Rachelle Alterman is an urban planner and lawyer, holding degrees from the University of Manitoba in Canada (BA Hon. And MCP), PhD from the Technion and LLB from Tel Aviv University. She specializes in comparative planning law, land policy and housing rights, and and heads the Faculty Laboratory on these topics. At present professor (emerita, non-retired) of Urban Planning and Law; Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Senior Researcher - Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, at Techinon; Head, Lab on Comparative Research on Planning Law and Land Policy; Founding President and Honorary Fellow, the International Academic Association on Planning, Law and Property Rights; Co-Founder, International Platform of Experts in Planning Law. Honorary member, AESOP- Association of European Schools of Planning.

Professor of Economics at the University of Gdańsk Faculty of Economics and Maritime Institute of Maritime University in Gdynia. His research focuses on supranational spatial planning and development, maritime spatial development, Baltic Sea Region integration. In 219 the international applied-oriented monograph on maritime spatial planning (Maritime Spatial Planning past, present, future) has been published by Palgrave under his (and Kira Gee) leadership. He has been responsible for drafting Polish maritime spatial plan handled in 2019 to the Polish government.

Prof. Bohdan Cherkes (National University Polytechnic of Lviv, UA and Agricultural University of Cracow, PL) is an architect and researcher of the history of architecture. Since 1995, he has been a full professor and dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Lviv Polytechnic, and since 2001 the director of the Faculty of Architecture of the Lviv Polytechnic. He has lectured at many universities, including in Kraków, Darmstadt and Vienna. His research interests include issues such as identity in architecture and city planning, urban models and urban planning, history and theory of the city. He is the author of over one hundred scientific publications in Austria, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United States and Ukraine. Recent monographs: "Identität, Architektur und Rekonstruktion der Stadt" (Berlin, 2014) and "Lviv: city, architecture, modernism" (edited together with Andrzej Szczerski, Wrocław, 2017).

Karina Pallagst is professor for International Planning Systems at RPTU’s Faculty of Spatial and Environmental Planning. Previously she worked at UC Berkeley’s center for Global Metropolitan Studies (GMS). Prior to this appointment she was a senior research specialist at the Dresden-based Institute of Ecological and Regional Development (IOER). Prof. Pallagst holds a PhD from Kaiserslautern University and a post-doctoral degree from Dresden Technical University. Her research focuses on international comparative urban development, shrinking cities, urban growth, planning cultures, planning theory, and border studies. She serves on numerous think tanks, working groups and committees regarding spatial planning and international urban development. She is a co-founder of the Center for Border Studies of the University of the Greater Region, and the Shrinking Cities International Research Network. Recent monograph: Handbook on Shrinking Cities (Edward Elgar Publishers, 2022).