Kurt Almqvist is President of the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Alastair Benn is a writer and deputy editor at Engelsberg Ideas. Mattias Hessérus is a historian and Director of Civilisation Studies at the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation. Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over 100 books. He was formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh before becoming a full-time writer. He has recently completed volume 24 in his series of novels set in Botswana, The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Last year saw the publication of a collection of poetry, In a Time of Distance. He is a librettist for composers of operas and song cycles. Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has written extensively on the Cold War, nuclear history, and on Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. He has served as a Global Fellow and a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre and as the Zi Jiang Distinguished Professor at East China Normal University. Radchenko’s books include Two Suns in the Heavens: the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy and Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia. Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford, and Professor of Silk Roads Studies at King’s College, Cambridge. He works with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization on the future of sustainable cities and on the Belt and Road Initiative. Frankopan’s books include The Silk Roads: a New History of the World, The New Silk Roads: the Present and Future of the World and The Earth Transformed: an Untold History. Alina Polyakova is President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis as well as an adjunct professor of European studies at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Polyakova is a recognised expert on transatlantic relations, European security, Russian foreign policy, digital authoritarianism, and populism in democracies. She is the author of the book The Dark Side of European Integration, as well as dozens of major reports and articles. Ark J. Schiefsky is the C Lois P Grove Professor of the Classics at Harvard University and the director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. His research centres on the history of philosophy and science in the ancient Greco-Roman world and its transmission and reception in later periods. He is the author of a commentary on the Hippocratic treatise On Ancient Medicine, as well as numerous articles on ancient philosophy and science.