Prof Dr Gesine Schwan is co-founder, partner and president of the Berlin Governance Platform. Ms Schwan is head of the Trialogue division.

Gesine Schwan is a political scientist. She studied Romance languages and literature, history, philosophy and political science in Berlin and Freiburg with study visits to Warsaw and Krakow.

A member of the SPD since 1972, Gesine Schwan has been Chair of the SPD's Basic Values Commission since 2014 and Co-Chair of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, SDSN Germany, since December 2015.

From 1977 to 1999 she was Professor of Political Science and from 1992 to 1994 Dean of the Department of Political Science at the FU Berlin. In 1999, she became President of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) and made a decisive contribution to its development.

From 2005 to 2009, Gesine Schwan was the German government's coordinator for cross-border and civil society cooperation with Poland. She ran for the office of Federal President in 2004 at the suggestion of the SPD and Bündnis90/Die Grünen and in 2009 at the suggestion of the SPD

Gesine Schwan founded the HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA School of Governance together with other academics in March 2009 and was its President from June 2010 to June 2014.

Gesine Schwan has received numerous awards, including the Marion Dönhoff Prize for International Understanding and Reconciliation in 2004 and an honorary doctorate from the European University Institute in Florence in 2006. She is a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Order "Bene merito" of the Republic of Poland and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour of the Republic of France.

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Prof. Dr. Gesine Schwan