Programme Committee

Assoc. Prof. dr hab. MARCIN SZEWCZAK

assistant professor at the Department of Local Government Law and Administration Science, Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Attorney-at-law running his own law firm. President of the Institute for Local Government Development of the Lubelskie Voivodeship. A graduate of the following faculties: law (KUL) and international relations (UMCS). He holds a Master of Arts in European Studies and Global Affairs from the Sante Cuore University in Milan and the Peter Pazman Catholic University in Budapest. Lecturer at the National School of Public Administration named after President Lech Kaczyński. In his scientific and professional work, he focuses on issues related to local government law and EU law, in particular regional development law and local government international cooperation. Chairman of the Program Council of the 3Seas Local Government Congress.

Phd hab. Przemysław Czarnek, Prof KUL

He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in 2001. Afterwards, in 2006, he obtained a doctoral degree in legal sciences on the basis of the work „Principles of the rule of law and social justice in the systemic practice of the Third Republic of Poland” and, in 2015, a postdoctoral degree in legal sciences on the basis of his achievements and the dissertation “Economic freedom. The first pillar of the social market economy”. 

He is a professor at the Catholic University of Lublin. He specializes in constitutional law and is the author of several dozen monographs and scientific articles. 

He was the Lublin voivode in 2015 – 2019. During this period, he was involved in the implementation of the structural reform of schools and institutions in the voivodeship and actively participated in the debate on the shape of the education reform. 

He was elected to the 9th term Sejm of the Republic of Poland (the lower house of the Polish parliament) in 2019, gaining over 87,000. votes.  

As a member of the Polish parliament, he performs the duties  of the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Human Rights. 

Minister of Education and Science 2020-2023. 

prof. Arkadiusz Adamczyk

Vice-President of the Council of the Institute – Doctor of Humanities, associate professor at the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce. In 1999, he obtained a doctoral degree in history at the University of Łódź, and in 2009 he received a postdoctoral degree in political science at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. From 2010, associate professor at the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Branch in Piotrków Trybunalski at the Faculty of Philology and History. Currently a professor at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Management of the Jagiellonian University in Kielce. Author of historical articles devoted to Hungarian topics, including: On the eve of the war. Polish and Hungarian possibilities of influencing the geopolitical shape of Central and Eastern Europe in the years 1919-1939.

Prof. ALEKSANDER ARISTOVNIK

Aleksander Aristovnik is Professor of Economics and Management in Administration at the Faculty of Public Administration and Professor of Economics at the School of Economics and Business (University of Ljubljana). His main research interests include Public Sector Economics, Public Sector Management, Macroeconomics and Economics of the European Integration.

prof. Tomasz Grosse

Tomasz G. Grosse is a sociologist, political scientist and historian. He is a professor at the University of Warsaw. He specializes in the analysis of economic policies in the EU and the Member States, as well as in public management, geo-economics, Europeanisation, EU theoretical thoughts.  An Analysis of Crisis Management from an Economic and Political Perspective” (with M. Cichocki, Berlin 2019), and “Fuel for Dominance. On the Economic Bases of Geopolitical Supremacy” (Berlin 2020).

dr hab. Karol Karski, prof. UW

Professor of the University of Warsaw. He holds doctoral (PhD) and postdoctoral (Habilitation) degrees in law. He is the Head of the Department of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration. Author of over 100 publications in the field of international law and European law. He was, inter alia, President of the Council of the Capital City of Warsaw, Chair of the European Policy Committee of the Association of Polish Counties, Member of the European Policy Commission of the Joint Commission of Government and Territorial Self-Government, Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Development Forum of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, Vice-President of the Committee of the Regions of the EU, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Chair of the Committee for EU Affairs of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Vice-Chair of the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland and Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He is a Member of the European Parliament, Vice-President of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and its Sub-Committee on Human Rights, as well as a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and its Subcommittee on Public Health. Honorary professor and doctor honoris causa of over a dozen universities and research institutions.

Prof. dr. sc. Ivan Koprić

Professor Dr. Ivan Koprić is a Tenured Professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law and its former Vice Dean (2001-2003). He has served as the head of the Administrative Science Department since 2007. He served as head of the Study Centre for Public Administration and Public Finances (2011-2015), head of the postgraduate study Public Law and Public Administration (2011-2015), head of the Institute of Public Law and Public Administration (2005-2013), head of the postgraduate study Public Administration (2006-2010), dean of the Social Sciences Polytechnics (2007-2011).

He serves as the president of the Institute of Public Administration, Zagreb (since 2008). He is editor-in-chief of the international scientific journal Croatian and Comparative Public Administration. He is the editor of two series of books (Contemporary Public Administration, publisher: Faculty of Law, Zagreb; Modern Public Administration, publisher: Institute of Public Administration, Zagreb) with more than 40 books. He is an active member of several international and national scientific associations. He is the president of the Scientific Board of the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences. He is a member of several other academic and public bodies in Croatia and abroad.

He serves or served as a member of editorial or advisory boards of several international scientific journals (Lex localis – Maribor, Trieste, Graz, Split; the NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Bratislava; Review of Social Policy, Zagreb; Yearbook of the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences, Zagreb; Central European Public Administration Review, Ljubljana; Peace Human Rights Governance, Padua; Studia Iuridica Lublinensia, Lublin).

He is author and editor of more than 30 books and more than 300 scientific and professional papers and contributions. He serves as an international expert in fields of public administration, public policy, administrative law, and local democracy (OUN, UNDP, OECD-Sigma, the World Bank, Council of Europe, European Commission, EIPA, ReSPA, etc.). He has been a leader, researcher, and expert in more than 60 scientific, legal, policy and professional projects in Croatia and abroad. He leads the UNIC project at the University of Zagreb that aims at establishing the European University of Post-Industrial Cities.

Ph.D. Zbigniew Krysiak, Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics

He is the author of more than 250 publications. He has lectured at universities in the USA and India. He has over 25 years of experience in the practice of economic life. He was an economic expert at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. He is a speaker at national and international conferences and a commentator on economic life in Poland and worldwide. At the Schuman Thought Institute, he promotes and implements the ideas of Robert Schuman.

Professor PhD hab. Roman Niżnikowski

Roman Niżnikowski, Agricultural Sciences, Animal Science, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Animal Sciences, Department of Detailed Animal Breeding 

Chief specialist at the National Institute of Rural Culture and Heritage. e works as the chief specialist at the National Institute of Rural Culture and Heritage. In the years 2016 to 2018, he was a member of the interdisciplinary team for the dissemination of science in the field of increasing the scientific level and the level of internationalization of the published scientific journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. 

PhD Primož Pevcin

Associate Professor, Doctor of Economics at the Faculty of Public Administration of the University of Ljubljana. Specialization: economics and management of the public and non-profit sector, local government, managerial economics.

prof. Andrzej Zybertowicz

Polish sociologist, publicist and academic teacher, professor of social sciences, associate professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, social advisor to the presidents of Poland: Lech Kaczyński (2008-2010) and Andrzej Duda (since 2015).

Associate Professor dr hab. Maciej Szymanowski

Maciej Szymanowski was recommended by Wacław Felczak on a scholarship in Budapest in 1987–1988. At the end of the 1980s, he was active in the Polish-Hungarian Solidarity. In 1991 he graduated from Hungarian studies at the University of Warsaw. In 2001, he obtained a doctorate in humanities, the discipline of history at the Jagiellonian University, on the basis of the work entitled National Values ​​in Communist Propaganda of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary in the press of 1949–1953, written under the supervision of Andrzej Chwalba. 

In the years 1992–1999 he was the editor of the Czech weekly “Respekt”. In 2000 he started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an expert on Central Europe. From 2001 to 2006 he was the director of the Polish Institute in Budapest, and from 2006 to 2010 the Polish Institute in Prague. Then he worked in the Minister’s Secretariat. From February 2013, he was responsible for historical policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

In 2013, he started publishing in “Do Rzeczy”. He also became a lecturer at the Catholic University of Péter Pázmány in Budapest. He also collaborated with Radio Wnet and the Czech magazine “Kontexty”. On August 1, 2018, he was appointed director of the Wacław Felczak Institute of Polish-Hungarian Cooperation. 

Associate Professor dr hab. Elżbieta Feret, prof. URZ

The basic research area covered by the interests of dr hab. Elżbieta Feret, prof. UR are financial and legal issues related to the functioning of local government units in Poland and Europe, which was confirmed in the monograph on Concepts and theories of local government on the example of selected countries and Poland, including the issue of financing their activities. She combines her interests with membership in the Center for Information and Organization of Research on Public Finance and Tax Law of Central and Eastern European Countries – Association at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bialystok, the scientific council of the quarterly Budget Law of the State and Local Government, as well as managing the Center for Regional and Cross-border Research of the University of Rzeszów.

Associate Professor dr hab. Filip Grzegorczyk

Polish manager of the energy industry, lawyer, academic teacher and civil servant. In the years 2015-2016, Deputy Minister of the State Treasury, in the years 2016-2020 President of the Management Board of Tauron Polska Energia, creator of the strategic concept “Green Turn of Tauron”, based on the development of the so-called clean energy, since 2020 Vice-President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty.

PhD hab. Arkadiusz Jabłoński

Dr hab. Arkadiusz Jabłoński, professor of the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) – sociologist and social philosopher. Head of the Department of Social Theories and Family Sociology at the Institute of Sociological Sciences (KUL). Dean of the Department of Social Sciences of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Chairman of the Presidium of the Scientific Council at the Educational Research Institute for the years 2021-2025. Chief Editor of the magazine “ Education”. Initiator and organiser of numerous conferences and international events concerning social issues. His main scientific interests concentrate on contemporary development of the society of knowledge in theoretical and metatheoretical dimension, as well as concrete empirical symptoms.

PhD hab. Agnieszka Orzelska, prof. IPP PAN

PhD hab. Agnieszka Orzelska-Stączek, prof. IPP PAN manages a research project on the Three Seas Initiative (https://politic.edu.pl/research/research-on-3si/). He has been working at the Department of Central and Eastern Europe and Post-Soviet Research at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences continuously since 1999. In 2012, she obtained the degree of habilitated doctor. 

She graduated from the Institute of International Relations of the Faculty of International Relations of the University of Warsaw and the Warsaw School of Economics, she also studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. In 2003, she received the Prime Minister’s award for her doctoral dissertation, in 2004-2005, the Scholarship for Young Scientists of the Foundation for Polish Science, and in 2018, the Lazarski University Rector’s award for very high achievements in teaching in the 2017/2018 academic year. 

Associate Professor dr. hab. Beata Piskorska, prof. KUL

Political scientist, graduate of the Faculty of Political Science at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and post-graduate studies in European Project Management and European Union Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. Since 2008, she has been employed at the Institute of Political Science and Administration of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Since 2021, she has been the Vice-Rector of the Catholic University of Lublin for Students, Doctoral Students and Development. She is an expert of Team Europe at the Representation of the European Commission in Poland, president of the Association of Education and International Research ERIA, member of the Advisory Team of the Minister of Education and Science for financing international scientific cooperation, member of the Council for Innovative Social and Economic Development of Lublin at the Mayor of Lublin, expert of the social sciences team of the State Accreditation Committee in the discipline of political and administration sciences, and since 2019 the chairwoman of the Council of the Central European Institute in Lublin, she directs the work of the Diplomacy Research Center of the Catholic University of Lublin.

Associate Professor dr hab. Mieczysław Ryba

Ph.D., historian, prof. WSKSiM, researcher at the Catholic University of John Paul II; for several years head of the Department of the History of Political Systems of the 19th and 20th centuries; currently – the Department of the Spanish World, Politics and International Relations. President of the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia prof. Czesław Strzeszewski in Lublin. In 2007–2011, he was a member of the College of the Institute of National Remembrance. From November 2020, a member of the Advisory Team at the Ministry of Education and Science. On November 11, 2015, he was awarded by the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for outstanding services in disseminating knowledge about the recent history of Poland, for achievements in scientific and didactic work. Currently a member of the Chapter of the Order of Polonia Restituta. 

He was a long-term councilor of the city of Lublin (deputy chairman of the City Council for eight years). Currently, chairman of the Parliament of the Lubelskie Voivodeship. 

Dr hab. Magdalena Sitek, prof. WSGE

Polish lawyer, habilitated doctor of social sciences in the field of political science and habilitated doctor of legal sciences, associate professor at the Wyższa Szkoła Gospodarki Euroregionalna im. Alcide De Gasperi in Józefów.

Associate Professor dr hab. Beata Surmacz

Director of the Institute of Central Europe in Lublin. Professor at the Department of International Relations, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. Research interests: Polish eastern policy, Polish-Ukrainian relations; contemporary diplomacy. Author of numerous scientific papers and books including: Modern Polish-Ukrainian Relations. Politological Analysis of the Good-Neighborliness Treaty (2002), and The Evolution of Contemporary Diplomacy. Actors-Structures, Functions (2015).

Associate Professor dr hab. Krzysztof Szczucki, prof. UW

Polish lawyer and civil servant, doctor habilitated in legal sciences, president of the Government Legislation Center since 2020.

Associate Professor dr hab. Mirosław Szumiło, prof. UMCS

Dr. hab. Miroslaw Szumiło, prof. UMCS, member of the Council of the National Program for the Development of Humanities, professor in the Department of Social History and Education of the Institute of History of UMCS. Chief specialist in the Historical Research Office of the Institute of National Remembrance. Chairman of the Academic Civic Club of President Lech Kaczyński in Lublin.

Dr hab. Grzegorz Żuk, prof. UMCS

Polish philologist and culture expert, habilitated doctor of social sciences. He works as an assistant professor at the Institute of Cultural Sciences at the Faculty of Philology of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. He is the author of books: Fortress or Community? Europe in Polish public discourse, Lublin 2010; Axiological education. Outline of issues, Lublin 2016 and Gardens of happiness, Lublin 2022. Research interests: axiology, education and culture, museology.

Dr Robert Derewenda

Doctor of humanities in the field of history, councillor of the Lublin City Council in the eighth term, from 2022 Director of the Branch of the Institute of National Remembrance in Lublin. Since the beginning of his scientific career, he has been associated with the Catholic University of Lublin, where he currently teaches archival studies and didactics of history. He is also a member of the Teams of the Ministry of Education and Science responsible for the core curriculum of history and knowledge about society. She actively popularizes history by participating in television programs and events dedicated to youth.

PhD Wojciech Federczyk

Doktor nauk prawnych, adwokat, posiada wieloletnie doświadczenie akademickie i urzędnicze – na stanowiskach kierowniczych zarówno w służbie cywilnej (MSWiA) jak też w samorządzie terytorialnym (Urząd m. st. Warszawy) oraz eksperckie (Trybunał Konstytucyjny, organy administracji rządowej). Adiunkt na Uniwersytecie Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego w Warszawie. Członek Warszawskiego Seminarium Aksjologii Administracji. Specjalizacja: obszar nauk o administracji publicznej; polubowne metody rozwiązywania sporów z udziałem administracji.

Gen. dr Marcin Strzelec

prof. SWWS (born June 1, 1979 in Poznań, Kalisz resident) – Vice-Rector for Professional Affairs of the Higher School of Justice, General of the Prison Service, Doctor of Social Sciences, Master of Science in IT, First Rector-Commandant of the Higher School of Justice in Warsaw, former Deputy General Director Prison Service, graduate of many postgraduate studies and courses, including MBA and security management and Top Public Management at IASE Business Scholl, expert in public security, prisons, functioning and cooperation of state services, remote learning, e-learning methodology, ICT and security ICT.

ŚP. PROF. DR HAB. WALDEMAR PARUCH

Author of nearly 240 scientific papers, including about 30 publications combining knowledge
political and historical. The extremely wide research area covered among others issues of the presence of Christianity in Poland, Poland’s accession to the European Union and NATO. A nationally recognized specialist in the field of political thought, methodology of political science research, Polish foreign policy, political systems, history of Central Europe, strategic management. Promoter and reviewer of numerous bachelor’s and master’s theses, promoter and reviewer doctoral dissertations, an expert in several procedures for the conferment of the title of professor. Creator and head of the governmental Center for Strategic Analyzes. Advisor to the Minister of Education and Science for Higher Education. Advisor to the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland in the field of Polish foreign policy and an expert in the following initiatives: Europe of the Carpathians, Summits of Speakers of Central and Eastern European Parliaments. Originator of the creation of the Institute of Central Europe and the Museum of the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland in Lublin. Multiple laureate of awards: Minister of Science and Higher Education, Minister of Education
National and Sport, as well as the Rector of UMCS. In April 2022, he was awarded the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta.