We are pleased to announce the keynote speakers of the 11th International Living Knowledge Conference, which will take place July 8–10, 2026, at the University of Gdańsk. The event will feature Maria Mendel, Sorin Costreie, Jan-Gustav Strandenaes, Srdjan Verbić, and Dobrivoje Lale Eric.
We invite you to join inspiring discussions on how research can support solidarity, social responsibility, and sustainable partnerships between science and society. Register now to secure your place and engage with leading thinkers shaping the future of science and socjety.
Maria Mendel, PhD, D.Sc., is a distinguished scholar of social pedagogy at the University of Gdańsk and an internationally recognized authority on community-engaged research, pedagogy of place, and the social dimensions of knowledge production. Her work has been instrumental in advancing critical, participatory, and solidarity-oriented approaches to research that connect universities with communities, civil society, and public life.
Sorin Costreie, the Presidential Adviser for Education and Research in Romania, in 2023 elected to the position of President of UNICA, an institutional Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe. He is Associate Professor at the Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bucharest. He holds a PhD in Philosophy (University of Bucharest, 2007), with a thesis in philosophy of mathematics, and pursued further doctoral studies in philosophy of language at the University of Western Ontario, Canada between 2000 and 2008. He has published articles, books and edited volumes with Routledge, Springer, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Humanitas, University of Bucharest Press, etc.
Jan-Gustav Strandenaes began working with the UN on environment, development sustainability and governance in the 1970s, and a first UN assignment brought him to Latin America. He has taught and written about the UN for more than five decades, worked with the UN Commission for Sustainable Development for 15 years, worked as NGO liaison officer at the UN HQ in New York, worked as a diplomat for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway, at embassies in Botswana and Uganda, was for 15 years the director of a Norwegian aid/environment-NGO with projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Srdjan Verbic is a learning enthusiast who tries to share his passion for critical thinking. He is a university professor teaching data science and statistics in Belgrade, co-founder of think-tank Observatory of Social Innovations, national and international consultant in science education and data analysis, former minister of education, science and technological development in Serbia and program leader of hundreds of extracurricular science education events.
Dobrivoje Lale Eric leads the Department of International Cooperation at Serbia’s Center for the Promotion of Science (CPN) since 2015. The Center was founded in 2010 with a goal to establish functional and active relations between science and society, both locally and internationally. He’s been serving as a member of the Programme Committees at the ECSITE, European network of science centres and museums and Belgrade Open School (BOŠ), with current membership at the Petnica Science Centre and EC’s Expert Group of the National Points of Reference on Scientific Information.
The keynote speeches at LK11 will provide a space for in-depth reflection on how research can support solidarity, social responsibility, and sustainable partnerships between science and society. Make sure to be there for this important gathering!