Michele Prandi was professor of Linguistics at the Universities of Geneva, Pavia, Bologna, and Genoa. He is Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Uppsala. His main research fields are semantics of complex expressions, conditions of significance, natural ontology and conceptual analysis, and metaphor and figurative language in their grammatical and conceptual aspects.

Micaela Rossi is professor of French Language and Translation at the University of Genoa. Her research interests focus on the formation of new metaphorical terminologies in technical and scientific vocabularies, as well as on the textual and discursive dynamics that determine their fixation within socio-professional communities of use.