Ingrid Schjølberg is Vice Dean for research and innovation at the Faculty of Engineering. She is professor in Marine Technology and director of NTNU Oceans. Schjølberg is a key player in the Norwegian marine and maritime arena and a member of the expert group at the Norwegian High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.

NTNU Oceans is one of four strategic research areas at NTNU. NTNU Oceans generates and supports key research activities on maritime transport – autonomous ships; deep-ocean research; polar science and technology; sustainable seafood and marine bio resources; marine minerals and renewables; marine environment, society and sustainability.

Richard Thompson, Director of the Marine Institute - University of Plymouth

Thompson is an internationally renowned marine scientist and influencer. Professor Richard Thompson is one of the world’s leading experts on marine litter and was made an OBE in December 2017 for services to marine science. Thompson will continue to lead the International Marine Litter Research Unit while facilitating around 3,000 other researchers and students across a range of marine disciplines.

Jan-Gunnar Winther is Director of the Norwegian Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic at Nofima and Specialist Director at the Norwegian Polar Institutelocated in Tromsø.

After obtaining a construction engineering degree in 1987 at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, Jan-Gunnar Winther gained a PhD in polar hydrology at the same institution in 1993 following a period of study at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He began working at the Norwegian Polar Institute in 1994, and was its director from 2005 to 2017.

From 2018, Winther is director of a newly established governmental center for the Ocean and the Arctic. He was a researcher at SINTEF (Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research) for 6 years, held a chair at the University Centre in Svalbard and took courses at the Norwegian Defence University College in 2003 and 2013. He has been deputy head of the government-appointed “group of experts for the northern regions”.

Dag Rune Olsen was Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Bergen from 2010 until becoming Rector for his first period in 2013. Olsen has been elected Rector of the University of Bergen for the period 2017-2021.

Olsen was previously Director of Research at the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo and is a Professor in Medical Physics. His research interests are radiation therapy and cancer.

Bjørn Kjærand Haugland is CEO Norway203040.

Haugland previously Chief Sustainability Officer at DNV GL, has been appointed to lead the business consortium Norway203040 which brings together companies representing a wide range of industries including shipping with the aim of implementing Norway’s transfer to a low carbon society.

Bożena Michałowska–Jach is a Polish diplomat and civil servant who currently serves as a First Counsellor for economic affairs at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Oslo. She began her civil service career in 1992 at the Bureau of the Plenipotentiary for European Integration and Foreign Assistance in the Office of Council of Ministers.

Between 2010-2017 she worked at the Department for Foreign Policy Strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She graduated Warsaw School of Economics.

Alexandra Bech Gjørv (born 1965) is a Norwegian lawyer and businesswoman. In 2015 she became the chief executive of SINTEF.

Gjørv graduated as cand.jur. in 1990 from the University of Oslo, received further education at the University of Oxford (1991) and the Suffolk University in Boston (1993), and passed the New York State Bar Exam in 1994.

Gunnar Bovim is a Norwegian physician and civil servant, and the current rector at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Rector Bovim is the head of NTNU's academic and administrative activities.

Bovim has served on national and international committees and advisory boards on topics such as education, research, medicine and the health sector.