Master List of Europe Commons Deep Dive Participant Bios

List compiled and provided by David Bollier

Nicole Alix

Nicole Alix, HEC business school, has been involved for over 35 years in the social economy, more particularly in cooperative bank, community services and policies for social NGO’s. Since 2011, she has been assigned to Confrontations Europe by the Crédit Coopératif, a French bank where she was the Development Director.

From 1980 to 2000, she had been Deputy Director-General of UNIOPSS (umbrella organization for social welfare NGOs). She established the French “Code of conduct Committee for NGO’s fund raising”. She participated in several European networks. From 2000 to 2003, she was Director General of “Maisons Isatis” (homes for dependant elderly persons). From 2003 to 2011, she was a member of the Credit Cooperatif Executive Committee.

As an Executive Board Member, she is in charge of ‘Social Economy” in Confrontations Europe. She is the Secretary of the Board of the International Forum of Social and Solidarity Economy Entrepreneurs- Mont-Blanc Meetings” and participates in various research networks.

Saki Bailey

Saki Bailey is a Lecturer at the International University College of Turin, a college dedicated to the study of the Commons. She is also the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Political Economy & Law. She received her Juris Doctor from UC Hastings. Between 2004-2006 she worked on a study on behalf of the Academie Internationale Droit Comparé, Paris and from 2008-2010 she was a Visitor of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. She is currently conducting a comparative study on “Access to Commons” for the Common Core of European Private Law. Recent publications include: “Social Movements as Constituent Power: The Italian Struggle for the Commons.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies (spring 2013, coauthored with Ugo Mattei) & “Legalizing the Occupation: The Teatro Valle as a Cultural Commons.” South Atlantic Quarterly 112:2 (spring 2013). She is also Director of “Occupying the Commons: Teatro Valle Occupato.”

Marcos Berlinguer

I am Italian. I worked as a researcher, director of research in various organizations, in political left, trade unions and social movements. I also contributed to create various international networks. Among these, Transform!, Networked Politics, L&G, WSF, EFS. I also worked in various moments as journalist.

In 2011, I moved to Barcelona, where I collaborate with the university IGOP at UAB. In this context, I have contributed to the creation of the “Escuela de los commons,” an open platform of cooperation on the emerging paradigm of the commons. As journalist, since Sptember 2012, I participated in the foundation and started to work for a new Italian daily, Pubblico.

Some publcations: “Beyond Social Economy,” 2012. “Models emergents de sostenibilitat de continguts audiovisuals en l'era digital,” 2012. “Knowledge Is a Common Good. The Effects of the Open Source Movement on the Development of Politics and Society,” 2010. “Networked Politics,” 2007.

David Bollier

David Bollier is an author, activist, blogger and independent scholar with a primary focus on the commons as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. He has pursued this work for more than ten years, most recently as co-founder of the Commons Strategies Group, an international project that works with the global policy activists. Bollier previously was the founding editor of Onthecommons.org, which he edited from 2003 to 2010. He now blogs at Bollier.org.

In 2002, Bollier co-founded Public Knowledge, a Washington advocacy organization for the public’s stake in the Internet, telecom and copyright policy. From 1985 to 2010, he collaborated with noted American television producer/writer Norman Lear on a wide variety of public affairs and political projects. Bollier has written or edited twelve books, including the recently published anthology, The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State (co-edited with Silke Helfrich) and the forthcoming Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights and the Law of the Commons (co-authored with Burns Weston).

Danijela Dolenec

Danijela Dolenec works at the University of Zagreb, teaching comparative politics and social science methodology. She received her master’s from the LSE (2005), and her doctorate in political science from the ETH Zürich (2012). Her primary interest in post-communist democratisation evolved during her time at Harvard University as a Fulbright scholar (2007/2008). Recently she has co-authored We Need to Change, a study on sustainable development in Croatia (Domazet, Dolenec and Ančić, 2012). For years Danijela has been active in the civil sector in Croatia - most notably with organisations such as the Heinrich Boell Stiftung, the Open Society Foundation, the Academic Solidarity and the Subversive Forum – while currently she is working as the coordinator of an emerging green-left think tank, Group 22.

Brian Davey

I studied economics 1967-1973 at Nottingham University. I then helped set up a number of projects including a research and resource centre for trade unions and community groups in Nottingham. From the 1980s I was development worker in a community mental health project, co-developing a community garden. In 1996 I worked at the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau showing how to do community work in East Germany. In 1990s I became interested in local economic development in a network developed by colleagues at the TU Berlin. In 2003 I joined Feasta, the Irish based Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, joining their climate and energy working group. With Feasta I co-developed the idea of “cap and share,” a commons-based approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions. From 2007 I have worked freelance as an ecological economist - including editing a book, published by Feasta, called Sharing for Survival.

Giacomo D’Alisa

In 2004 I graduated in Economics of International Trade and Market Value at “Parthenope” University of Naples (Italy); in 2006 I finalized a higher training scheme in Management of Sustainable development and an higher education course in History of Ethics and Politics Thoughts. In May 2010 I got the Ph.D. in Economics and Technologies for Sustainable Development at University di Foggia (Italy). Since 2010 I have been working at the Institute of Technology and Environmental Science (ICTA), Autonomous University Barcelona (UAB) in Spain.

My research interests are about Environmental Economics, Ecological economics, Sustainable Development, Public goods, Commons, Social Metabolism, Environmental conflicts, and Water security. My main interests as researcher are strictly related to my biography. I focus on water and waste resources after spending some years as activist in Naples against the privatization of water and for a better management of waste in Campania Region (Italy). For the last year and half I have been working on human security, mudslides and civil protection system in Italy, as part of CLICO, a EU FP7 funded project.

Currently I am working as project manger of the ENTITLE, an EU FP7 Initial Training Network under the Marie Curie actions. I am also part of R&D Barcelona group exploring the idea of de-growth, i.e. a smooth disappearing of the hipertrophic modern individual.

Tommaso Fattori

Tommaso Fattori is a founding member of the Italian Forum of Water Movements and was also one of the promoters of the successful referendum on water held in Italy in June 2011. In January 2011 he was elected director of Transform-Italia, where he coordinates the research project on the Commons. He is also a member of the Firenze 10+10 organising committee.

Silke Helfrich

Silke Helfrich (Jena, Germany) has studied romance languages and pedagogy at the Karl-Marx-University in Leipzig. Since mid of the 1990s activities in the field of development politics, from 1996 to 1998 head of Heinrich Böll Foundation Thuringia and from 1999 to 2007 head of the regional office of Heinrich Böll Foundation in Mexico City focusing on globalisation, gender and human rights. Since 2007 she works as independent author and activist, working with a variety of international and domestic partners. Helfrich is the editor of several books on the Commons, among them: Who Owns the World? The Rediscovery of the Commons, Munich 2009 (in: Genes, Bytes y Emisiones. Bienes Comunes y Ciudadania, Mexico-City 2008), editor of Elinor Ostrom: Was mehr wird, wenn wir teilen, Munich 2011. And most recently with Heinrich-Böll-Foundation: Commons. Für eine neue Politik jenseits von Markt und Staat, Bielefeld 2012 (together with David Bollier: The Wealth of the Commons beyond Market and State, Amherst, MA, 2012). She is the primary author of the German speaking CommonsBlog.

Charlotte Hess

Charlotte Hess is Associate Dean for Research, Collections and Scholarly Communication at Syracuse University Library. Before coming to Syracuse, New York in August 2008, Hess was at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University where she was a researcher and the director of the Digital Library of the Commons (1999-2008). Hess served on the Executive Council of the International Association for the Study of the Commons as the Information Officer 1997-2009. Hess has written and lectured extensively on knowledge, cultural, and new commons. She was co-editor with Elinor Ostrom of their book Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, MIT Press, which has been translated into Italian and Korean. Hess and Ostrom also co-authored a number of articles. Recent works by Hess include: “The Unfolding of the Knowledge Commons.” 2012. St. Anthony’s International Review 8(1) (May) 13-24; and «La notion de biens communs et ses applications dans le domaine de la connaissance.» 2011. In Libres Savoirs: Les biens communs de la connaissance. Edited by Hervé Le Crosnier. Caen, France: C&F Éditions.

Wojtek Kalinowski

Co-Director of the program “Initiative for Rethinking Economy” (IRE) at the Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation, which supports the Internatial Commons Conference. Sociologist and historian by training, Wojtek Kalinowski holds degrees from the University of Uppsala in Sweden, the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Previously, he has been working as journalist and web editor at the French monthly “Alternatives Economiques” and, before that, as deputy general at the French think tank “La République des Idées”, where he was chief editor of the international review “La Vie des Idées”. His main interests concern the renewal of Welfare State models and the future of European social model, as well as innovation within field of social and solidarity bases economy.

Nicolas Krausz

Nicolas Krausz, 38 years old, French nationality. After having studied philosophy, I worked in publishing, in particular on books dealing with inter-religious dialogue. I then worked for 5 years in the French political sphere, mainly at the National Assembly (Congress) in Paris. Then I was for 3 years director of an international NGO, the World Mountain People Association (WMPA). Between 2007 and 2011, I have been a parliamentary assistant for a member of parliament based in south-western France. Since May 2011, I have been working in Lausanne (Switzerland) as FPH programme manager in charge of the Rio+20 related activities (Transition and Commons oriented) and the FPH programmes on “Ethics and responsibility” and “Interreligious Dialogue.”

Hervé Le Crosnier

Hervé Le Crosnier is Assistant professor at the University of Caen, where he teaches internet technology and cyberculture. As a delegate in the CNRS institut for communication, his research is about the impact of internet on society and culture, and about knowledge commons. He was ten years a librarian and the creator of the French discussion list BIBLIO-FR. He is now multimedia editor with C&F éditions (http://cfeditions.com).

Larry Lohmann

Larry Lohmann has been involved since 1985 in activist networks working on enclosure, the emergence of new commons and on commodification and decommodification in Asia, Europe and Latin America. He is the author of Mercados de Carbono: Neoliberalizacion del Clima (2012); Energy Security: For Whom? For What? (2012) (with Nicholas Hildyard and Sarah Sexton); Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate, Privatization and Power (2006); Pulping the South: Industrial Tree Plantations in the Global Paper Economy (1996) (with Ricardo Carrere) and Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons (1992) (with Simon Fairlie, Nicholas Hildyard and Sarah Sexton). He works at The Corner House, a UK-based solidarity and research organization (www.thecornerhouse.org.uk).

Heike Löschmann

Heike Löschmann specialized in South East Asian politics, history, languages and cultures during her studies in East-Berlin and Phnom Penh in the 80´s. She did her PhD-research on Buddhism and Politics in mainland South East Asia, at Humboldt University to Berlin (Germany). From work as a university lecturer she got into the field of development and worked as project director and advisor to the Buddhist Institute (Phnom Penh, Cambodia) and later as Director of Heinrich Böll Foundation´s Thailand and Southeast Asia Regional Office (Chiang Mai, Thailand), continued as a freelance consultant on development and politics in South East Asia with particular focus on Burma, Cambodia and Thailand. After returning to her native Germany in 2010 she is currently Head of Department for International Politics at the Berlin Headquarters of the Böll Foundation. Her access to the commons as an alternative way of governance and community empowerment is the result of long year’s field experience in South East Asia, where she was exposed to the misgivings of international development and unfair trade policies and the resulting struggle of people for self-reliance, community based resource management, fair trade and gender justice.

In her current position with the Böll Foundation she was as member of the Steering Committee and lead person for the Foundation in the preparation of the International Commons Conference and is now continuing this role in the preparation toward the Economics of the Commons Conference in May 2013 in Berlin.

Stefan Meretz

Stefan Meretz, Berlin, Germany, *1962. Ph.D. in material science, diploma in computer science, webmaster at german united services union (ver.di), managing free software projects. Research of political economy of peer production and member of the Oekonux (Economy & GNU/Linux) network. Teaching German Critical Psychology. Co-founder of the Keimform blog (http://keimform.de/), a blog investigating germ forms of a new commons-based society. Running several web projects (http://meretz.de/), member of Facebook.

Pat Mooney

Pat Mooney, a Canadian, is the co-founder and executive director of ETC group -- an international civil society organization headquartered in Canada with offices in Ethiopia, Mexico, Philippines and USA. Pat Mooney has almost half a century of experience working in international civil society, first addressing aid and development issues and then focusing on food, agriculture and commodity trade. He received The Right Livelihood Award (the "Alternative Nobel Prize") in the Swedish Parliament in 1985 and the Pearson Peace Prize from Canada's Governor General in 1998. He has also received the American "Giraffe Award" given to people "who stick their necks out." The author or co-author of several books on the politics of biotechnology and biodiversity, Pat Mooney is widely regarded as an authority on issues of global governance, corporate concentration, and intellectual property monopoly. Since 1977, ETC group has focused on the role of new technologies on the lives and livelihoods of marginalized peoples around the world.

Michael Narberhaus

Michael Narberhaus, Convenor Smart CSOs Lab Michael is the convenor of the Smart CSOs Lab, an international network of civil society leaders, academics and funders aiming to develop and put into practice strategies that embrace the cultural and systemic root causes lying behind the social and environmental crises of our times. Always working at the interface between research and practice, Michael has initiated and led a variety of projects aimed at developing strategies for a sustainable economy, among others working for WWF-UK,’s Sustainable Consumption Team. He has an academic background in economics and business and worked several years in the private sector before developing a passion for research and strategising for a socially and environmentally sustainable economy. Increasingly during the last few years his interest has shifted toward the question of how change agents in civil society can improve their strategies and have a greater impact in their pursuit of a Great Transition.

George Papanikolaou

MD, PhD. George Papanikolaou was born in 1966 and lives in Athens (Greece). He has studied medicine, specialized in internal medicine and performed his research in medical genetics. In the past he has worked as a physician and for several years in the pharmaceutical industry. He is now teaching molecular genetics and pathophysiology at the school of Dietetics and Nutritional science (Harokopion University of Athens).

He is actively contributing to the Greek p2pfoundation blog and groups supporting digital rights in Greece. Over the last years he is regularly giving talks on the Commons and Commons based peer production in meetings and conferences all around Greece. He has translated several articles on the Commons and peer production in Greek.

Andrew Paterson

Andrew Gryf Paterson (b. 1974) is a Scottish artist-organiser, educator, cultural producer, and independent researcher, based in Helsinki, Finland. Andrew works across the fields of media/ network/ environmental arts and activism, specialising in workshop design, participatory platforms for engagement, and facilitation within the Eastern Baltic Sea region. Research interests include artistic and activist forms of fieldwork, grassroots cultural heritage, and emerging peer-to-peer developments in society. He is currently completing his doctoral candidacy at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture (Media Dept). Since 2011 he has been coordinator and facilitator of Pixelache Helsinki's outreach and educational programme, and recently co-edited with Andrea Botero & Joanna Suud-Salonen "Towards Peer Production in Public Services: Cases from Finland" book, published as PDF by Aalto University. http://agryfp.info | http://pixelache.ac/helsinki/pixelversity | http://co-p2p.mlog.taik.fi/book-2012/

Stefano Rodotà

Stefano Rodotà is Professor of Law at the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” He is one of the authors of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. He serves as Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Agency for Fundamental Rights of the European Union and of the Internet Governance Forum, Italy. He is also the former President of the Italian Data Protection Commission and of the European Group on Data Protection. Professor Rodotà has taught at many universities, including the Universities of Paris, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Edinburgh, Barcelona, Lima, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, as well as Oxford and Stanford Law School. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the University College of Turin. He is a member of the Convention for the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. He is a former Member of the Italian Parliament, the European Parliament, and of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Enric Senabre Hidalgo

Enric Senabre Hidalgo is the co-founder, community manager and projects coordinator at Goteo.org, an open social network for crowdfunding and distributed collaboration (services, infrastructures, microtasks and other resources) for encouraging the independent development of creative and innovative initiatives that contribute to the common good, free knowledge, and open code. He is vice president of Observatory for CyberSociety and teaches about New Media and the history of Digital Culture at the Open University of Catalonia, where he holds a Master's Degree in the Information and Knowledge Society. Also member of the Barcelona-based Escuela de Commons. He has written several articles about open source collaboration, Wikipedia, online communication and crowdfunding.

Frédéric Sultan

Social worker and coordinator of cultural and popular education initiatives dedicated to sciences and technology issues since 80s. I am working with Gazibo, a cooperative company created in 2008, that provides services of project management (logistic, fundraising, coordination, publication, ...etc) based on the uses of digital tools for cooperation. Since 2011, I have been the coordinator of Remix the commons, a collaborative and evolving multimedia project. It aims to document and illustrate the key ideas and practices of commonning by remixing multimedia materials.

As activist, I am member of VECAM, a French nonprofit organization dealing with the impact of ICT (information and communication technologies) on society. I have been working for VECAM from 2000 until 2006. I have been involved in some international initiatives and projects for the appropriation of information and communication technology, such as “Fragments du monde,” “I-jumelages.” Since then I have still been involved in the activities of the association as a volunteer and sometimes provide services by the way of my company Gazibo. I am also member of AITEC a French nonprofit organisation dealing with citizenship expertise and strongly involved in Social Forum and Sciences and Democracy Forum. In 2009, I was involved in the process of writing the manifesto “Reclaim the commons” and was the coordinator for the first World Forum Science and Democracy. I am now a member of the International Initiative Committee of the World Forum Science and Democracy.

Hilary Wainwright

Writer, researcher, editor and activist. Co-editor of Red Pepper, eclectic magazine of the independent minded left in the UK; Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam and Senior Research Associate of the International Centre for Participation Studies, Bradford University. Between 1982 founded and co-ordinated the Popular Planning Unit of the Greater London Council (until abolished by Mrs Thatcher in 1986). From 2002 active in the World and European Social Forums. From 2007 co-organiser of Networked Politics.

Books include Beyond the Fragments, Feminism and the Making of Socialsm (co-authored) 1982 Arguments for a New Left; Answering the Freemarket Right, 1994; Reclaim the State,Experiments in Popular Democracy, 2003; and Public Service Reform but Not as We Know It, 2009 (co-authored). Recent essays include: “The Commons, the State and Transformative Politics” (2010) “Transformative Power, Political Organisation in Transition” and “Unleashing the Creativity of Labour” (both 2012) .

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