With REMIT’s 2nd conference approaching fast, let us take the time to talk briefly about our program, and what is awaiting the conference participants in each of them. Session Series 2.0 is kicked off with the first of our session types – our keynotes!
See more about our keynote speakers in the menus below!
| Time (CET) | Session |
| Wednesday, April 15, 9:50 – 11:00 | Keynote Lecture: “Technological Power and the Transformation of European Security” Paolo Benanti (Luiss Università di Roma) Chair: Thomas Christiansen (Luiss Università di Roma) |
Session speakers
Assoc. Prof. Paolo Benanti is a Third Order Regular Franciscan – TOR – and works on ethics, bioethics and ethics of technologies. In particular, his studies focus on the management of innovation: the Internet and the impact of the Digital Age, biotechnology for human improvement and biosafety, neuroscience and neurotechnology. At the Pontifical Gregorian University he received his licentiate in 2008 and his doctorate in moral theology in 2012.
Father Benanti is an Associate Professor at Luiss Università di Roma. He is also a Vatican Consultant on AI, President of Italian Government Commission on the impact of AI on media and journalism, and a lecturer and author of numerous publications about the ethical impact of AI. He works on neuroethics, ethics of technologies, artificial intelligence and the posthuman. He was part of the Artificial Intelligence Task Force to assist the Agency for Digital Italy. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life with a particular mandate for the world of artificial intelligence. In late 2018, he was selected by the Ministry of Economic Development as a member of the group of thirty experts tasked at the national level with developing the national strategy on artificial intelligence and the national strategy on shared ledger and blockchain-based technologies. In 2023 was selected by General Secretary of United Nation Guterres to be part of the group of 38 expert to develop a proposal for a global governance of the AI.
Thomas Christiansen is Professor of Political Science and European Integration at Luiss University, Rome. He previously held positions at Maastricht University, at the European Institute of Public Administration, at Aberystwyth University of Wales and at Essex University. He is Executive Editor of the Journal of European Integration and co-editor of the ‘European Administration Governance’ book series at Palgrave Macmillan. He has published widely on different aspects of European Union politics. He co-authored, with Emil Kirchner and Uwe Wissenbach, The European Union and China (London: Palgrave, 2019) and co-edited, with Elena Griglio and Nicola Lupo, The Routledge Handbook of Parliamentary Admnistrations (London; Routledge, 2023).
| Time (CET) | Session |
| Wednesday, April 15, 16:30 – 18:00 | Keynote Lecture: “Democracy and Technology: How Coalitions, Beliefs, and Innovation Shape Policy and Society” Chris Weible (University of Colorado Denver) Chair: Roberta Haar (Maastricht University) |
Session speakers
Dr. Christopher M. Weible is the Interim Dean and a University of Colorado Distinguished Professor at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Policy and Democracy (CPD). He teaches courses in environmental politics, public policy and democracy, policy analysis, and research methods and design. Recent and current research includes studying policy conflicts, the role of emotions in public discourse, the politics involving marginalized communities, and patterns and explanations of advocacy coalitions, learning, and policy change. He has published over a hundred articles and book chapters and has secured millions of dollars in external research funding. He is the former editor for Policy Studies Journal, International Review of Public Policy, and Policy & Politics. His book volumes include Theories of the Policy Process, Methods of the Policy Process, Policy Debates in Hydraulic Fracturing, The Advocacy Coalition Framework, Practical Lessons from Policy Theories, and Transformational Change in Public Policy. He holds an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy and is a Guest Professor at the Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden.
Roberta N. Haar is Professor of Foreign Policy Analysis and Transatlantic Relations at Maastricht University. She is the lead researcher (PI) of the EU Horizon project entitled REMIT (Reignite Multilateralism via Technology). REMIT Research (https://www.remit-research.eu) includes 40-plus researchers and 10 support staff residing at 9 partner institutions across Europe. Recent works by Prof. Haar include “The United States, China, and Strategic Technologies: Domestic Coalitions, Foreign Policy, and Multilateral Cooperation in the Biden Era,” (February 2026) together with Ville Sinkkonen in Geopolitics; “The Transatlantic Relationship,” in The European Union’s Geopolitics: The Lackluster World Power (2025), edited by M. Jopp & J. Pollak; and, “Democratic interventionists versus pragmatic realists,” in Politics and Policy (2024). She is a co-editor of The Making of European Security Policy: Between Institutional Dynamics and Global Challenges (2021), published in the Routledge Studies in European Security and Strategy series. Her work features in the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics for her development of models to understand foreign policy change. Prof. Haar is committed to public outreach, frequently presenting at academic, professional, and public events as well as contributing a regular column to EW Magazine.