Jerzy Banski is a professor of human geography at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences (IGSO PAS), where he was the director in 2018-2021. His main research interests include rural and agricultural geography, land use, regional policy, and spatial organization and local development. Between 2006 and 2012, he was the president of the Polish Geographical Society. In 2017-2022, he was the chairman of the Local and Regional Development Committee of the International Geographical Union. He is an author of 400 publications, including 27 books and more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He is the author and editor of books published by Springer and Routledge, among others.
Michael Meadows is the President of the International Geographical Union (IGU). He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Sussex and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research interests lie in the area of physical geography, more specificallyconcerning Quaternary environmental change and the geomorphological and biogeographical impacts of natural and human-induced climate change. He is a Fellow of the Society of South African Geographers (2000), the Royal Geographical Society (2016), the Royal Society of South Africa (2016), the African Academy of Sciences (2018), the University of Cape Town (2018), the International Science Council (2022) and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2022).