Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Michael Graetzel, PhD, directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems and their use to generate electricity and fuels from sunlight. He invented mesoscopic injection solar cells, one key embodiment of which is the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC).  DSCs are meanwhile commercially produced at the multi-MW-scale and created a number of new applications in particular as lightweight power supplies for portable electronic devices and in photovoltaic glazings. They engendered the field of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) that turned our to be the most exciting break-through in the recent history of photovoltaics. He received a number of prestigious awards, of which the most recent ones include the RusNANO Prize, the Zewail Prize in Molecular Science, the Global Energy Prize, the Millennium Technology Grand Prize, the Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels, the Marcel Benoist Prize, the King Faisal International Science Prize, the Einstein World Award of Science and the Balzan Prize. He is a Fellow of several learned societies and holds eleven honorary doctor’s degrees from European and Asian Universities. According to the ISI-Web of Science, his over 1500 publications have received some 230’000 citations with an h-factor of 219 demonstrating the strong impact of his scientific work.

Juan Bisquert (pHD Universitat de València, 1991) is a Professor of applied physics at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Spain. He is the director of the Institute of Advanced Materials at UJI. He authored 360 peer reviewed papers, and a series of books including . Physics of Solar Cells: Perovskites, Organics, and Photovoltaics Fundamentals (CRC Press).  His h-index 95, and is currently a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. He conducts experimental and theoretical research on materials and devices for production and storage of clean energies. His main topics of interest are materials and processes in perovskite solar cells and solar fuel production. He has developed the application of measurement techniques and physical modeling of nanostructured energy devices, that relate the device operation with the elementary steps that take place at the nanoscale dimension: charge transfer, carrier transport, chemical reaction, etc., especially in the field of impedance spectroscopy, as well as general device models. He has been distinguished in the 2014-2019 list of ISI Highly Cited Researchers.

Christoph J. Brabec is holding the chair “materials for electronics and energy technology (i-MEET)” at the materials science of the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. Further, he is the scientific director of the Erlangen division of the Bavarian research institute for renewable energy (ZAE Bayern, Erlangen).
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.

Emmanuel Kymakis is a Full Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) and Director of the Institute of Emerging Technologies of the HMU Center for Research & Innovation. He received his B.Eng. (First Class Honors) degree in Electrical Engineering & Electronics from Liverpool University in 1999 and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cambridge University in 2003. He and Prof. Gehan Amaratunga are the inventors of the polymer-nanotube solar cell. Before joining HMU, he was a technical consultant offering engineering and consultancy services in the realization of photovoltaic and solar thermal power plants. His multidisciplinary research lies at the interface between nanotechnology and electrical engineering and is centred on the development of printed optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices. He has published more than 140 research articles, which have attracted over 13.000 citations and an h-index of 62, while he has an extensive experience in the management of research and industrial projects (9,5 M€ research funding, design & implementation of 67 MWp of PV parks). Ηe is also included in the list of the top 2% of scientists in their respective fields by citation impact (PLoS Biol 17(8), e3000384). He serves also as scientific evaluator and member of panels of experts of various international governmental and nongovernmental agencies, member of scientific committee of various international congresses, and have been invited to give invited talks in more than 50 occasions. He has been an honorary lecturer at UConn and a recipient of an Isaac Newton and an EPSRC studentship. He was named as a 2014 ChemComm Emerging Investigator and has received two National Excellence Awards. He has served as a member of the founding General Assembly of the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation (HFRI), a member of the Engineering sectoral scientific council of the National Council for Research & Innovation of Greece (NCRI) and a member of the Engineering thematic advisory council of HFRI. He is currently the Director of the interinstitutional Post-Graduate Program “Nanotechnology for Energy Applications” and serves as the work package leader of Energy Generation of the EU FET-Flagship Initiative Graphene.

Prof. Mónica Lira-Cantú is Group Leader of the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (www.icn.cat located in Barcelona (Spain). She obtained a Bachelor in Chemistry at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, ITESM Mexico (1992), obtained a Master and PhD in Materials Science at the Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (ICMAB) & Autonoma University of Barcelona (1995/1997) and completed a postdoctoral work under a contract with the company Schneider Electric/ICMAB (1998). From 1999 to 2001 she worked as Senior Staff Chemist at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering (formerly Mobil Technology Co) in New Jersey (USA) initiating a laboratory on energy related applications (fuel cells and membranes). She moved back to ICMAB in Barcelona, Spain in 2002. She received different awards/fellowships as a visiting scientist to the following laboratories: University of Oslo, Norway (2003), Riso National Laboratory, Denmark (2004/2005) and the Center for Advanced Science and Innovation, Japan (2006). In parallel to her duties as Group Leader at ICN2 (Spain), she is currently visiting scientist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, CH). Her research interests are the synthesis and application of nanostructured materials for Next-generation solar cells: Dye sensitized, hybrid, organic, all-oxide and perovskite solar cells. Monica Lira-Cantu has more than 85 published papers, 8 patents and 10 book chapters and 1 edited book (in preparation).

Vida Engmann obtained her Dr. rer. nat in 2014 from the Ilmenau University of Technology under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Gobsch. In 2014 she joined the OPV group at Mads Clausen Institute of University of Southern Denmark as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2017 she was appointed assistant professor and in 2020 as associate professor, with the focus on degradation and additive-assisted stabilization of organic solar cells. Her international research stays include Uppsala University, University of Colorado Boulder / NREL, and Russian Academy of Sciences Chernogolovka. She authored numerous publications in high-impact journals such as Nature Energy, Energy & Environmental Science, Advanced Energy Materials, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, and one chapter in a scientific book, as well as edited the World Scientific Reference of Hybrid Materials - Vol. 2. For her research, she has been awarded the postdoctoral fellowship by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (IRFD), EU COST action MP1307, I-CAM fellowship, as well as the Thuringian State Graduate stipend, and she is currently co-PI on a Villum Foundation research project on mechanical stabilization of organic solar cells and the PI on the IRFD Research Project 1 on nanoparticle based organic solar cells. In 2020 she was awarded the Carlsberg Young Researcher Grant. In 2019 she received the Danish UNESCO-L'Oréal For Women in Science award and in 2020 the UNESCO L'Oréal International Rising Talent award.