Dr Michael Barnes has been Senior Tutor at Heythrop, a member of the Academic Board and a Governor of the College where he lectures in the theology of religions and religious studies. He taught Buddhism at the Pontifical Gregorian University for some years and has also been Director of Westminster Interfaith, a diocesan agency of the Diocese of Westminster dedicated to developing good relations between communities of faith in the London area.

He has been a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue in Rome. He is a member of the Roman Catholic Committee for Other Faiths and is a theological consultant to the ecumenical Churches Commission on Inter-faith Relations. From 1996 to 2001 he was General Editor of The Way journals.

His main academic interests include the relationship between Christianity and other religions, Indian philosophy and religion, inter-faith spirituality, and philosophical and hermeneutical issues in the history and theology of religions.

John Carter is a press officer for the Church of England, and for the past eleven years has been Director of Press and Communications for the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds. He has lectured on issues of faith and media at Durham University, the Gregorian University, Rome, St John's College Nottingham, Leeds Trinity and Mirfield Colleges – and continues to advise churches and faith-related groups, including the Dialogue Society.

His career began in BBC radio where he became a journalist, producer and presenter, reporting on events such as the Toxteth Riots and the Miners’ Strikes during the 1980’s. He later trained for ordained ministry in the Church of England, subsequently gaining an MA with research into faith and media issues. John continued to broadcast while serving as a parish priest for ten years, before taking up his present role. In May 2008 he joined with the Dialogue Society to organise a visit to Turkey by a group of UK journalists.

Prof Max Farrar, a cultural sociologist, is an Emeritus Professor at Leeds Metropolitan University, where until 2010 he was the Head of Community Partnerships and Volunteering and Professor for Community Engagement. An adviser to several boards and organisations on the issue of race, Professor Farrar has previously lectured in sociology and written research papers on the subject. He is the author of a book about Chapeltown in Leeds, The Struggle for ‘Community’ in a British Multi-Ethnic Inner-City Area (Edwin Mellen Press, 2002). He is also co-author of Teaching Race in the Social Sciences.

He has worked in adult and community education, at a community Law Centre, for a ‘race’ think-tank and as a freelance writer and photographer. His life-long interest, both as a scholar and as an activist, is in the movements for social justice emanating from the multi-cultural inner cities of the UK. His current research focuses on the rise of Islamism.

Bülent Gökay is Professor of International Relations and Head of the School for Politics and International Relations at Keele University, Chair of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies and Managing Editor of Global Faultlines.

He joined Keele University in 1996 from Wolfson College, Cambridge, where he had been a postdoctoral Research Fellow for the previous three years. Before coming to Keele, he taught at the Birkbeck College, London, the University of North London, and the University of Cambridge. He is the founder of Global Faultlines, co-founder of the Keele Southeast Europe Unit and co-founder of the Forum for Sport in Global Politics and Society.

He is widely published and his current research interests are: Soviet foreign policy, 1920s and 1930s, contemporary Turkish political history, the decline and disintegration of state socialist systems in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, oil politics and energy security in Eurasia, and global political economy – the decline of the West.

Lord Hylton has been an active member of the House of Lords since 1971, an independent member since 1982 and an elected member since 1999. He has a particular interest in Russia/CIS, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East.

Lord Hylton was educated at Eton College, and Oxford University.

In the past he has been Chairman of the following organisations: the National Federation of Housing Associations; the Catholic Housing Aid Society; the Housing Associations Charitable Trust and Help the Aged Housing Trust.

He founded the Kilmersdon Rural Housing Association and helped start the Ammerdown Centre (a Christian college promoting inter-faith dialogue) and Kilmersdon Grain Cooperative.

Lord Hilton is presently active with Forward Thinking (an organisation aiming to bridge the gaps between Muslims and the rest of the UK community) and Partners in Hope (an organisation to help street children and young people in Russia). He is also Chairman of MICOM (working towards conflict resolution in several countries).

One of the pioneering counselling psychologists in the UK, Mumtaz Khan has served as assistant editor of 'Counselling Psychology Review' and held memberships of a number of BPS boards and committees over the last twenty years. These include the Professional Practice Board, the Standing Committee for Psychologists in Health & Social Care, the Standing Committee for Promotion of Equal Opportunities, and the Psychologist Policy Committee. Mumtaz has also been serving on the BPS Registration Committee for Psychologists Specialising as Psychotherapists since 2002.

Mumtaz teaches at Leeds Metropolitan University in the areas of personality and individual differences, abnormal psychology, clinical and counselling psychology and critical and philosophical issues in psychology. His research interests include individual differences; race, ethnicity, identity and culture; work stress; cognitive behavioural psychotherapy and hypnosis and neuro-linguistic-programming.

Mumtaz also contributes to the University's links with Islam and Muslim issues in the West. Currently, he is the Faculty of Health's Diversity Champion and a member of the Equality and Diversity Group.

Marilyn Mornington is a district judge and a lecturer and writer on Family Law, with a particular interest in domestic violence and elder abuse. Both nationally and internationally, she has worked on multiple publications in these areas.

She has been involved in various advisory and consultative capacities with, among others, the BBC, the Foreign Office, the Pakistani Government and Police force, the British Council and the Home Office.

In the year 2007-2008 alone she contributed to an NSPCC report on abuse in UK Asian Communities, acted as patron to registered charity Karma Nirvana, contributed to a Home Affairs Select Committee on Domestic Violence and Forced Marriage and worked on an International Foreign Office exhibition and publication on integration. She also lectured on International Law and Human Rights at LSE, the Commonwealth Institute, Sheffield University and the Punjab Law School.

In 2005, Marilyn received the ‘Friends of Islam’ All Party UK Parliamentary Group Award for furthering relations between Islam and the West.

With over fifteen years’ experience in the community and voluntary sector, Fiyaz Mughal has worked with various organisations. Currently, he is the Director of Faith Matters (www.faith-matters.org.uk), a not-for-profit organisation working to reduce extremism and develop platforms for interaction between the UK’s Muslim, Sikh and Jewish communities.

Fiyaz was a Councillor in Haringey from 2006 until 2010. A former Deputy President of a mainstream political party in the UK, he campaigned on Black and Minority Ethnic inclusion within political parties and discourses. He was appointed to the Working Group for Communities linked to the Extremism Task Force developed in 2005 after 7/7. In 2008, Fiyaz became an IDeA Peer Mentor for national work with local authorities on the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda.

In the same year he was appointed as the Advisor to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg MP, on interfaith and preventing radicalism and extremism. In 2009, Fiyaz was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the community sector.

Bill Park is Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, War Studies Group, of King’s College, London University, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham. His previous positions have included: Principal Lecturer at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich; Visiting Lecturer in International Relations at City University, London (1981–1991) and Lecturer in International Politics, Liverpool Polytechnic, (1975–1978).

He is the author of Defending the West: A History of NATO (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1986) and has written a number of journal articles and book chapters on NATO, European security, and Turkey, including an Adelphi Paper (no. 374) entitled ‘Turkey’s policy towards northern Iraq; problems and prospects’, (London: IISS, May 2005). He is an occasional contributor to The World Today and Jane’s Intelligence Review, and to TV and radio as a Turkey expert. He is currently writing a book (for Routledge) on ‘Turkey and Globalization’.

Simon Robinson is Professor of Applied and Professional Ethics at Leeds Metropolitan University, Associate Director of the Ethics Centre of Excellence, and Visiting Fellow in Theology at the University of Leeds.

Educated at Oxford and Edinburgh universities, Professor Robinson entered psychiatric social work before ordination in the Church of England in 1978. He served in university chaplaincy at Heriot-Watt and Leeds universities, developing research in areas of applied ethics and practical theology.

His ongoing research interests are as follows: religious ethics and care; interfaith pastoral care; professional ethics; ethics in higher education; spirituality and professional practice; corporate social responsibility; and ethics in global perspective. Among his publications are: Moral Meaning and Pastoral Counselling; (ed. with Chris Megone) Case Histories in Business Ethics; Living Wills; (with Kevin Kendrick and Alan Brown) Spirituality and Healthcare; Ministry Amongst Students; (ed. with Clement Katulushi) Values in Higher Education; (with Ross Dixon, Chris Preece and Kris Moodley) Engineering, Business and Professional Ethics.

Lord Sheikh is Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum and of the Conservative Ethnic Diversity Council. He became a life peer in 2006. He was raised in a multi-faith and multi-cultural society and can speak six languages.

Lord Sheikh is Chairman of Camberford Law plc. He has been President of the Insurance Institute of Croydon and a member of the National Council of the Chartered Insurance Institute. He has twice been Regional Chairman of the British Insurance Brokers Association and was a Director of the Association’s main board for four years.

For twelve years Lord Sheikh was a visiting lecturer at various colleges and polytechnics and he has written educational materials. He belongs to three Livery companies and is a Freeman of the City of London.

He founded and funds a registered charity which recognises and rewards the attainment of young rising stars and potential future leaders. Lord Sheikh is married to Shaida from whom he receives support in his social and political work.

Paul Weller is Professor of Inter-Religious Relations at the University of Derby and Head of Research and Commercial Development in its Faculty of Education, Health and Sciences. He is also a Visiting Fellow in the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford and Vice Chair of the Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby.

His current interests include: issues in the relationships between religion, state and society. Among his recent publications are: A Mirror For Our Times: ‘The Rushdie Affair’ and the Future of Multiculturalism (Continuum, 2009); Time for Change: Reconfiguring Religion, State and Society (London: T. & T. Clark, 2005) and ‘Fethullah Gülen, Religions, Globalisation and Dialogue’, in R. Hunt and Y. Aslandogan (eds.), Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World: Contributions of the Gülen Movement (Somerset, NJ: The Light Inc. and IID Press, 2006). He is the editor of Religions in the UK: Directory, 2007-2010 (Derby: University of Derby and Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby, 2007).

Dr Steve Wright is Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Global Ethics and an Associate Director of the Praxis Centre, Leeds Metropolitan University. For almost thirty years, Dr Wright has lectured extensively across five continents on the social implications of new internal security tactics and technologies.

His most recent work covers new border control technologies and the climate change crisis. Concerned that the US ‘War on Terror’ may be masking new and unsustainable global security agendas, his ambition is to evolve human security programmes based on mutual respect which put the well-being of people first. His PhD thesis is entitled ‘New Police Technologies and Sub-State Conflict Control’, Lancaster University.