Pierre Boulanger

Pierre is runs the ‘CAP Efficiency, Equity and Transparency’ Research Programme at Groupe d’Economie Mondiale (GEM) in Paris since 2005. He is presently Research and Teaching Fellow at Sciences Po and is completing a Ph.D thesis under the supervision of Prof. Patrick A. Messerlin. Pierre holds a Master’s degree in International Economic Relations from Sciences Po and also degrees in Economics from Paris Dauphine University, Autonomous University of Madrid and University of Poitiers. His fields of research are Agricultural and Rural Development Policies, European Trade Policy and Integration. He is also founding member of the farmsubsidy.org network of journalists, researchers and campaigners pushing for more transparency in EU farm policies.

Ariel Brunner

Based in Brussels, Ariel is EU Agriculture Policy officer with the environmental NGO BirdLife International. His main work is in advocating CAP reform and better implementation of the EU Rural development policy. Before moving to Brussels he was following the implementation of EU nature conservation legislation in Italy for LIPU, the local BirdLife partner. As part of this work has been involved in debates around the 2003 mid term reform and national implementation of cross compliance and Rural development and well as in designation of the country’s Special Protection Areas (Natura 2000) network.

Born in Israel, he holds an M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences at Milan University.

Jean-Christophe Bureau

Jean-Christophe is Director of a joint research team in public economics (UMR INRA 210) and is a member of the permanent unit of the French Prime Minister’s Council for Economic Analysis. His fields of research include: agricultural policy, international trade in food & agriculture, and trade negotiations in agriculture. completed his thesis at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) in 1986. He is professor of economics at the National Institute of Agronomy Paris-Grignon and works on issues relating to international trade in the areas of agriculture and the environment. He has held successive posts at the Forecasting Directorate of the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Economics Department of the National Institute of Research in Agronomy (INRA), the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. He has also been a consultant for the European Commission, the OECD and the Inter-American Development Bank. He collaborates regularly with researchers from Iowa State University, where he has also worked as a visiting professor.

Wyn Grant

Wyn Grant is Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. He is an expert on international trade, agriculture and environment policy. His recent books include The Politics of International Trade in the 21st Century: Actors, Issues and Regional Dynamics, co-edited with Dominic Kelly (Palgrave, 2005) and Agriculture in the New Global Economy, co-authored with William Coleman and Tim Josling (Edward Elgar, 2004). Read more. He maintains his own blog on the Common Agricultural Policy which he has agreed to syndicate to CAP Health Check. He can be contacted by email.

Alan Matthews

Alan Matthews is Professor of European Agricultural Policy based in the Department of Economics, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. His major research interests are agricultural policy analysis, the impact of OECD countries’ agricultural trade policy on developing countries, and the design of WTO trade rules for agriculture. He was a member of the Irish government’s AgriVision 2015 group in 2004 tasked with setting out a strategy for Irish agriculture over the next decade. He has previously worked as a consultant to the OECD, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Commission, and has been a panel member in two WTO Dispute Settlement cases.

Jack Thurston

Based in London, Jack is a co-founder of farmsubsidy.org. He has led the campaign for access to farm subsidy data in the UK and continues to work on building a pan-European network of activists and journalists making similar requests. He was formerly a political adviser to Nick Brown, the UK Minister for Agriculture Fisheries and Food (1998-2001). He writes widely on agriculture, food and trade policy including How to Reform the CAP (2002), and Why Europe Deserves a Better Farm Policy (2005). His articles have appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, European Voice, the New Statesman, Prospect Magazine and Tribune. He is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio Four including Farming Today, PM and Today. Jack holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Oxford University) and a Masters in Public Policy Analysis (University of California, Berkeley). You can read Jack’s blog here, email him via jack@farmsubsidy.org or phone on +44 (0) 7973 155 278.

Valentin Zahrnt

Based in Brussels, Valentin is a Research Associate at The European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), an independent and non-profit policy research think tank dedicated to trade policy and other international economic policy issues. Holding a Ph.D. in international economics, his research interest is centered on trade in food: WTO negotiations on agriculture, SPS regulation, and CAP reform. He has recently written papers on Reforming the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy: Health Check, Budget Review, Doha Round and A Blueprint for Reform of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. His email address is valentin.zahrnt@ecipe.org.