Brief CV

Constantine Stephanidis, Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Crete, is Founder and Head of the Human - Computer Interaction (HCI) Laboratory, and Founder and Head of the Ambient Intelligence (AMI) Programme of the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (ICS-FORTH). From January 2004 to November 2016 he served as the Director of ICS-FORTH. Since 2016, Prof. Stephanidis is a Distinguished Member of FORTH.

For three and a half decades, he has conducted pioneering research work in the HCI field, having introduced in the international literature in the early '90s the concepts of "Design for All" and "Universal Access" along with the supporting technological frameworks, methods and tools. He has published more than 800 articles in scientific archival journals, books and handbooks, proceedings of international conferences and workshops related to the fields of his expertise. He has been engaged as the Scientific Responsible in more than 180 European Commission and nationally funded R&D projects and RTD contracts in areas of his competence.

He is the Founder (2000) and Editor-in-Chief of the Springer international journal "Universal Access in the Information Society" and in 2001 he founded the International Thematic Conference "Universal Access in HCI". Since January 2016, he is the Managing Editor of the "International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction", published by Taylor & Francis. He is the Editor of the books "User Interfaces for All - concepts, methods and tools" published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (2001), "Universal Access in Health Telematics - A Design Code of Practice" (2005) published by Springer, and "The Universal Access Handbook" published by CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group (2009). He is the lead Editor and chapter (co-)author of the book series "HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: FOUNDATIONS AND ADVANCES” (CRC Press - Taylor & Francis Group, 2024, ISBN: 9781032750842) a collection of 6 books with a total of 90 chapters that provides a broad and extensive coverage of the interdisciplinary field of HCI. He was the Founder and Chair of the ERCIM Working Group User Interfaces for All" and General Chair of its nine international Workshops (1995-2006), and Founder and Chair of the International Scientific Forum "Towards an Information Society for All" (1997-2000) in the context of which he edited White Papers concerning the roadmap and RTD agenda towards an "Information Society for All". He is also the organizer and lead author of the White Paper "Seven HCI Grand Challenges" (2019), and contributor to the White Paper Six Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Grand Challenges (2023).

Since the late ‘80s, he has been actively contributing to the European Commission RTD Policy on Information Society, either as a member of EC experts’ committees, or as National Representative in Management Committees of successive RTD Framework Programmes in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). He was the Scientific Coordinator of the EC Coordination Action InterLink (2006-2009), which addressed large-scale, basic research problems in 'software intensive systems and new computing paradigms', 'ambient computing and communication environments' and 'intelligent and cognitive systems', under a human-centred perspective, and defined joint basic research agendas at the time for world-wide cooperation in these domains.

As Founder (2004) and Head of the Ambient Intelligence Programme of ICS-FORTH, Prof. Stephanidis is coordinating multidisciplinary and cross-thematic activities with the aim of conceptualizing, designing and developing in vitro, and deploying in vivo, pioneering, innovative technologies systems and applications for Smart Environments, capable of "understanding" and proactively addressing individual human needs, following a human-centred approach. Examples of such outreach activities include the installation of interactive systems in public places for widespread use.

In 2010, Prof. Stephanidis was elected member of the Informatics Section of the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Humanities, Letters and Sciences.

During 2008 - 2009 he served as member of the Sectorial Scientific Committee of Informatics of the National Council for Research and Technology (NCRT), and from March 2014 to May 2016, as its member. Since January 2017, he is the President of the Council for Research and Innovation of the Region of Crete. Prof. Stephanidis was elected as the first President of the National Accessibility Authority in May 2021.

From May 2023 he is the Scientific Responsible and Coordinator of the flagship national project "Interconnected Smart Cities for Greece 2.0" funded by the Greek National Recovery and Resilience Plan, under the supervision of the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation of the Ministry of Development, with the participation of Greek Universities, Research Centres and major Greek cities. The project aims to develop a universal Internet of Things (IoT) platform, designed to efficiently collect and present data generated by diverse existing vertical smart city systems, ensuring semantic compatibility between data and services and fostering cities' modernisation though a new generation of products and services.