Maria Amparo Ballester Pastor has been a Senior Professor of Labor and Social Security Law at the University of Valencia since 2008 and advisor to the Economic and Social Council of Spain (expert by Government appointment) since 2024. She has been educated at the University of Valencia and Cornell University (United States). She directed the University Institute of Women's Studies (2016-2020) and the Chair of Feminist Economics (2018-2019), at the University of Valencia. She was vice president of EUFEM (University Platform for Feminist and Gender Studies) and co-president of the Equality Commission of the Spanish Association of Labor Law and Social Security (2018 and 2019).

Professor Ballester Pastor has dedicated a good part of her professional career to research on gender discrimination in the workplace and social security, which has been reflected in numerous publications. She has also researched employment discrimination for other reasons (particularly age), conciliation/co-responsibility/working time, rights of migrant workers, fundamental rights in the labor dimension, temporary hiring, social law of the European Union, prevention regulations of occupational risks, and Social Security.

She has carried out several comparative law investigations based on funded stays at foreign universities where she has been a visiting professor, among which Stockholm University can be highlighted (carrying out research funded in 1996 on the reform of the pension system that was later the subject of publication) or Mac Gill University in Montreal (conducting funded research in 2010 on Age and Gender Discrimination that resulted in several publications). She has been the Main Investigator in several competitive research projects, one financed with funds from the European Union (international project 'Culture, custom and gender' 2002-2004). She has been an evaluator of undergraduate and postgraduate university and teaching degrees for the Andalusian Knowledge Agency. She has been an expert in evaluating Legal Sciences teachers for the Spanish Agency of Evaluation -ANECA- (2010-2018) and has been part of various evaluation commissions for research projects in Spain and Chile. She has been an external evaluator for various legal journals and has been part of the scientific committees of many projects, conferences, and seminars.

In the field of knowledge transfer, she has collaborated with different union entities, business organizations, professional associations, local entities, regional administrations, and other types of entities in the transference of research results. She has been part of the teams that have prepared three bills registered in the Congress of Deputies: a bill for equal pay between women and men (registered in October 2017), a bill against precariousness and for employment stability (registered in June 2018) and a bill on co-responsible working time (registered in November 2018).

Outside the strict university environment, her professional activity has had various aspects: She was a substitute Judge of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community from 1996 to 2015. From 2015 to 2019 she was part of the European Network of Legal Experts in Gender Equality and non-discrimination, an advisory body to the European Commission on gender matters. Between 2020 and 2023 she carried out senior positions in the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy of Spain: From 2020 to 2021 she was the Chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Labor and Social Economy of Spain. And, from April 2021 to November 2023, she was the Chief of Legal Coordination of the Second Vice President of the Government. During her years of activity in the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy, she participated in the negotiation and preparation of legal regulations, including, among others, RD 901/2020 on equality plans; RD 902/2020 on equal pay; RDL 28/2020, on remote work; RDL 9/2021, known as the "rider" law; or RDL 32/2021 on labor reform.

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

LUIS ENRIQUE NORES TORRES

Villagarcía de Arosa, Pontevedra, 15 April 1971.

Full Professor of Labour Law and Social Security of the Universitat de València from the year 2023

Deputy Secretary General of the Universitat de València (june 2010-april 2018)

Substitute Judge of the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (july 2015- september 2023).

Qualifications:

• - Graduated in Law, specialised in Corporate Law by the Universitat de València (1994), awarded with Extraordinary Prize.
• - Doctor in Law by the Universitat de València (1999), after the defence of the thesis El período de consultas en la reorganización productiva empresarial, directed by professor Goerlich Peset and valued with the maximum qualification (‘cum laude’ distinction).
• - European PhD in Research by the Università degli Studi di Bologna, Italy (2003), after the defence of the thesis Le nozioni di appalto endoaziendale e di contrata de propia actividad, directed by professor Romagnoli, also valued with the highest qualification.

Teaching and professional experience:

• - Research Staff Training Apprentice (FPI) of Labour Law and Social Security (1995-1998).
• - EU Trainee Lecturer (September 1998-March 2000)
• - Faculty Trainee Lecturer (March 2000-December 2002)
• - Tenured University Professor (December 2002-November 2023)
• - Full Professor (November 2023- Present day)
• - Substitute Judge of the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (July 2015-september 2023).

Wide teaching experience, both theoretical and practical, in the different qualifications in which the Department of Labour Law is involved, both at the Faculty of Social Sciences and in the Faculty of Law (doctoral programme, Degree in Labour Relations and Human Resources, Degree in Law, as well as their preceding degrees, the licenciaturas in Law and the diplomatura in Labour Relations), teaching several subjects: Labour Law, Trade Union Rights, Out-of-Court Settlement of Disputes and, specially, Labour Procedural Law.

Also, significant post-graduate teaching experience: en the Master's Degree in Law, Business and Justice, in the Master’s Degree in Corporate Law and in the Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management, all of them from the Universitat de València; Master’s Degree in Law Practice (UV-ICAV); M.S. of Labour Law by the Universidad de Talca (Chile).

In 2024 he completed the sixth teaching five year period.

Research experience

Author of different monographies: by himself (6) and co-authored (3), as well as different book chapters and articles in specialised journals (over 100). Also, he has participated in different financed R&D research projects. All this has resulted in the recognition of four six year period research (1995-2005; 2006-2011; 2012-2017; 2018-2023) and one six year period transfer (2005-2018).

The research lines developed are varied, albeit the main ones are related to:

• - The business productive reorganisation and, in particular, the intervention of the representatives of workers in it.
• - The analysis of the labour treatment of productive decentralisation
• - The termination of the employment contract
• - The Spanish system of collective bargaining, both from a theoretical and a practical perspective.
• - The protection system of dependent people.
• - The labour process, subject in which he is co-author of a manual that has reached its third edition.
• - The gender-based discrimination and protection of motherhood.

Stays in foreign research universities:

• - London School of Economics and Political Science (Great Britain).
• - Universidad degli Studi di Bologna (Italy), thanks to the grant of the Real Colegio de España.
• - Università di Cagliari (Italy).
• - Università di Catania (Italy).