The Organizers

Steven Vertovec is Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science (formerly the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity), Honorary Professor of Sociology and Ethnology at the University of Göttingen, and Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. Previously he was Professor of Transnational Anthropology at the University of Oxford. His research interests concern modes and patterns of social difference, international migration, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. His latest book is Superdiversity: Migration and Social Complexity (London: Routledge, 2023), translated as Superdiversität: Migration und soziale Komplexität (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2024).

Georg Diez is an author, journalist, and Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, researching complexity thinking and democracy. He has written for major German publications including Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, and Spiegel Online, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. His 2025 book Kipppunkte explores the legacy of the 1990s. He writes regularly for Zeit Online and publishes the Substack Überleben im 21. Jahrhundert.

Felix Beer is a Master of Public Administration candidate at Harvard Kennedy School and James N. Snitzler & DAAD Fellow, and Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science. He holds degrees in Political Science, Philosophy and Economics from Amsterdam University College and McGill, and a Master's from the London School of Economics. His research examines how emerging technologies can enable new forms of institutional design and democratic renewal.

María is Project Coordinator at the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science, supporting Prof. Dr. Steven Vertovec and Georg Diez on the Informational Democracy initiative and team through strategic communications, administrative support, logistics, and project coordination. She has coordinated research initiatives in democracy, technology, finance, and public policy, connecting researchers, journalists, and policy experts, and has managed funding portfolios exceeding €50 million. She builds cross-sector partnerships between academia, industry, and public institutions, drawing on earlier experience at Human Rights Watch, OCHA, and the United Nations.