Gareth Austin is a scholar of African economic history and teaches at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His main interest lies in the economic history of Sub-Saharan Africa from 1700 to the present. From the perspective of an area specialist (Austin is also the co-editor of the ‘Journal of African History’) he aims with his work at two broader themes: a comparative economic history of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and a ‘global’ history of material life.

Among his recent publications:

'The "Reversal of fortune" thesis and the compression of history: perspectives from African and comparative economic history', Journal f International Development 20: 8 (2008), pp.996-1027

'Resources, techniques and strategies south of the Sahara: revising the factor endowments perspective on African economic development, 500-2000'. Economic History Review, 61: 3 (2008), pp. 587-624.

'Reciprocal comparison and African history: tackling conceptual euro-centrism in the study of Africa's economic past', African Studies Review, 50: 3 (December 2007), 1-28 (or: 'Oltre l'eurocentrismo. La storia economica dell'Africa e l'approccio comparato', Passato e presente numero 73, anno XXVI [Jan 2008], 65-90).

Matthias Middell received his PhD degree from the University of Leipzig (Germany) in 1989 and started his career as a historian of the French Revolution, but quickly became interested in global history. His current work focuses on world historians in the 20th century and on the relationship of territorialisation and globalisation since the late 19th century. Since 1994 he has been the managing director of the Centre for Advanced Study at the University of Leipzig.

Recently he has published a study on world history writing in 20th century Germany:
Weltgeschichtsschreibung im Zeitalter der Verfachlichung und Professionalisierung. Das Leipziger Institut für Kultur- und Universalgeschichte 1890-1990, Leipzig 2005.

Attila Melegh is a sociologist, economist, and historian by training and received his PhD from Debrecen University. His research areas include demographic developments in Hungary during the 19th and 20th centuries, historical demography, and demographical discourses in general, as well as international migration. He is currently lecturer at the International Studies Center and Széchenyi College, Budapest University of Economics and at the Corvinus University, Budapest. 

One of his last publications is: On the East-West Slope? Globalization, nationalism, racism and discourses on Central and Eastern Europe, Budapest 2006.

Further members of the steering committee nominated at the Dresden Congress are in alphabetical order:

• Carlo Marko Belfanti, Department of Social Sciences, University of Brescia (Italy)
• Giovanni Gozzini, University of Siena (Italy)
• Regina Grafe, Departement of History, Northwestern University (USA)

• Margarete Grandner, University of Vienna (Austria)
• Frank Hadler, Center for the History and Culture of Eastern Central Europe at the University of Leipzig (Germany)
• Michael Harbsmeier, Roskilde University (Denmark)
• Markéta Křížová, Center for Ibero-American Studies, Charles University Prague (Czech  Republic)

• Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

• Barbara Lüthi, Department of History, University of Basel (Switzerland)

• Alexey Miller, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow/ Central European University, Budapest (Russia, Hungary)

• Patrick O’Brien, London School of Economics and Political Sciences (Great Britain)

• Diego Olstein, University of Jeruslam (Isreal)
• Juan Carmona Pidal, Departamento de Historia Económica e Institutiones, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)

• Hagen Schulz-Forberg, University of Aarhus (Denmark)

• Alessandro Stanziani, EHESS/ CNRS (France)

• Eric Vanhaute, University of Gent (Belgium)

• Peer Vries, University of Vienna (Austria)