Esther van Zimmeren is Associate Professor in Intellectual Property (IP) Law & Governance at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp and a member of the Research Groups Government & Law and Business & Law. She is the coordinator of the University of Antwerp Centre of Excellence GOVTRUST and a member of the interdisciplinary Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence ACTORE (Antwerp Consortium on the Organization of Rulemaking and Multi-level Governance in Europe) (in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences). The GOVTRUST project at the University of Antwerp integrates high-level scientific expertise from five disciplines (political science, communication science, law, behavioural economics and public administration), to provide a substantial contribution to our knowledge on the dynamics, causes and effects of trust and distrust in such complex governance systems. 

Esther Keymolen is a Professor Digital Technology Regulation at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, and the Vice Dean of Research of TLS. She has a background in philosophy of technology and postphenomenology. Her research focuses on the role of trust, trustworthiness, and privacy in networked and smart environments. In particular, she focuses on the first-person perspective, so what does trust and trustworthiness mean for a user of an AI application. In her book Trust on The Line, she developed a conceptual trust model, which she applies to analyze different topical cases, such as: Airbnb, smart cities, smart toys, digital hotel keys, and personalized online advertisement.  

Alexander Peukert is Professor of civil law and commercial law with a specific focus on international intellectual property law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”. From 2002 to 2009, he was senior research fellow and head of the U.S. department at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Munich. He teaches international IP and EU copyright law at the universities of Strasbourg (Intellectual Property Law and Management), Lyon III (LL.M. International and European Business Law), Alicante (LL.M. IP), and the Academy of European Law in Trier. He is the co-PI of the Research Initiative “ConTrust: Trust in Conflict – Political Life under Conditions of Uncertainty”, a joint research initiative between Goethe University and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, which starts from the assumption that trust only manifests itself, takes shape and demonstrates its value in conflict: trust in and through conflict. 

Rocco Bellanova is Research Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (interdisciplinary research group Law, Science, Technology & Society-LSTS). He is the PI of the ERC project DATAUNION - The European Data Union: European Security Integration through Database Interoperability. Before joining VUB, Rocco was Assistant Professor of Critical Data Studies at the Department of Media Studies of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He also carried out his research in the department of Political Science of UvA and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in Norway. His work sits at the intersection of politics, law, and science and technology studies. He studies how digital data become pivotal elements in the governing of societies. His research focuses on European security practices and the role of data protection therein. He has co-edited the book Surveillance, Privacy and Security. Citizens' Perspectives (Routledge - 2017) and special issues focusing on digital sovereignty (2022), scholarly practices of critique (2019) and science and technology in security practices (2020). He has published in journals such as Regulation & Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, European Security, Geopolitics, Security Dialogue, European Journal of Social Theory, International Political Sociology. 

Rino Falcone is an expert of Artificial Intelligence and is a Director of Research of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). He is currently Director of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the CNR, and the coordinator of the T3 group: Trust Theory and Technology, at the ISTC. His main scientific skills range from the development of natural language to Planning, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and Agent Theory. He has been the coordinator of several national and international research projects. He has published more than 180 articles for conferences and journals. He is co-author with Cristiano Castelfranchi of Wiley's book: Trust Theory, A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model.  

Gilbert Fridgen is PayPal-FNR PEARL Chair in Digital Financial Services at the SnT, the Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability and Trust at the University of Luxembourg. As head of the Financial Services and Interorganizational Digital Transformations Research Group (FINATRAX), he analyzes the transformative effects of digital technologies on individual organizations as well on the relationship between organizations. He thereby especially addresses potentially disruptive technologies like Blockchain/DLT, Artificial Intelligence, Internet-of-Things, or Quantum Computing. His research involves innovative business models, regulatory compliance (RegTech), IT strategy and (risk) management, IT capabilities and performance, as well as the design of innovative solutions. In his projects and partnerships, he collaborates with various industries, like financial services (FinTech), energy, mobility, manufacturing, consulting, as well as with public bodies (LegalTech). 

Jennifer Cobbe is a Senior Research Associate and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Technology (Computer Laboratory) at the University of Cambridge, where she is part of the Compliant and Accountable Systems research group. She is also the Executive Committee Member of the University of Cambridge Trust & Technology Initiative. She is a member of the Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Centre, a Research Affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Though her work is in a computer science department, she holds a PhD in Law from Queen’s University, Belfast and her background more broadly is in law. 

Urs Fischbacher is an economist and professor of applied economic research at the University of Konstanz. He is director of the Thurgau Economic Institute, an affiliated institute of the University of Konstanz. He pioneered the field of software tools for experimental economics.