Sustainability crisis and our responsibility as scientific community

Franz Faupel is Chairman of the North European Initiative Nanotechnology (NINa SH e.V.) and founding member of the International Alliance of Societies for a Sustainable Future (SFS). Until March 2025, he held the Chair for Multicomponent Materials at Kiel University and published over 400 research papers, inter alia, on metallic glasses, functional nanocomposites, magnetoelectric sensors, photocatalysis, plasma deposition, and memristive devices for bioinspired neuromorphic computing. After a research stay as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights, he completed his habilitation at the University of Göttingen in 1992. For more information, please visit https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/matv/en?set_language=en and https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=YnVgzIoAAAAJ&hl=de.

How science can help us produce more biogas at lowest social costs

Biljana Kulisic, PhD, policy officer at the Unit C2 Decarbonisation and sustainability of energy sources within European Commission Directorate-General for Energy:

Biljana has over 20 years of experience in concerted policy and assessing socio-economic aspects of bioenergy. She is involved in IEA Bioenergy TCP since 2005 and was contracted as an independent expert for bioeconomy, bringing in the spirit of EU15 to the group, to the European Commission Directorate-General Research and Innovation 2020-2021. Since October 2022, she works as a policy officer at the European Commission, Directorate-General Energy: Decarbonisation and Sustainability of Energy Sources Unit, with biomethane, GHG emissions from biofuels pathways and general role of bioenergy within the energy and bioeconomy.

Before going to Bruessels, Biljana was a researcher, guest lecturer and assistant professor at the Faculty of Food Science in Osijek, Croatia, establishing the first bioeconomy specialist MSc in the country.

Humanizing Work through Ergonomics: Design, Responsibility, and Inclusive Innovation for Aging Populations.

Marcin Butlewski is a Professor at the Faculty of Engineering Management at Poznan University of Technology, Poland. He earned his PhD in 2008 in the field of machine design and operation, with a dissertation on ergonomic design and selection of non-mechanized hand tools. He currently serves as Dean of Faculty of Engineering Management.

Dr. Butlewski specializes in industrial ergonomics, ergonomic and inclusive design, and gerontechnology. His research addresses the humanization of work and the allocation of responsibility in human-machine systems across various levels of automation. His work enhances human capacity in perception, decision-making, and task execution.

Since 2006, he has led and coordinated dozens of industrial projects assessing ergonomic conditions on production lines, many of which resulted in workplace improvement strategies. Between 2014 and 2017, he was responsible for implementing a major national R&D project on fatigue management systems in underground coal mines. He is the author or co-author of over 100 scientific articles, book chapters, and five monographs. He also holds one patent and three utility models aimed at improving workplace efficiency.

In 2014, Dr. Butlewski was certified as a European Ergonomist. Since 2015, he has served on the Polish Committee for Standardization in the field of Machine Safety and Ergonomics. He is an active member of scientific bodies under the Polish Academy of Sciences, contributing to commissions on Machine Construction, Ergonomics, and Social Integration and Rehabilitation.

Beyond his academic and professional work, he is committed to advancing inclusive and universal design practices, especially for people with disabilities and aging populations.