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MILENA DRAGIĆEVIĆ ŠEŠIĆ
Professor Emerita of the Faculty of Performing Arts (University of the Arts of Belgrade), former Rector of the University of Arts (Belgrade), and founding director of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management - Interculturalism and Mediation in the Balkans (2004-2019). Milena has an impressive career as professor of Cultural Policy & Cultural Management, Cultural Studies and Media Studies. As an expert in cultural policy and management, Milena has been involved in more than 50 projects, and has participated in numerous public art projects and radical cultural projects and programmes in Europe and in the Balkans as a civil society activist. As an academic and activist, throughout her career, Milena has contributed to training, raising awareness and advocating for cultural policies as a core component in the building of democratic societies. While originally from Eastern Europe, her engagement has been visible across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and Asia, developing strong networks of collaboration at the international level. Among other positions, she has been the President of the Cultural Policy Research Award (European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam); the President and current Member of the Board of the European Diploma in Cultural Project Management (Association Marcel Hicter, Brussels), and has been a Board Member of ENCATC and ELIA.
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ALFONS MARTINELL SEMPERE
Professor at the University of Girona (Catalonia, Spain), and co-director of the Pau Casals UNESCO Chair (on music and promotion of Peace and Human Rights). He was the founding director of the UNESCO Chair on Cultural Policies and Cooperation at the University of Girona (2000 - 2014) and also the founding President of the Interarts Foundation (1995), in an initiative shared with Eduard Delgado and Eduard Miralles. In 2004-2008, Alfons served as Director General of Cultural and Scientific Relations of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID) and he was key in the launch and implementation of the "Culture and Development" Window of the UNDP Millennium Goals’ Achievement Fund. Alfons is one of the global leading experts in the field of Cultural Policies, Cultural Management, Cultural Cooperation and Development. He has taught in universities in Spain, Europe, Latin America and Africa, and has given a founding footprint to many academic and civil-society led initiatives in these fields. He has also contributed to the training of hundreds of cultural managers, officials and officers, as well as through countless publications, conferences and research projects, to a better (and action-oriented) understanding of the relationship between culture and sustainable development. He has also addressed, in recent years, the relationship between culture and the SDGs and how to strengthen this connection with a standalone Culture Goal.