Kristine Bonnevie was born in Trondheim, Norway, in 1872. A Zoologist, she was the first woman to be elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (1911), and the first woman to hold a professorship at the University of Oslo (beginning in 1912).

Bonnevie was a Norwegian delegate to the League of Nations (LN) in 1921. In this capacity, she assured that women would be included in the future International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC). When the ICIC was founded in 1922, she was one of the twelve original members. She defended an ICIC as international and as apolitical as possible. She supported reforms of the Organisation of Intellectual Cooperation in 1929, and she helped to draw up the program of the ICIC in 1930. That same year, she left the ICIC in order to devote her time to scientific research, but she remained a member of the Norwegian Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (founded in 1924). Bonnevie died in 1948 in Oslo.

Aloisio de Castro was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1881. He studied medicine in Rio de Janeiro, and, after having received a scholarship for a research trip to Europe, he obtained his doctorate in 1903. He practiced at the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro from 1904 until 1908, before becoming deputy health secretary at the social service in Rio de Janeiro (1906–08), professor of medical pathology and clinical medicine (1915–1940), Director-General of the School of Medicine (1915–1924), and director of the general department for education at the Brazilian Ministry of Education (1927–1932). De Castro also served as President of the Society of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Legal Medicine at the Brazilian Academy of Medicine. He was a member of numerous international medical associations. Beyond his scientific work, he published pieces of poetry as well as musical compositions for piano and choir.

De Castro was a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) from 1922 until 1930. In 1922 he founded the Brazilian Committee of Intellectual Cooperation, whose presidency he assumed in 1926 until 1933. He died in 1959 in Rio de Janeiro.

Richard Dupierreux was born in Couillet, Belgium, in 1891. He obtained a PhD in law from the University of Brussels in 1914 and went on to practice as a lawyer at the Brussels Court of Appeal. Between 1915 and 1918, he served as Jules Destrée’s private secretary during the latter’s missions to Italy and Russia. When Destrée became the Belgian Minister of Arts and Sciences, Dupierreux became his chief of staff between November 1919 and November 1921. In addition to this work, he pursued literary and journalistic activities in Belgium. Between 1920 and 1923, for instance, he directed the foreign policy section of La Nation. He also served as President of the Belgian Foreign Press Union from 1921 until 1923, and lead the arts, literary, and theatre section at the Le Soir, where he worked under the pseudonym Casimir. At the same time, he taught art history and civilisational history at the Institut supérier des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp. He died in 1957, having been elected to the Belgian Royal Academy the preceding year.

In the Fall of 1924, when Jules Destrée was considering creating a press section at the IIIC, he intended his collaborator Dupierreux to be head of the unit. In fact he became Chief of the Section for artistic relations in November 1925, and resigned from this position in December 1929. During this period, he served as Secretary of the Belgian Committee of Intellectual Cooperation which had been founded at the initiative of Destrée in 1922. Dupierreux was also involved in the International Museums Office’s (IMO) activities: he was a member of the preliminary committee in charge of the IMO’s first steps in autumn 1926 alongside Destrée, Henri Focillon, Julien Luchaire, George Oprescu, and Hélène Vacaresco. Between 1927–1929, he became coordinator at the IMO, before leaving the path to Euripide Foundoukidis who became Secretary-General of the Organisation in 1931. In 1937, Dupierreux helped with the preparation of the Belgian delegation to the second Conferences of National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation, organised by the IIIC, together with the Belgian Secretary-General of education Marcel Nyns and the president of the Belgian Committee Paul Hymans.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1890, Victoria Ocampo came from an Argentinian high-society family. In 1916, aged 26, she met José Ortega y Gasset who had a great influence on her. Virginia Woolf, to whom she later dedicated a study, also inspired her to become a writer.
In 1931 Ocampo founded the review Sur (the title of which was suggested to her by Ortega y Gasset). Writers from all over the world collaborated in the review, the editorial board included, among others: Pedro Enriquez Ureña, Alfonso Reyes, Ortega y Gasset, Jules Supervielle, Guillermo de Torre, Waldo Frank, Jorge Luis Borges, and Eduardo Mallea. The review published works by young literary talents as well as major authors of the time, such as: Breton, Camus, Claudel, Caillois, Eluard, Gide, Malraux, Maritain, Romain Rolland, Saint-John Perse, Sartre, Valéry, Graham Greene, Huxley, Shaw, Jorge Guillén, J. R. Jiménez, Heidegger, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, Croce, Ungaretti, Michaux, Asturias, Octavio Paz, Faulkner, Saroyan, Steinbeck, etc. The review’s history continued until 1970 and played a significant role in spreading international literature in the Latin American world.

Ocampo formed long friendships with a number of writers and intellectuals, such as Français Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Jules Supervielle, Roger Caillois, Rabindranath Tagore, and the Spaniards Jorge Luis Borges et Federico García Lorca. From 1935 Ocampo published her memoirs in ten volumes (1935–1977) in which she recounts her various encounters, alongside numerous novels: La Laguna de los nenúfares (1924), Supremacía del alma y de la sangre (1933), Domingos en Hyde Park (1936), San Isidro (1941), Habla el algarrobo (1959). Victoria Ocampo décède en 1979.

“There is no authentic national culture, only authentic international culture”, declared Ocampo to those who accused her of being too preoccupied with foreign literature. This internationalism marked the life and the work of the Argentinian writer, but also her commitment to the Organisation of Intellectual Cooperation. In May 1939, she was appointed a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC).

After the war, she remained a public intellectual, giving lectures and receiving honorary degrees in various countries. She donated her Buenos Aires villa to UNESCO in 1973 for, as she wished, “promotion, research, experimentation and development of activities related to culture, literature, art and social communication, which are aimed at improving the quality of human life.”

Marie-Pierre Herzog, a French national, joined the staff of UNESCO in March 1969 as Director of the Division of Philosophy. In 1973, she was made Director of the newly created Human Rights Coordination Unit. The Unit became the Division of Human Rights and Peace in 1975.

Georges B. Kutukdjian, a Lebanese national, was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1942. He pursued his higher education at the University of Paris, studying philosophy and social anthropology, earning the following degrees: license de sociologie; diplome d’études supérieures de philosophie; certificat de mathémathique; certificat de l’informatique. Kutukdjian was a Collaborateur with Professor Claude Levi-Strauss at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique of France from 1968 to 1971.

Kutukdjian began his career at UNESCO in 1972 as a Programme Specialist in the Division of Applied Social Sciences. In 1976, as the Sector was reorganized, he moved to the Division for the Study of Development. Kutukdjian was appointed Chief of the Evaluation and Coordination Unit, Office of the Assistant Director-General, Sector for Social Sciences and their Applications, in 1978. In 1985, he moved to become Programme Specialist in the Division of Human Rights and Peace. When the Bio-ethics Unit was created in 1992, Kutukdjian was appointed its Director. The Bio-Ethics Unit was moved to the Services attached to the Directorate in 1994. In 1999, the Unit was made the Division of Ethics of Science and Technology. Later that year, the Division was moved back to the Sector of Social and Human Sciences. Kutukdjian retired from UNESCO in 2001.

Beyond and complementary to his work at UNESCO, Kutudkjian held the following positions: President, UNESCO Staff Association, 1979-1982; Secretary-General of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC),1993-1997; Executive Secretary of the World Commission of the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), 1998-2001(?); Rapporteur of the IBC Drafting Group of the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, 2003-2005; Member, Scientific Committee, International Bioethics Society; Adviser, French National Commission for UNESCO at the International Bioethics Committee, 2005; Vice-President and President of the Association of Former UNESCO Staff Members (AFUS), 2005-2010, as well as President of the AFUS History Club, 2005-2010. He was also recently one of the General Editors of the UNESCO World Report Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (2010). Among other publications, he co-authored the book Rights of peoples (1991) and contributed to The Book: a world transformed (2001). Kutukdjian has taught seminars on diplomacy and international organizations (University of Paris-South) and in bioethics and biotechnologies (University of Versailles).

Gilbert Murray was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1866. Having moved to England at the age of seven, he was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and then St John’s College, Oxford, where he excelled in classics and won several prizes. At the age of twenty-three he became university professor of Greek at Glasgow, before moving to Oxford in 1905 where he became regius professor of Greek three years later. Murray published numerous books and translations, and established himself as an authority on the Ancient Greek world. He retired from the regius chair in 1936.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Murray became increasingly involved in contemporary political affairs, working for the British League of Nations Union beginning in 1918. After an invitation by Jan Smuts, he participated at the League of Nations (LN) 1921 Assembly. During the 1930s, he collaborated with William Beveridge in setting up the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. Although somewhat disenchanted with the LN after the Abyssinian crisis, his commitment for international cooperation remained (Stray 2004). After the Second World War, he served three terms as President of the United Nations Association.

Murray was a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) from 1922 until 1939, the only individual apart from Gonzague de Reynold to serve for the entire period of its existence. In 1928, Murray became President of the ICIC, succeeding Henri Bergson and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. After the war, he was involved in the preparatory discussions of the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME). Murray died in 1957.

Born in 1876 in Bordeaux, France, Julien Luchaire was Romanist scholar, politician, and public servant. He was educated at Lycée Henri IV and École normale supérieure, passing the Aggrégation in 1897. He subsequently spent time at the École française de Rome and taught at the University of Lyon from 1900 until 1905. Having published two dissertations on Italian intellectual and political history, he became professor of Italian at the University of Grenoble, a post that he held from 1906 until 1919. In 1907 he founded the Institut français in Florence. After the First World War he served in senior positions at various ministries, and was appointed general inspector of education in 1920.

A friend and collaborator of Henri Bergson’s, Luchaire was involved in intellectual cooperation at the League of Nations (LN) from the outset. Together with Paul Appell, head of the French LN Association, Luchaire launched a project on an international bureau of intellectual relations and education, a report of which was handed to LN secretary-general Eric Drummond in 1920. Luchaire’s project was subsequently picked up by Léon Bérard, the French education minister, who convinced President Aristide Briand of the importance of such an organisation at the LN (Renoliet 1999, 14–23). In 1922 he became an advisor to the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), and in 1923 a member of the French Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. He was one of the driving forces behind the French offer to establish the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) in Paris, and in 1926 became its first Director. During his tenure, the IIIC became widely known as the executive branch of the ICIC and launched a number of influential projects, such as the International Studies Conference (ISC). Starting from 1928 Luchaire was increasingly criticised by his colleagues, which lead to significant organisational changes and eventually his own resignation in April 1930 (Renoliet 1999, p. 87, 109). After Luchaire’s resignation, he was succeeded in 1930 by Henri Bonnet. Luchaire himself was given an advisory position at the ICIC’s Permanent Committee of Arts and Letters. He was also appointed an expert for the enquiry into the state of intellectual life and continued to receive his previous salary during 1931.

Following his work for the League of Nations, he taught at l’École des Hautes Études Sociales, where he also chaired the education department and established a course on International Relations. From 1937 until his retirement in 1941, he once again served as general inspector of education. Luchaire died in 1962 in Paris.

George Oprescu was born in 1881 in Câmpulung, Romania. Though raised in poverty, he was educated in literature and philosophy at the University of Bucharest thanks to the help of friends and scholarships. After his graduation in 1905 he became a teacher of French language and literature. He also taught at the University of Fluj and led an art history seminar. He later became professor at the University of Bucharest and, since 1932, director of the Toma Stelian Museum, to which he donated a considerable amount of his private art collection. After the Second World War, he donated his collection to the Romanian Academy.

From 1923 until 1939, Oprescu worked as secretary of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation in Geneva.

After the war he became a member of the Romanian Academy, and from 1949 until his death in 1969 he led the Academy’s Institute of Art History.

Margarete Rothbarth was born in 1887 in Frankfurt (Main). She studied history, German and English at the Universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Berlin and Freiburg. In 1913 she received her doctorate. During the First World War she taught at a high school in Freiburg and also worked at the German archive for folk music. In 1918 she became a political secretary to Friedrich Naumann, and taught at Naumann’s Staatsbürgerschule (citizenry school). After Naumann’s death she became head of the library and archive of the German League of Nations Association. From 1922 until 1926 she worked as a scientific assistant at the foreign archive section of the Federal Ministry of Finance. As a delegate of the German League of Nations Association she participated at international meetings of LN societies.

Rothbarth joined the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) in November 1926, serving in the Information Section. In 1931 she was promoted to the rank of Secretary at the IIIC, a contract that was renewed for a period of 5 years in 1936. While on a trip to Switzerland in 1939, the Second World War broke out and she was unable to return to Paris to complete her tenure until 1941. After the war, she filed a formal complaint with the LN about not having received her payment during that time. She won the ensuing lawsuit. She died in 1953 in Switzerland.

Paul Painlevé was born in 1863 in Paris. He studied mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure and the University of Göttingen, and completed his doctorate in 1887. From 1887 until 1892 he taught at Lille, before returning to Paris as professor at Ecole Polytechnique and then Collège de France. An outstanding mathematician, he was awarded the Grand Prix des Sciences Mathématiques in 1890 and the Prix Bourdin in 1894. From the early 1900s he became interested in aviation and created a course in aeronautical mechanics at the École Aéronautique.

At the same time, Painlevé became involved in politics and sat in the Chamber of Deputies beginning in 1906. During the First World War, he served as Education Minister as well as War Minister from March to September 1917. From September until November 1917, Painlevé was Prime Minister, and again from April to November 1925.

From December 1925, Painlevé was President of the Administrative Council of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC). From 1926 until his death, he was a member of the ICIC. He played a key role during the restructuring of the Organisation of Intellectual Cooperation from 1930 to 1931 (Renoliet, pp. 116 and 331). Painlevé died in October 1933.

Chikh Bekri was born on 28 April 1927 in Geryville, Algeria. He obtained a License ès Lettres from the Université d’Alger and an Agrégation de lettres from the Université de Paris.

Bekri worked in Algiers from 1953 to 1958 as a Professeur at Lycée de Boufarik and Lycée Bugeaud. In 1960, he was named both Proviseur at the Lycée de Constantine and Director of the Collège universitaire de Constantine. In 1962, he was named Rector for the Region of Constantine. After independence, he was appointed Secrétaire général of the Ministry of Education of Algeria.

Bekri joined UNESCO in 1964 as Programme Specialist in the Education Sector, Operational Divisions, Arab States Division. He then moved to the Division of Educational Financing in 1968. During this time, he directed numerous missions for the development of education in Member States in the framework of the programme of cooperation with the World Bank. In 1973, he was appointed the first Director of the Regional Office for Education in the Arab States in Beirut. He served in this capacity until 1975 when he was appointed Acting Deputy Assistant Director-General of the Education Sector. In 1976, he was confirmed in his post as Deputy Assistant Director-General of the Education Sector, responsible for operations, but was also named Acting Director of the Executive Office of the Director-General. Indeed, later in 1976 he was named Director of the Executive Office of the Director-General. Bekri was promoted to the rank of Assistant Director-General in 1981 and, in 1982, in addition to his responsibilities as Director of the Executive Office, he was assigned responsibility for the coordination of services not-integrated into the sector structure, such as, for example, the Office of the Mediator and the Secretariats of the Governing Bodies. He was also responsible for liaising with regional coordinators and for the implementation of the decentralization policy. In the context of a broader reorganization, Bekri became responsible for overseeing the work of the new Bureau of Studies, Action and Coordination for Development as well in 1985. The following year, he was appointed Assistant Director-General responsible for the International Bureau of Education. He held this position until his retirement in 1987.

Some of his publications include: L’UNESCO : une entreprise erronée?, 1991; L'Algérie aux IIe/IIIe siécles (VIIIe/IXe), 2004; and, Le royaume rostemide : le premier état algérien, 2005.

Giuseppe Prezzolini was born in Perugia, Italy, in 1882. A journalist, editor and well-known figure in Italy’s literary and scholarly worlds, Prezzolini co-founded the literary journal ‘Leonardo’ in 1903, and in 1908, he founded ‘La Voce’ (The Voice), a popular literary and cultural journal for which he was also the editor. In 1923, he taught in the summer session at Columbia University in New York where, in 1929, he became professor of Italian. Prezzolini taught at Columbia University for more than twenty years, and also held the post of director of Casa Italiana until 1940 when he resigned. His resignation came after after a period during which the centre was accused of propagandizing fascism, which Prezzolini and the university denied (McDowell).

Prezzolini worked with the League of Nations following the First World War. He was the first Chief of the Information Section of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) from 1925 - 1930. This section sought to make the work of the IIIC known to the public on an international scale through the press; maintained ties to journalists, editors, librarians and authors from various countries; and worked with editors and other experts to investigate larger efforts to spread knowledge, particularly books. Henri Bergson, president of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), was among his intellectual influences (Sarti, p 500).

In 1971, he received the honour of Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.

Prezzolini wrote numerous books, essays and articles both in English and Italian throughout his lifetime up until his death in 1982 in Lugano, Switzerland, at the age of one-hundred. His many publications include: ‘L'Italiano inutile’, ‘The Legacy of Italy’, ‘Machiavelli’, ‘Il tempo della "Voce"’, and ‘Manifesto dei conservatori’.

The ‘S’ has been an integral part of UNESCO from its foundation in 1945. In 60 years of existence, UNESCO has acted as a catalyst for the establishment of many, now leading scientific unions and bodies such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN, 1948), and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, 1954) which saw the development of the internet. Initiatives with far-reaching implications for sustainable human security and well-being – such as the Man and the Biosphere programme, the World Heritage sites and the International Hydrological Programme – were launched in the first thirty years of UNESCO’s history.

The Cabinet of the Director-General most notably had responsibility for relations with member and non-member states, as well as relations with governmental and non-governmental organizations that may or may not have had cooperation agreements with the IBI.

Dating at least from 1982, Mohsen Boudegga was the Director of the Cabinet.

The Latin America Department was created after a reorganization of the Cooperation Department in 1986. The Latin American Department inherited the responsibilities of the Cooperation Department for the geographic zone of South America and the Caribbean. It also inherited responsibility for coordination activities with the Regional Centre in Mexico (CREALC) which were formerly carried out by the External Relations service.

L'origine du département de l'Information peut se trouver dans l'existence de la section de Publications de l'IBI, oprérationelle dès les années 1960. Le directeur du département de l'information fut notamment Luigi Castelli Avolio.

One of the principal functions of the Department of Policies was to organize IBI’s major meetings on informatics policies and to participate in similar external activities. For example, the Department was particularly involved in the organization of: conferences on Transborder Data Flows; the SPINDE conference; and, IBI collaboration with the Cali and Yamoussoukro groups. In conjuction with the Director-general, the Department defined the policy vision or 'Doctrine' for the Organization. In keeping with this task, it carried out policy development activities through these meetings as well as through collaborations with other interested external actors.

The Department of Projects coordinated technology transfer projects between institutions wishing to make a contribution of expert technical knowledge to developing countries. The aim was to create local autonomous institutions. The Department was directed by Carlos Piattini who was behind projects related to juridical information technology, the arabization of information technology, a presidential dashboard or interface system, and different administrative databases.

The International Institute for the Development of Informatics (IBIDI) was created based on a resolution made in the 10th session of the IBI General Assembly, held in Rome from 21-25 June 1982. Following the signature of agreements between the IBI and the Italian government, the IBIDI was established in the Centre for Studies and Advanced Technology Applications (Centro studi ed applicazioni in technologie avanzate - CSATA) in the Techopolis complex in Valenzano (Bari), Italy. It began operations in 1985.

The IBIDI sought to train professionals in informatics so that they could occupy key decision-making posts in their country. The aim was to prepare professionals to anticipate technological evolution and to facilitate knowledge transfer between IBI member countries. The institute also undertook research programs in order to diseminate new technologies as information management tools for the economic, technical and social fields.

The Technical Advisory Board analyzed the programme activities of the IBI and ensured for appropriate coordination with other bodies and organizations.

The Department of Pilot Projects was succeeded by the Projects Department. Carlos Piattini continued as Director of this Department.