LK11 Keynote Speakers
Maria Mendel, PhD, D.Sc., is a distinguished scholar of social pedagogy at the University of Gdańsk and an internationally recognized authority on community-engaged research, pedagogy of place, and the social dimensions of knowledge production. Her work has been instrumental in advancing critical, participatory, and solidarity-oriented approaches to research that connect universities with communities, civil society, and public life.
Professor Mendel’s scholarship explores how education, research, and social action intersect within concrete social spaces, emphasizing responsibility, relationality, and democratic engagement. Her influential concepts of pedagogy of place and common space resonate strongly with the Living Knowledge movement’s commitment to co-creation, civic engagement, and research for the public good. She is the author and editor of numerous seminal books and articles, including Pedagogika miejsca, Pedagogika miejsca wspólnego, and Parent Engagement as Power, and has published extensively in both Polish and English.
Beyond her academic contributions, Professor Mendel has played a key leadership role in shaping higher education and research culture. She has served as Vice-Rector for Education and Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at the University of Gdańsk. She is also a co-founder of the Polish Research Network About Parents in Education, fostering collaborative, participatory research practices at national and international levels.In recognition of her outstanding impact on social science and public life, Professor Mendel has received numerous honors, including the prestigious Johannes Hevelius Award.
Sorin Costreie, the Presidential Adviser for Education and Research in Romania, in 2023 elected to the position of President of UNICA, an institutional Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe.
He was previously Vice-Rector for Public Relations and University Networks (2019-2024) and Vice-Rector for International Relations of the University of Bucharest (2017-2019), as well as former Vice-Dean of the UB Faculty of Philosophy (2016-2017). He is a member of the University Senate since 2011. In between, in 2016, he was Adviser to the Minister and State Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research. He was also in the period 2020-2023 State Advisor to the Prime-Minister for Education and Research.
He is Associate Professor at the Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bucharest. He holds a PhD in Philosophy (University of Bucharest, 2007), with a thesis in philosophy of mathematics, and pursued further doctoral studies in philosophy of language at the University of Western Ontario, Canada between 2000 and 2008. He has published articles, books and edited volumes with Routledge, Springer, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Humanitas, University of Bucharest Press, etc.
He was awarded several scholarships and fellowships to study for extended periods in Canada, United States, Germany, Spain, and Italy. His area of interest has lately focused on mathematical cognition and critical thinking. He is member of various professional associations, and since 2014 he is member of the Steering Committee of the European Society of Analytic Philosophy.
Jan-Gustav Strandenaes began working with the UN on environment, development sustainability and governance in the 1970s, and a first UN assignment brought him to Latin America. He has taught and written about the UN for more than five decades, worked with the UN Commission for Sustainable Development for 15 years, worked as NGO liaison officer at the UN HQ in New York, worked as a diplomat for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway, at embassies in Botswana and Uganda, was for 15 years the director of a Norwegian aid/environment-NGO with projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
He has worked 5 years in Africa, has extensive stakeholder/civil society experience through 50 years of work on all continents, speaks several languages, is a seasoned university lecturer, has guest-lectured and held master classes all over the world on UN issues; has evaluated projects and organisations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, advised governments, chaired UN meetings, facilitated UN processes such as environment policies, negotiated the SDGs, has translated and authored books and numerous articles on governance, the environment, and sustainable development.
He once crossed the Kalahari Desert in an old Land-Rover and when he is not travelling the world fighting for the environment, he writes and comments on environment, sustainable development good governance and democracy issues from his home outside Oslo, Norway.
Srdjan Verbic is a learning enthusiast who tries to share his passion for critical thinking. He is a university professor teaching data science and statistics in Belgrade, co-founder of think-tank Observatory of Social Innovations, national and international consultant in science education and data analysis, former minister of education, science and technological development in Serbia and program leader of hundreds of extracurricular science education events.
Professor Verbic graduated Physics and received PhD degree in Artificial Intelligence at University of Belgrade. He authored several textbooks and online courses on physics and data science. His expertise covers data science and AI research, educational assessment methodology, STEM curriculum development, open data initiatives, and education policy analysis. He also participates in startup and innovation ecosystems as a consultant, mentor and evaluator.
Dobrivoje Lale Eric leads the Department of International Cooperation at Serbia’s Center for the Promotion of Science (CPN) since 2015. The Center was founded in 2010 with a goal to establish functional and active relations between science and society, both locally and internationally.
Mr. Eric has been involved as an expert, work package leader or team member in numerous projects and initiatives dealing with science communication, research policies, STE(A)M education and art & science practices, with a focus on learning, climate and AI topics lately. Recently, he was the chief coordinator of the FASIH and the national coordinator of the European Digital Deal projects (both funded through the Programme Creative Europe). He possesses a profound and proven experience in managing EU funded projects at the regional and national level, including European ARTificial Intelligence Lab – AI Lab (Creative Europe), ClimaGen (Horizon Europe), Scientix, RRING, TeRRIFICA and CREATIONS (Horizon 2020) or RRI Tools (FP7), aimed at critical and creative assessment of the AI systems and other emerging technologies, climate literacy, novel educational practices, and societal relevance of the research and innovation processes, respectively.
He’s been serving as a member of the Programme Committees at the ECSITE, European network of science centres and museums and Belgrade Open School (BOŠ), with current membership at the Petnica Science Centre and EC’s Expert Group of the National Points of Reference on Scientific Information. An art historian by education, he was the elected president of the DoCoMoMo Serbia, a national chapter of the international committee for the documentation and conservation of modern movement in architecture, in the period 2013-19.