Dr. Ana Persic is Programme Specialist for Science Technology and Innovation Policies and Open Science at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Ecologist by training with a PhD in Ecotoxicology, Dr Ana Persic joined UNESCO in April 2006 in the framework of the UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere program within the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences in Paris. She has then served as a Science Specialist at the UNESCO Liaison Office in New York from 2011-2018. Her work relates to strengthening the science-policy interface and promoting science, technology, and innovation in implementing the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development and sustainable development goals (SDGs). She coordinated the development of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and is currently working towards its implementation.

Kristi Holmes is Associate Dean for Knowledge Management and Strategy, director of Galter Health Sciences Library, and professor of Preventive Medicine (Biostatistics and Informatics) at Northwestern University. Dr. Holmes serves as the Director of Informatics and Data Science at the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) and Chief of Knowledge Management in Northwestern’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. She leads evaluation for several programs, including the NNLM National Evaluation Center. Her work focuses on advancing discovery and access to knowledge through collaborative technical and social initiatives, including the role of repositories to advance FAIR practices and a vibrant sharing ecosystem. She and her team are enthusiastic contributors to the InvenioRDM community.

Roberto Di Cosmo is Full Professor of Computer Science at Université Paris Cité, now on leave at Inria. A long-time Free Software advocate, he directed the Systematic cluster’s FOSS thematic group— contributing to funding over 50 collaborative open source R&D projects. He chairs the Software Chapter of France’s National Committee for Open Science and is director of Software Heritage, the UNESCO-backed universal archive of all publicly available source code that he founded in 2015 with support from Inria.

Susan Reilly became the Director of the Irish Research e-Library (IReL) in 2022. Prior to this she worked as part of UCD Library’s Executive team. Susan has spent most of her career working in and with research libraries on emerging issues and services such as digital libraries, open research and research data management. She co-chairs the LIBER Copyright Working Group, is a member of the IFLA Open Science Steering Committee, and is on the Policy Committee of Knowledge Rights 21.

Zoé Ancion is the Head of the Open Science Unit at the French National Research Agency (ANR). In this role, she is responsible for developing and implementing the ANR’s Open Science commitments, ensuring that research funded by ANR adheres to the highest standards of openness and transparency. Her work focuses on fostering a culture of open science within the French research community and beyond. Zoé Ancion also coordinates the open science network of French funding agencies, promoting collaboration and alignment on open science policies and practices. She represents ANR in various national and international networks, including the French Committee for Open Science, the Science Europe Working Group on Open Science, cOAlition S, the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), and the Barcelona Declaration.