Former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Fontenay -Saint -Cloud, Frederic Abecassis taught in Egypt from 1989 to 1996, at the universities of Clermont-Ferrand, Tours and since 2000 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, as a lecturer in modern history. He also assured teaching assignments in Yemen, Algeria and Morocco, as well as INALCO (Paris) and IEP Lyon. He was in charge of the “Sociétés, Espaces, Temps ENS Editions”collection until 2012 and he became then, editor-in-chief of The “L’Année du Maghreb”, journal of the IREMAM (Aix -en- Provence).

His PhD focused on the structures of the Egyptian education market and its fluctuations during the liberal era. He highlighted the central role of the school in the process of community building (understood in the context of religious and national communities). He has published numerous articles on the history of education in the Mediterranean and on the history of the automobile in colonial situation in Egypt and Morocco. Both synthesis chapters he delivered on the Jews in the Muslim world in modern times in a collective work of reference were originally part of the questioning that led to the organization in 2010 of an international symposium in Essaouira, published in three volumes under the title: “La bienvenue et l’adieu, migrants juifs et musulmans au Maghreb”. His current research focuses on the history of postcolonial diasporas from the Maghreb.

Christophe BERTOSSI is Director of the Migrations and Citizenships Research Center at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and is a Professor of political science at Sciences Po (Paris).

He was previously a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick between 2001 and 2003 (UK). He has been a visiting fellow at New York University (2009) and, in France, at the Institute for Advanced Research/Collegium in Lyon (2010) as well as at the Max Planck Institute for the study of cultural and religious diversity of Gottingen (2015). He has coordinated several international collaborative research projects on citizenship and ethnicity, notably with Washington University in St. Louis, the American Sociological Association, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, and the Social Science Research Council in New York.

He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Aix-en-Provence, 2000).

François Gemenne is a research fellow in political science (CEDEM – University of Liege / CEARC – University of Versailles). He is also an associate expert with CERI – Sciences Po. A specialist of environmental geopolitics and migration governance, he also lectures on these issues in various universities, including Sciences Po (Paris and Grenoble), the University of Paris 13 and the Free University of Brussels.

His research mostly deals with populations displaced by environmental changes and the policies of adaptation to climate change. He has conducted field studies in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, Tuvalu, China, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Mauritius and Japan, after the Fukushima disaster.

He has been involved in a large number of international research projects on these issues, including the EACH-FOR project, for which he supervised research in Asia-Pacific and Central Asia. He also coordinated the DEVAST project, one of the first international projects to examine the social and political consequences of the Fukushima disaster. He has also been the scientific advisor of the exhibition ‘Native Land. Stop Eject’ at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, in Paris. He has consulted for several organisations, including the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, the ACP Observatory on Migration and the British government (Foresight). In 2010, he was awarded the ISDT-Wernaers Prize for achievement in the communication of science to the general public.

He holds a joint doctorate in political science from Sciences Po Paris and the University of Liege (Belgium). He also holds a Master in Development, Environment and Societies from the University of Louvain, as well as a Master of Research in Political Science from the London School of Economics.

He is also the director of the Sustainable Development series at Presses de Sciences Po, a leading French academic publisher, and the president of Ecosphere, a Brussels-based think-tank on environmental issues and human rights.

Has LLB in International Public Law from Baku State University, LLM in International Human Rights Law from University of Essex, UK and PHD from National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (award expected in autumn 2011). Has more than 10 years of work experience in the field of human rights, including work with such international organizations as the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Since 2008 has been lecturing in Baku State University on the courses on Human Rights, International Public Law, Refugee Law and NGO Law. Currently works as a senior legal advisor for NIS of the International Center for Non-for-profit Law (ICNL).

Fariz Ismailzade is Vice Rector for External, Government and Student affairs at the ADA University (since 2011). He has joined ADA in 2006 and worked in the positions of Director of Executive Execution (2006-2010) and Executive Dean (2010-2011). Mr. Ismailzade holds Executive MBA from IE Business School (Spain), and Masters Degree in Social and Economic Development from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BA in Political Science from Western University in Baku with one-year interim studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Mr. Ismailzade has done research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C and Embassy of Azerbaijan in the US. His research interests include political affairs in the Caucasus and Central Asia, energy security, and development. He has presented papers at the symposiums at Heritage Foundation, MGIMO, Columbia University, Stanford University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, UCLA, Vienna Diplomatic Academy as well as at international conferences such as Association for Study of Nationalities (ASN), Wilton Park Conferences, Middle East Studies Association (MESA), German Marshall Fund and NATO Advanced Research Workshop.

Mr. Ismailzade has regularly published with Eurasianet.org, Transitions on Line, Jamestown Daily Monitor and Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Institute for War and Peace Report, East-West Institute, Analysis of Current Events, Freedom House and Caucasus Context. Most recently he co-edited the book “South Caucasus 2021: Oil, Democracy and Geopolitics” (2011, Jamestown Foundation Press, 2012) and “Azerbaijan in Global Politics: Crafting Foreign Policy” (2009, ADA Press).

Professor David S. Katz (D.Phil., Oxon.) is Director of the Lessing Institute for European History and Civilization at Tel Aviv University in Israel, where he has taught since 1978. He also holds the Abraham Horodisch Chair for the History of Books. His area of research is the history of ideas in the long early modern period (1500-1900), and he has published three books about the Jews in early modern England, and three books about Christianity and radical Christian thought, same time and place. Among these are The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850 (Oxford University Press, 1994); God’s Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism (Yale University Press, 2004); and The Occult Tradition from the Renaissance to the Present Day (Random House, 2005). He has now completed a cultural history of Anglo-Turkish relations from 1776 to 1923. Professor Katz is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, England.

Saltanat Mammadova is an ICMPD (International Centre for Migration Policy Development) National Project Officer for the project MOBILAZE: Support to the Implementation of the Mobility Partnership with Azerbaijan. She has an extensive work experience in the migration area for more than 12 years. Saltanat worked on different positions and as a consultant in International Organization for Migration where she was actively involved in coordination and implementation of projects on migration management, immigration and border control, trafficking in human beings, readmission management, assisted voluntary return and reintegration, etc. Prior to starting with ICMPD, Saltanat worked for two Twinning projects at the State Migration Service and Ministry of Education respectively.

She holds a Master degree in Languages from Azerbaijan University of Languages. Saltanat comes from Azerbaijan and speaks English, Russian and Turkish in addition to her native language, Azerbaijani.

Prof. Dr. Najafov is Chief adviser at the Service of the State Counsellor of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Multiculturalism, Interethnic and Religious Affairs. He is also Head of the Department of Philosophy and Social Psychology at the Academy of Public Administration under the president of Azerbaijan Republic. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from St. Petersburg State University.

Elnur Nasibov is an ICMPD (International Centre for Migration Policy Development) National Project Manager for the project MOBILAZE: Support to the Implementation of the Mobility Partnership with Azerbaijan. Mr Nasibov has an extensive work experience in the area of migration, trafficking of human beings, forced labour, child labour and internal displacement for more than 15 years. He has worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Central Asia where he was actively involved in coordination and implementation of projects on legal aid and counselling to migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, prevention and monitoring of trafficking in human beings, forced labour, child labour situation. He holds a PHD diploma from the National Academy of Science of Azerbaijan Republic and Master Degree in Human Rights Law from the Central European University in Budapest. In addition to his native Azerbaijani language, Mr Nasibov speaks English, French, Russian and Turkish languages.

Tudor Parfitt is the honorary chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the Projet Aladin. He is Distinguished Professor at Florida International University, the President Navon Professor of Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies, Director of Jewish Studies and Founding Director of the Center for Global Jewish Communities at FIU. He is corresponding fellow of the Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer and Emeritus Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, non-resident fellow of the W.E.B. du Bois Institute, Harvard University and associate fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. After VSO in Israel where he worked with handicapped children and was engaged with a number of Anglican projects in the Holy City, he studied Hebrew and Arabic at Oxford and after a year as Goodenday Fellow at the Hebrew University, completed a D.Phil at Oxford on the history of the Jews in Palestine and their relations with their Muslim neighbours. In 1972 he was appointed lecturer in Hebrew at the University of Toronto and in 1974 Parkes Fellow at the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non Jewish Relations in the University of Southampton and junior associate at the Centre of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford.

Shortly afterwards he became lecturer in Hebrew at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He was successively, senior lecturer, reader and professor (Professor of Modern Jewish Studies) at SOAS where he founded the Centre of Jewish Studies and was its director from 1993 to 2006 and from 2010-11. He was also Chair of the Middle East Centre at SOAS. In 2012 he was Distinguished Visiting Scholar, (Global Engagement Program) at the University of Pennsylvania, Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow (Spring Term) at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute Harvard University (where he gave the Huggins Lectures in 2011) and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, Cape Town, South Africa. He is Honorary President of the International Society for the Study of African Jewry.

Over his career his chief academic interests have included Jews in Asia and Africa, the Sephardi/Mizrahi communities of the Muslim world, Jewish-Muslim relations, Hebrew and Hebrew Literature, Judaising Movements, Jewish genetic discourses and issues around race in modern times and the role played by the workings of the myth of the Lost Tribes of Israel throughout history. He has authored or edited 26 books and presented 10 documentaries for the BBC, PBS, Channel Four and the History Channel among others. His latest books are Black Zion ed. with Edith Bruder (Cambridge Scholars’ Press 2012); Black Jews in Africa and the Americas (Harvard University Press, 2013); ed. with Dario Miccolli and E. Trevisan-Semi, Memory and Ethnicity: Ethnic Museums in Israel and the Diaspora, (Cambridge Scholars’ Press 2013) and with Annette Fromm Gogodala: Transition and Revival, (Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University 2014.)

Lisa Monique Söderlindh is a Communications Initiative Manager at the Swedish Migration Agency where she has been working since 2012. In Sweden, the Migration Agency is the authority that considers applications from people who want to take up permanent residence in Sweden, come for a visit, seek protection from persecution or become Swedish citizens.

Prior to joining the agency, she has worked as a Programme Expert in Communication and Information at UNESCO (2014), a Communications Delegate at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (2010) as well as a Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Delegate at the Swedish Red Cross (2009).

She holds dual masters in Journalism, Communications and Media Studies from Stockholm University

Catherine Wihtol de Wenden is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). A lawyer by training and a political scientist, her research focuses on the relationship between migrations and politics in France, migration flows, migration policies and citizenship in Europe and in the rest of the world.

She is a regular consultant for the OECD, the European Commission, UNHCR, and the Council of Europe. She is the Chair of the Research Committee on Migrations of the International Society of Sociology since 2002; a member of the Commission Nationale de déontologie de la sécurité from 2003 to 2011; a member of the editorial boards of ‘Hommes et migrations, Migrations société, and Esprit’.

She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Sciences Po.

Jala Garibova is Professor of Linguistics and Vice Rector for International Relations at Azerbaijan University of Languages. Her research area includes Language Policy and Planning, Language Policy of Azerbaijan, and Language and Identity in Post-Soviet Turkic States. She has published scholarly articles and books locally and internationally in Sociolinguistics and Language Policy issues. Her book titled “Turkic Peoples in the Post-Soviet Period: Language Issue and Reshaped Identities” was published in Turkey in 2012. Jala Garibova served as a member of educational board of International Journal of Sociology of Language between 2009 and 2015. She has presented her research outcomes in a number of international conferences on language policy and planning, linguistics choices and attitudes, as well as educational policies. As a Higher Education Bologna Expert, Jala Garibova has coordinated several international projects in educational reforms and EHEA integration.