- Global Citizens Assembly
Meet the Team
The Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra is the lead organizer of the Global Citizens’ Assembly.
The Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra is the lead organizer of the Global Citizens’ Assembly. The Centre has a track record of managing large research grants from the Australian Research Council and publishing high quality research outputs in academic journals and university presses.
Simon Niemeyer is the Project Leader from the University of Canberra. Simon is the Associate Dean for Research at the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at the University of Canberra. He has designed, implemented and assessed over twenty deliberative forums in the past ten years on a range of topics—from biobanking in British Columbia to climate change in the Australian Capital Territory to begging in Uppsala. His work has been published in top academic journals including The American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Science, Science and Nature.
As Project Leader, Simon is in-charge of the overall coordination of the global research and partner networks. He is also leading the design, implementation, and assessment of the Global Citizens’ Assembly.
Dianne Nicol is a Collaborator from the University of Tasmania, is the Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania. She is leading two Australian Research Council-funded projects which examine the legal, research and social issues associated with genomic data sharing and the regulation of innovative health technologies including somatic cell genome editing. Dianne’s expertise offers a unique combination of her PhD research in the field of biology and her legal specialisation on patenting of biotechnology inventions. She is a member of the Australian Academy of Law and holds the title of Distinguished Professor.
Dianne’s primary roles in the project involve framing the citizen deliberations with the broader ethical, legal, and social context of genome editing globally, and articulating the outcomes of the deliberations in various forums.
John S. Dryzek is the founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. He holds the prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship for his work on environmental politics, global justice, and cultural variety in deliberative practice. He is the author of more than fifteen books on deliberative democracy and environmental politics and a fellow at the Academy of Sciences in Australia.
Before moving to the University of Canberra, he was the head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Oregon, University of Melbourne and the Social and Political Theory Program at the Australian National University.
As one of the original proponents of a Global Citizens’ Assembly, John is leading the conceptualisation of the Global Citizens’ Assembly’s design and assessment.
Nicole Curato is a collaborator from the University of Canberra. Nicole is the author of the books Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action (2019, Oxford University Press) and Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems (2018, Palgrave). She is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra and the editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy (formerly the Journal of Public Deliberation). Nicole is best known for her work on the everyday politics of deliberative democracy in the aftermath of crisis, disasters, and trauma. Aside from her academic work, Nicole conceptualises and hosts a television programme for CNN Philippines and has written for international publications including The New York Times and Al Jazeera.
In this project, Nicole is leading the research on ‘technologies of transmission’ or the role of documentary filmmaking in forging a global conversation about future technologies. She is also in-charge of the project’s public engagement strategy.
Antoine Vergne from Missions Publiques is collaborating with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in this project, as part of Missions Publique’s thrust of developing new modes of decision-making that responds to the demands of governance in the twenty-first century. Antoine is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Missions Publiques. He specialises designing, implementing, and evaluating processes of citizen participation that can scale at the global level while keeping a high level of quality. He has experience coordinating high profile international projects, including the World Wide Views on Biodiversity (2012) and Climate and Energy (2015), the Global Citizens’ Dialogue on the Future of the Internet and the International Citizens’ Dialogue on Autonomous Mobility. Antoine holds a PhD in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin and Institut d’ études politiques de Paris.
Sonya Pemberton is the Creative Director of Genepool Productions. Sonya is one of Australia’s leading factual television producers specialising in science. 2012 Emmy Award-winner and record-breaking five-time winner of the prestigious Eureka Award for Science Journalism, her passion is quality science programming.
Sonya has written, directed and produced over 60 hours of broadcast documentary, her films winning over 70 international awards. She also executive-produced many award-winning factual series and one-off programs, including the 2015 global science-history series Uranium: Twisting The Dragon’s Tail for SBS, PBS and ZDF/ARTE.
As a writer and director, her films include the critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning documentaries, Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines, Vaccines-Calling the Shots, Catching Cancer , and her film Immortal which featured the work of Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, won the 2012 Emmy award for Outstanding Science programming.
For more information on the team visit here.