Prof. Dr. Ilan Chet (President) completed his Ph.D. in microbiology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot. He has published more than 390 articles in international scientific journals, edited 5 books and holds 38 patents. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Vice President of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Later, he was President of The Weizmann Institute of Science and nominated “Institute Professor”. He was also Invited Visiting Professor at Harvard, Colorado State, Cornell, Rutgers, and Lund and Goettingen Universities. Prof. Chet has been awarded many prizes, among them the Max-Planck Award, the Israel Prize, and the Wolf Prize. He has also received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Germany and the Legion of Honor of France. Furthermore, he was recognized with Honorary Doctorate from Lund, Haifa, and Naples Universities. Prof. Chet is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the European Academy of Sciences, and of Academia Europea. From 2010-2016 he held the position of Deputy Secretary General at the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean.