Roderick Duncan MacLeod is the holder of several degrees and Fellowships including MB, ChB, DRCOG, MMedEd, PhD, FRCGP, and FAChPM. He has been involved in palliative care as a physician for over 35 years. He was appointed to New Zealand's first Chair in Palliative Care as the inaugural South Link Health Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Otago, Dunedin School of Medicine in 2003, and in 2013 was appointed Conjoint Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Sydney and worked clinically as Senior Staff Specialist in Palliative Care for HammondCare in Sydney. He has been a Member of the Australasian Chapter of Palliative Medicine Education Committee, the NZ National Health Committee-Working Party on Care of People Who Are Dying, the NZ Palliative Care Expert Working Group, and the Council of the Asia Pacific Hospice Network. He was appointed to the Expert Advisory Group (Physician Education) and the Chapter of Palliative Medicine Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the NZ Ministry of Health Palliative Care Advisory Group. He has also held a number of roles within Hospice NZ/Te Kahu Pairuri o Aotearoa. He has published 140 peer-reviewed articles in the field of palliative care in national and international journals and has written over 20 chapters for palliative care texts. In addition, he has been on editorial boards of international peer-reviewed journals in the field of palliative care and has reviewed manuscripts for over 25 different academic journals. He was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015. In 2021, he was awarded the RoyalAustralasian College of Physicians, College Medal. He currently holds an honorary appointment in the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Lieve Van den Block is Full Professor of Ageing and Palliative Care at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), founding chair of the Ageing and Palliative Care Research Programme, and director of the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the VUB and Ghent University in Belgium (https:// www.endoflifecare.be/lieve-van-den-block). She holds a PhD in Medical Social Sciences and a master's in Clinical Psychology. She has been involved in palliative care research for over 20 years, focusing on national and international public health, health services, and interventional research aimed at monitoring and improving palliative and end-of-life care. Her research is interdisciplinary in nature and located at the intersection of palliative care and long-term care. She has studied palliative care both in community and institutional settings and among different populations including cancer, dementia, and frailty.
She is Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on Person-centered Long-term Care for older people and chairs the Aging and Palliative Care Reference Group of the European Association of Palliative Care. She is expert member of theWHO Global Network on Aging, chair of the Brussels Expertise Centre on Palliative Care, and member of the Board of directors of Belgian's largest cancer charity.
She has led and partnered in several EU-funded research projects, including the Horizon Europe EU NAVIGATE project, an intercontinental, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral research project investigating navigation programs to support older people with cancer, the EU FP7 PACE project (PAlliative Care for Elderly people in long-term care facilities) investigating nursing home palliative care, and three European Commission funded Marie Curie Doctoral Training Networks: European Intersectoral and Multidisciplinary Palliative Care Research Training (EURO IMPACT), Interdisciplinary Network for Dementia Utilising Current Technology (INDUCT), and Dementia Intersectoral Strategy for Training and Innovation Network for Current Technology (DISTINCT).
She has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, is co-editor-in-chief of Springer's Nature Textbook of Palliative Care, and editor or author of several other books including "Palliative Care for Older People: A Public Health Perspective." Her work has been supported by grants from the European Commission, national fundamental and applied research foundations, and leading medical and health charities.She has received several scientific awards for her work including the prestigious Collen-Francqui Research Professor Chair, the Early Researcher Award of the European Association for Palliative Care, and the VUB Excellent PhD Supervision Award.
