant Professor in September 2023. His current research focuses on the public management of COVID-19 in Europe and Asia from the perspectives of political trust and security studies.