Alexander Betts is the Leopold W. Muller Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs at the University of Oxford, where he is also Director of the Refugee Studies Centre. He has previously worked for UNHCR and as a consultant to a range of international organizations and governments.

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics at St. Antony's College, Oxford. His book The Bottom Billion has won the Lionel Gelber Prize, the Arthur Ross Prize awarded by the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Corine Prize.