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Reinskje Talhout (PhD in physical-organic chemistry, MSc in philosophy of science) is a senior scientific advisor involved in tobacco product regulatory science at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. She is the head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Tobacco Product Regulation and Control at the RIVM. As a policy advisor for tobacco product regulation, she provides advice to the national government, to the EU, and to WHO, and she is spokesperson to the media on tobacco products. Her research comprises the attractive, addictive and toxic properties of tobacco and related products (such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products). Areas of interest include chemistry, behavioral studies, sensory science, risk communication and risk assessment. The RIVM tobacco research group specializes in the assessment of health effects in a broad sense of new tobacco products, with a focus on flavour and product appeal. The tobacco research group and laboratory within RIVM has a long-standing history of excellence in tobacco contents and emissions by chemical analyses. Product use is studied using analytical and hedonic sensory methods (with the University of Wageningen), behavioral studies including reasons for use and risk perception, mode of use and biomarkers of exposure/effect (with the University of Maastricht). Risk assessment is carried out based on user data and product composition, toxicity and addiction tests. Dr. Talhout contributed to various collaborative European projects in the field of tobacco control, is member of the Steering Committee of the Global Tobacco Regulators Forum, and the steering committee of WHO Tobacco Laboratory Network. She is associate Editor of Tobacco Induced Diseases.

Dr. Karl E. Lund is currently senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. He was Research Director at the Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research for the period 2006-2018. He has been involved in tobacco control work since the mid-1980s, working at the Norwegian Council on Tobacco or Health (Deputy Leader), the Norwegian Cancer Society (Director Department of Cancer Prevention) and the University of Oslo. He has been a member of several expert committees including WHO’s International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), he was a founding member of the International Society for the Prevention of Tobacco Induced Diseases and is currently vice president in The International Association on Smoking Control & Harm Reduction (SCOHRE). He has been Associate Editor in Nicotine & Tobacco Research since 2011 and perform editorial work for several other scientific journals. Dr. Lund chaired the organizing committee for the 19th European SRNT-conference and co-chaired the scientific committee. In 2000 dr. Lund received the Norwegian Medical Association’s Award in preventive medicine. He has received grants from the Research Council of Norway, from the Norwegian Cancer Society and from diverse National governmental funding sources. Dr Lund has been an expert witness for the plaintiff in several tort liability lawsuits against the tobacco industry including one brought before the Norwegian Supreme Court. He has given expert witness statements in additional court cases, including one before the UK High Court of Justice and one in the European Court of Justice. Dr. Lund holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from 1996 and he was formally assessed with qualifications as Professor in 2009.

Dr. Geoffrey T. Fong, OC, PhD, FRSC, FCAHS is Professor of Psychology and Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, and Senior Investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Fong is the Founder and Principal Investigator of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation (ITC) Project, a consortium of 150 researchers across 31 countries, covering over half of the world’s population and over two-thirds of the world’s tobacco users. A major objective of the ITC Project is to evaluate the impact of tobacco control policies of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Dr. Fong has published over 480 research articles and given over 250 invited talks. Since 2015, Dr. Fong has been selected for the Clarivate Analytics List of Highly Cited Researchers.

Dr. Fong has contributed to many landmark reports, including those of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, US Surgeon General, WHO, US National Academy of Sciences, and UK Royal College of Physicians. He was one of the three Scientific Editors of the 2016 WHO/US National Cancer Institute Monograph, The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Control. Dr. Fong was a member and Technical Coordinator of the WHO FCTC Impact Assessment Expert Group, which conducted the official evaluation of the FCTC in its first decade. Dr. Fong has served as an expert consultant for WHO and for many countries. He served as an expert for Australia and Uruguay in successful defenses of their policies challenged via trade treaties. Dr. Fong has served on key advisory groups including Health Canada’s Vaping Products Scientific Advisory Board, Canada’s Tobacco Endgame Summit, the Expert Group on FCTC Articles 9/10, and WHO Expert Group on COVID-19 and Tobacco Use.

Dr. Fong’s awards include the WHO World No Tobacco Day Award, Luther L. Terry Award for Outstanding Research Contribution, the American Association of Public Opinion Research Policy Impact Award, the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance Award for Distinguished Service in Cancer Research, the Medal of Honour from the Health Research Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society O. Harold Warwick Prize, and the Governor General’s Innovation Award. Dr. Fong is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. In December 2021, Dr. Fong was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Silvano Gallus (ScD in Computer Sciences, PhD in Public Health) leads the Laboratory of Lifestyle Epidemiology of Mario Negri Institute, Milan, Italy. In 2017-2021 he has been Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham, UK. During his 25-year career, Dr Gallus gained extensive experience in conducting independent research and collaborative work in the fields of epidemiology and public health. His main fields of interest include the epidemiology of tobacco use in Italy and Europe, including monitoring of tobacco use prevalence and trends in Italy, economics and determinants of tobacco initiation and cessation; the design, data managing and statistical analyses of case-control studies on the association between several risk factors (including in particular tobacco use, alcohol drinking, diet and obesity) and the risk of cancer, coronary heart disease and other chronic conditions, including tinnitus; the analyses of occupational cohort studies; the conduction and analysis of systematic reviews, meta-analyses and observational clinical studies. Dr Gallus is now focusing his research on the impact of the use of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products on tobacco control in Italy and Europe. He is associate editor of multiple journals, including Scientific Reports and Journal of Epidemiology. He is author/co-author of more than 410 papers, including more than 360 articles in peer-reviewed journals (h-index: 64 according to Scopus). For scientific merits, Dr. Gallus has received several awards, including the Ig-Nobel prize for medicine in 2019.

Reiner Hanewinkel is a Professor of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology at Kiel University and also Director of the Institute for Therapy and Health Research. Since 1990 he is interested in epidemiological research on risk factors in young people (smoking, drinking, gambling, computer gaming, nutrition, exercise), and randomized controlled studies aimed at the prevention of such risk factors and health promotion in general. Dr Hanewinkel received a number of scientific awards, among them the “Wilhelm-Feuerlein Award Addiction Research” (2003), the “German Prevention Award” (2004), the “Smoking Cessation Research Award” (2005), the “Fritz-Lickint-Medal” (2013), and the “Research Award of the North German Addiction Research Society” (2015). He is board member of the German Center for Addiction Issues, and co-founder and board member of the German Smokefree Alliance. He published more than 270 publications, among them 170 papers in peer reviewed journals.

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce is an Associate Professor with the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. Her particular interests lie in evidence synthesis (both quantitative and qualitative) and the communication of complex information and data to inform policy and public action. Her research mainly consists of complex evidence synthesis work. She leads the Cochrane review of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation, which is now a living review funded by Cancer Research UK, updated monthly, and is an editor for the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group.

Paraskevi Katsaounou is an Associate Professor of Pulmonary Medicine at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with clinical duties and Director at the Respiratory Dept of the First ICU clinic at Evangelismos Hospital Athens Greece. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at NHLI Imperial College of London. the Chair of Smoking Cessation Group and Public Health Hellenic Thoracic Society (2011-7), the Chair of Group 6.3 Tobacco, Smoking Control and Health Education European Respiratory Society (2014-7) and member of ERS Tobacco Control Committee (2014-7). She is a qualified trainer of Smoking cessation (Mayo Clinic Tobacco Treatment Specialist Certification, Imperial College) of the Hellenic Thoracic Society Smoking Cessation Group since 2007 and trainer of ERS and WHO-ERS Train the Trainer Smoking Cessation project. She is an organizer of Smoking cessation Courses [ERS course on “Smoking Cessation Using Innovative technique” 2015, Smoking Cessation Course endorsed by ERS Athens 2012, Organizer and faculty of Motivational Skills Workshop for Smoking Cessation in COPD pts. ERS 2015, Postgraduate Courses in Respiratory patients ERS 2016 & 2017, Professional Development workwshop in MI for SC ERS 2017, WHO-ERS Train the Trainer on Brief Advice in Smoking Cessation (Greece, Moldova, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Nigeria)]. She is the recipient of Grants for Smoking Cessation (ARISTEIA, Global Research Awards for Nicotine Dependence Medical group support for Smoking cessation in diabetic patients). She created the first website in Greece related to smoking cessation www.denkapnizo.org and is a guest editor of ERS Monograph 2020 Supporting Tobacco Cessation. She was a member of ERS task force for e-cigarette, a member of Horizon European projects EUREST-PLUS, a member of European Joint Action for Tobacco 2016-9 and an Editorial board member of Tobacco Cessation and Prevention, JPM and Pnevmon. She has more than hundred publications in peer reviewed journals with 5378 citations.

Maria Melchior is Research Director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) (ScD in Social Epidemiology at Harvard University). Her research focuses on social inequalities in mental health, with a particular emphasis on developmental trajectories from childhood to adulthood and the intergenerational transmission of psychiatric disorders. Most projects have relied on data collected in longitudinal cohort studies of children set up in France (EDEN, ELFE, TEMPO) or other countries (Dunedin study set in New Zealand, ELDEQ in Canada). Maria Melchior received the Research Prize of the European Psychiatric Association (2012) and the Early Career Award of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine (2004). She is the author or co-author of over one hundred publications in international peer-reviewed journals. Since 2018, she’s head of the Department of Health at the Convergences Institute on Migrations in Paris.

Marcus Munafò is Professor of Biological Psychology and MRC Investigator at the University of Bristol, where he leads a programme of research into health behaviours and their impact on physical and mental health within the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (https://www.bristol.ac.uk/integrative-epidemiology/). He co-directs – with Angela Attwood and Olivia Maynard – the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (https://www.bristol.ac.uk/psychology/research/brain/targ/), which uses epidemiological methods to identify putative causal pathways between health behaviours and disease outcomes, and laboratory methods to interrogate the underlying mechanisms of these pathways. Using genetically-informed causal inference methods, they have shown that smoking is a causal risk factor for adverse mental health outcomes, and that the association between vaping and smoking in young people may be due to a common underlying factor, such as risk taking personality. He has a long standing influence in the factors that contribute to research quality, and in 2019 co-founded the UK Reproducibility Network (https://www.ukrn.org).

University of East Anglia, Chair of Addiction Sciences

Professor Notley lead of the Addiction Research Group at the University of East Anglia. She has a programme of research, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, on smoking cessation, particularly focused on harm reduction and e cigarettes. Caitlin is a member of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction group and a co-author of the Cochrane review of e cigarettes for smoking cessation. As a social scientist, Caitlin has particular research expertise in mixed method approaches, currently leading RCTs, but also undertaking qualitative process evaluations. Caitlin is also Director of the UEA Faculty of Medicine and Health ‘Citizens Academy’, with a clear remit to facilitate patient and public involvement in research.