Earned her PhD in Economics in 2003 at Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, during her studies she spent a year as a visiting scholar at CERGE-EI, Charles University, in Prague. In 2004 she got IMF/GDN research grant and spent 5 weeks at IMF headquarters in Washington, DC. In 2007 Polona was awarded by University’s Award for young fellows for extraordinary achievements in teaching and research. In the period of 2009-2010 I was a Fulbright scholar at University of California, Davis.

In the last 15 years Polona published several papers in refereed journals (Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of Manpower, Journal of International Business Studies, Review of Comparative Economics and others) discussing the problems of corporate governance, enterprise restructuring, firms’ labor demand, labor market institutions and youth unemployment in transition economies analyzing firm and individual level data (registry and survey data). In last decade Polona participated at several international conferences. In the period of 2013 – 2015 she served as a member of EALE Executive Committee. Polona was a coordinator of two GDN projects and member of the research team of several research projects, financed by Slovene government, PHARE program and European Commission.

Giancarlo Miranda graduated in political sciences at Catholic University Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, and earned his Master of Arts degree in development economics from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.

Formerly Director of the Credit Programme at International Subsidiary Banks Division of Intesa Sanpaolo group; during his career he covered several executive roles in banking in Intesa Sanpaolo Group, International Subsidiary Banks Division (2003-2017), including Vice-President of the Management Board of Banka Intesa in Belgrade, Serbia, Vice President of the Management Board of Privredna banka, Zagreb, Croatia and President of the Management Board in Intesa Sanpaolo Bank inKoper-Capodistria in Slovenia. he had also covered other professional roles in  affiliated banks in the Goup in Hong Kong and New York and MIlan. In the year 1984-87, he served as a researcher at Nomisma.

In the years of his permanence in Slovenia he served as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bank Association of Slovenia (2014-17).

Ms. Marzoli is the Italian Trade Commissioner to Slovenia and Head of the Trade Promotion Section of the Embassy of Italy in Ljubljana. She is a career Government Officer within the Italian Trade Agency, the Governmental agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation that supports the business development of Italian companies abroad and promotes foreign investment towards Italy. She graduated in Rome magna cum laude in Foreign Literatures, with a master’s degree in Marketing and Communication. Throughout her career, she has been active with increasing responsibilities in an international setting to foster Italian international trade and business relations, assisting the entry or expansion of Italian companies in foreign markets.

She holds a relevant experience in business development and building relations between Italian manufacturers and foreign leading companies. She also coordinated the Italian Ministry of Economic Development’s project to promote Milan’s candidacy at the 2015 Expo. In 2017 she was Head of the 1st Project on Female Entrepreneurship, dedicated to Mediterranean Countries and organized by the Italian Trade Agency and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. After a specific training in Brussels within the European Commissions, she became Head for promotional projects with FESR funding dedicated to Italy’s Southern Regions. She worked several years in communications as editor of the Agency’s official newsletters and magazines on foreign markets and international relations. Among her pro bono activities, she was a volunteer for the Italian Red Cross and the American-Italian Cancer Foundation.

He graduated from the University of Bologna in 1988 and was a postdoc scholar at M.I.T.  Artificial Intelligence lab. He teaches  Robotics and Control Systems in the Department of Information Engineering  (DII) of the University of Pisa. He leads the Robotics Group at the  Research Center “E. Piaggio” of the University of Pisa since 1990. He is the head of the SoftRobotics Lab for Human Cooperation and Rehabilitation at IIT in Genoa. Since 2013 he serves ad Adjunct Professor at the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering of Arizona State University.

From January, 2023, he is the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Robotics Reserach (IJRR), the first and one of the top scientific journals in Robotics. He has been the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters  (2015-2019), which rapidly became the largest Robotics journal by number of submissions. He has organized the first WorldHaptics Conference (2005), today the premier conference in the field. He served as president of SIDRA, the scientific society of Automatic Control. He is a founder and President of the Italian Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines (I-RIM) (since 2019),

His main research interests are in Robotics, Haptics, and Control Systems. He has published more than 500 papers on international journals, books, and refereed conferences. For his fundamental research on human and robot hands the European Research Council awarded him with several grants, including an Advanced Grant in 2012, an ongoing Synergy Grant in 2019, and three Proof-of-Concept grants. He is the scientific coordinator of the JOiiNT Lab, an advanced tech transfer lab with leading-edge industries in Bergamo, Italy. He is the recipient of several awards and honours.