Hani Hayajneh is a professor at and dean of the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan. He gained his PhD degree in 1998 from the Faculty of Cultural and Historical Studies at the Free University of Berlin (Germany). He has published a large number of research papers, books, articles and reviews on the cultural heritage of the Levant and Arabia, e.g. the first book written in Arabic about the challenges and perspectives of safeguarding ICH. He joined the UNESCO network since 2009 and became a member of the UNESCO ICH capacity building team since 2010. He participated in implementing the ICH Convention in different Arab countries with special focus on countries in crisis and held workshops on ICH inventorying, safeguarding plans, and nomination. He was nominated as a voluntary consultant of the Jordanian Ministry of Culture for intangible cultural heritage issues.

He established and chaired the Princess Basma Bin Talal for Intangible Cultural Heritage and the UNESCO Chair for Heritage and Sustainable Tourism. He received scholarships from renowned foundations, e.g. Fulbright, Alexander von Humboldt, CNRS, DAAD, Juynboll Foundation etc and worked as a visiting scholar in different international institutions, including Harvard University, Philipps University, FU-Berlin, Sorbonne University, Collège de France etc. Since January 2016 he was nominated as an Ambassador Scientist by the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.