Mohammad Ali is the Pro Vice-Chancellor & Dean at Anglia Ruskin University and holds key leadership roles, including Vice Chair of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) and Chair of the Risk & Audit Committee. He is a distinguished academic and executive leader with over 25 years of experience in highereducation, business, law, governance, and the automotive sector. With extensive expertise in corporategovernance, strategic planning, risk management, and stakeholder engagement, he has a proven track record ofdriving institutional growth and innovation. He frequently engages with professional organisations, serving as ajudge for the Financial Times Responsible Business Education Awards, British Academy of Management EducationPractice Awards and previously as a board member in the Government Advisory Board for changes in ISOmanufacturing standards for automotive parts. Additionally, he has been a judge for the European Foundation forManagement Development, supply chain case competition and an Academic Auditor for the Chartered Institute ofLogistics and Transport. A leading researcher in business forecasting, Mohammad has an impressive publicationrecord with 70% of his peer-reviewed journal articles appearing in highly ranked 3* and 4* journals (CharteredABS). Through his work, he continues to enhance business education, promote institutional excellence, and cultivate impactful collaborations across sectors.

Michael Pollitt is a Professor of Business Economics, and Head of the Economics & Policy subject group at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He has advised a wide range of national and international bodies, including the UK Competition Commission, New Zealand Commerce Commission, Ofgem, Ofwat, the DTI, the World Bank, and the European Commission. He has also consulted for major companies such as National Grid, UKPN, AWG, EdF, Eneco, Nuon, Roche, and TenneT. Professor Pollitt serves on the editorial boards of several leading journals, including The Energy Journal, Energy Economics, Review of Industrial Organization, Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, Energy and Climate Change, Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy, and Utilities Policy. He is an Honorary Academic Co-Director at CERRE (Centre on Regulation in Europe) and a Fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines. Since 2000, he has convened the Association for Christian Economics (ACE), UK. Michael is also the Coach for the Cambridge MBA’s Energy & Environment concentration. His work focuses on how economics can improve growth, business performance, and environmental outcomes. His research interests include industrial economics, the privatisation and regulation of utilities, energy economics, productive efficiency, and the intersection of Christian ethics with best practice in business. He holds an MA from the University of Cambridge and an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford, and is Fellow of Sidney Sussex College of University of Cambridge.

Title: European Policies for Net Zero: The narrow path to success

Abstract: This lecture will discuss what it will take to get to net zero by 2050. We will cover what energy system modelling suggests are the elements of net zero and then consider what policy instruments are likely to work in delivering them. We will discuss the role of subsidies, taxes, markets and innovation in driving net zero. We will suggest that the feasible path to a net zero economy is narrow, dependent on international cooperation and a function of events both good and bad.

Qing Li is currently a Chair Professor (Data Science) and the Head of the Department of Computing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Formerly, he was the founding Director of the Multimedia software Engineering Research Centre (MERC), and a Professor at City University of Hong Kong where he worked in the Department of Computer Science from 1998 to 2018. Prior to these, he has also taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Australian National University (Canberra, Australia). Prof. Li served as a consultant to Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing, China), Motorola Global Computing and Telecommunications Division (Tianjin Regional Operations Center), and the Division of Information Technology, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia. He has been an Adjunct Professor of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and the Wuhan University, and a Guest Professor of the Hunan University (Changsha, China) where he got his BEng. degree from the Department of Computer Science in 1982. He is also a Guest Professor (Software Technology) of the Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) -- the leading university of the Zhejiang province where he was born.

Prof. Li has been actively involved in the research community by serving as an associate editor and reviewer for technical journals, and as an organizer/co-organizer of numerous international conferences. Some recent conferences in which he is playing or has played major roles include APWeb-WAIM'18, ICDM 2018, WISE2017, ICDSC2016, DASFAA2015, U-Media2014, ER2013, RecSys2013, NDBC2012, ICMR2012, CoopIS2011, WAIM2010, DASFAA2010, APWeb-WAIM'09, ER'08, WISE'07, ICWL'06, HSI'05, WAIM'04, IDEAS'03, VLDB'02, PAKDD'01, IFIP 2.6 Working Conference on Database Semantics (DS-9), IDS'00, and WISE'00.

In addition, he served as a programme committee member for over fifty international conferences (including VLDB, ICDE, WWW, DASFAA and others).