Rosemary Bechler, completing a Cambridge doctorate on villain heroes from Milton to Byron, then worked as a university teacher, in political journalism and in the peace movement, becoming the chair of the National Peace Council in 1995-6. In 2000, she co-founded Peaceworkers UK, absorbed into International Alert as its training wing, and joined the team piloting openDemocracy.

She was European and international editor, editing the book of the 'Convention on Modern Liberty: The British Debate on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms' (Imprint Academic 2010) and openDemocracy editor until Magnus Nome was appointed editor-in-chief in 2012. She edits Can Europe Make It?, has recently published with David Adler 'DiEM25’s A Vision for Europe' (Eris, second edition, 2020), and is a qualified lead facilitator in Stafford Beer’s Team Syntegrity – a cybernetic protocol for non-hierarchical conferencing. 

She died in 2021.