Georgia Manolopoulou is a Ph.D. student in Cultural Diplomacy, Department of Political Science and International Relationships at the University of Peloponnese. She holds a B.Sc. in Philosophy from the University of Athens and is actively engaged in cultural management through a M.A. in Museum Studies, an interdisciplinary course at the same university in collaboration with Faculty of History and Archaeology, and her working experience at the Ministry of Culture. She participated in the Scholar for Grundtvig European Program from the National Scholarship Foundation - IKY at the University of Manchester Museum and she is a Fellow of the NEON Curatorial Program in London. She is an author of published international papers and articles in conferences while she participated as a scientific member in European projects. She is an elected Board Member of DIAZOMA and a Council Member of ENA Europeana. In 2018, she received the Award for Person in Culture. She is currently working as a Curator of Public and Educational Programs at the Archaeological Museum of Patras/Ministry of Culture. Her research mainly focuses on the transformative role of culture and its potential to maintain a safe social fabric of communities, societies, and nations. Cultural organizations, associations and communities must be seen as laboratories for social innovation, inclusivity and as main actors to sustainable growth, democracy and peace.

Thanks to the support of the Fulbright Foundation, she had the chance to join the Cultural Innovators Forum of the Salzburg Global Seminar, a community of Fellows from all over the world that share the same vision. She had the opportunity to engage with new approaches and seek future collaborations within and across the themes: art, culture, education, climate action and peace around the world. Through her academic research and working practice, Georgia wants to contribute as much as possible to the the idea that culture is the alive cell for strong immune societies. Now more than ever is the momentum to encourage all world citizens to place culture together with education at the heart of recovery and revival. Our world needs a beating Cultural Heart to survive!