[Biography, english version]

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]

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

Javier Navarro Aparicio is a Doctor in Business Administration and Management from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2012) and Extraordinary Award for the Social Graduate Diploma from the University of Valencia (1993). In addition, he was trained as a Higher Technician in Occupational Risk Prevention in the 90s, following the administrative study plans as an unofficial Master's degree. After incorporating the studies of Higher Technician in Occupational Risk Prevention as an Official University Master's Degree, he obtained the specializations in Safety at Work; Industrial hygiene; Ergonomics and Applied Psychosociology at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2009). He currently works for the General State Administration and is a trainer and consultant in the tax and labor area. In addition, he has collaborated as an associate professor in the Department of Labor and Social Security Law at the University of Valencia since 1997.

[Biography, english version]

Dr. Adrián Todolí Signes is a Professor of Labour and Social Security Law at the University of Valencia. He holds degrees in both Economics and Law.

He has published more than 157 research items, including peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and book chapters. Specifically, his academic output includes: a) 68 articles in indexed journals; b) 69 book chapters; c) editor of 8 collective volumes; and d) 7 single-author monographs. Among these publications, 8 articles have been published in English in leading international journals. Additionally, he has presented his research in a total of 70 scientific conferences, including papers, presentations, and invited lectures. Most of these conferences have been international, held in prestigious institutions such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the University of Cambridge, among many others.

He has also been invited on more than 100 occasions to deliver lectures and talks in institutions, trade unions, employers’ organisations, labour inspectorates, etc. Notably, he has been invited to speak at events organised by the ILO (in 2018 and 2022), the European Commission, and UNIGLOBAL (at its 2022 international conference). He was invited by the European Commission (DG Employment) as a national expert to participate in a conference on working conditions and youth employment, and later in another on Artificial Intelligence during the legislative process of the AI Regulation (2023). In the same year, he was appointed by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) as an expert for its opinion on the twin digital and green transitions. He was also appointed by the ILO as an expert for the drafting of an international convention on decent platform work.

He has authored four monographs on wages, including topics such as wage revision, bonuses, wage supplements, and remuneration in the public sector. Additionally, he has published other major works, including Work in the Era of the Collaborative Economy (2017), Labour Regulation and Economic Policy: How Labour Rights Improve the Economy (2022), and Productive and Extractive Algorithms (2023).

He has been awarded the Best Young Lawyer Prize by the Spanish Labour Law Forum (FORELAB), and the Best Labour Law Research Award by the Spanish Association of Labour and Social Security Law (AEDTSS) twice — in 2015 and 2016 — for his work on dual vocational training and performance-based remuneration systems.

His international academic projection is further evidenced by research stays in prestigious universities and research centres. The first was at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, under the supervision of Prof. Gillian Lester, a globally recognised labour law expert (currently Dean of Columbia Law School, New York). UC Berkeley is ranked among the top five universities worldwide. His second research stay took place at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, ranked as the second-best law faculty in the world (after Harvard). His third stay was at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, also internationally renowned. He has also conducted research at the University of Paris X Nanterre and the University of Vienna.

He is also the coordinator of the blog “Argumentos en Derecho Laboral”.

Education: Doctor of Law from the University of Valencia, in addition to several Masters in Labor Law.

Areas of experience: I have practiced as a labor lawyer, I have been a professor at the Estema Y Florida University and a visiting professor at the Institute of European and Comparative Law of the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute of Munich and the Scuola de Giurisprudenza of the University of Bologna. I have taught numerous Masters, courses and conferences. I have published more than 20 monographs on Labour Law, Social Security and Occupational Risk Prevention, in addition to more than 80 papers in prestigious magazines specialized in the aforementioned matters. I collaborate with monthly sections in prestigious publishers such as Aranzadi, Lefebvre and Wolters Kluwer. Of Counsel of Alenta Abogados. Collaborating Professor at the UOC.