Fernando Mendez is the director of the e-Democracy Centre and a senior researcher at the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d). He is also lecturer at the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETH). After completing his Masters at the LSE, he undertook his doctoral studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy where he completed his PhD. Before moving to the University of Zurich he was a researcher at the University of Geneva where he also taught on the Master's programme. During 2001 he was a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley (at the BRIE center).

Uwe Serdült is currently managing director of the Research Center on Direct Democracy (c2d.unige.ch) at the University of Zurich, lecturer for the University of Zürich as well as for the ETH Zürich's MA in Comparative and International Studies.

Javier Ramos is Senior Research Associate in the E-Democracy Centre at the University of Zürich, where he coordinates the Working Group on ICT’s and Development. He is also Senior Research Associate in EMCONET (Employment Conditions Network) in the Universitat Pompeu Fabra -Barcelona.

Javier has been advisor in the cabinet of the President of the European Parliament – Josep Borrell- and Policy Advisor in the Global Progressive Forum - at the European Parliament in Brussels-.

Vasiliki Triga holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence. Since 2006 she works as a senior researcher at the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d) at the University of Zurich. Before, she has been a visiting fellow at the CNRS (Paris) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Faculty of Psychology) where she worked on several research projects with prior focus on the methodology of social sciences. Her main research interests concern social science research methods, especially questionnaire design, focus groups and techniques of discourse analysis. She is especially interested in ICT/internet based applications of these social science research techniques and the emergence of new social movements and the use of new technologies.

Gianluca Misuraca is an international strategic advisor and policy analyst focusing in the area of Information and Knowledge Society development and Governance of ICTs with about 15 years of professional experience. Gianluca is currently a Scientific Officer at the European Commission Directorate General Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (EC-DG-JRC-IPTS) in Seville, Spain, where he is part of the Information Society Unit focusing on research in the area of ICTs for Governance and policy Modelling, as member of the team of the ICTs Applications for Society (ICTAS). He is also a Research Associate at the College of Management of Technology of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) focusing on the area of Mobile Internet services and Foresight Technology, as well as a Lecturer and Scientific Advisor to the Executive Master in e-Governance organized by EPFL in collaboration with other prestigious institutions worldwide, of which he was formerly the Managing Director and Scientific Coordinator for the period 2005-2007.

Yanina Welp is currently a senior researcher at the Centre on Direct Democracy (c2d) at the University of Zurich. She has recently completed a PhD in political science at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain) and has been researcher at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, Catalonia Open University. She holds a degree in Political Science (1998) and in Social Communication Science (1997) from the Uiversity of Buenos Aires. She is particularly interested in administrative reform, e-government and in democracy's enhancing potential of new technologies in fields usually reserved to traditional political institutions while she is also interested in e-democracy developments in Latin America.

Navraj Ghaleigh is lecturer in Public Law at the University of Edinburgh and has worked extensively on campaign funding issues. He is particularly interested in the effects of online campaigning on party funding and some of the constitutional issues raised by e-democratisation.

Tiago Peixoto is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence (EUI). His main research interests are related to identifying factors that contribute to successful policies aiming at reinforcing political participation, such as the role of institutions in participatory engineering or the use of ICTs on democratic processes. Tiago has been involved in pioneering work concerning Participatory Budgeting and also on e-democracy experiences at the local level funded by the European Commission. Among other publications, he is co-author of  “Beyond Public Scrutiny: A Stocktaking of Social Accountability initiatives in OECD countries” a joint publication OECD / World Bank. He holds a Masters in Organized Collective Action (Sciences-Po, Paris) and in Political and Social Sciences (EUI).

Mario Mendez is CSET Lecturer in Public Law at Queen Mary, University of London. He holds law degrees from the University of London and the University of Oxford, and was the Draper Scholar at the College of William and Mary (2000-2001). His research interests in the field of e-democracy are mainly related to the transnational realm and include the use of ICT's as a legitimation tool for the WTO and e-voting for the European Union.

Arjun Geevarghese holds a BA in Technology from the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India. He works with c2d and eDC since 2006 on a contract basis and employee of Pitsolutions which is our technical partner for website and database projects. In January 2008 he joined us as a part-time team member.