JRC Annual Conference
Human capital for territorial growth
11 October 2016
Brussels, Bozar
Speakers
Joint
Research
Centre
Tuesday 11 October 2016
Brussels, Bozar
Speakers
Vladimir Šucha
Markku Markkula
Director-General,
Directorate‑General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
President, Committee of Regions
Vladimir Šucha is Director-General of the Joint Research
Centre of the European Commission, its in-house scientific service. He was Deputy Director‑General of the
JRC between 2012 and 2013. Prior to that, he spent 6
years in the position of Director for Culture and Media
in the Directorate-General for Education and Culture
of the European Commission. Before joining the European Commission, he held various positions in the area
of European and international affairs. Between 2005
and 2006, he was Director of the Slovak Research and
Development Agency, the national body responsible for
funding research. He was principal advisor for European
Affairs to the Minister of Education of the Slovak Republic (2004-2005). He worked at the Slovak Representation
to the EU in Brussels as research, education and culture
counselor (2000-2004). In parallel, he has followed a
long-term academic and research career, being a full
professor in Slovakia and visiting professor/scientist at
different academic institutions in many countries. He
published more than 100 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals.
He was elected President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR)
in February 2015 for a two and a half year term of office. Since joining the CoR in 2010 he has held several
influential positions such as the first Vice-Chair of the
CoR’s EPP Group and Chair of the CoR’s EPP Task Force
on Europe 2020.
He is a member of the National Coalition Party in
Finland having held numerous political chairmanships
throughout his career starting with the local and national Student Unions in Espoo City and the Uusimaa
region and is a long standing member of the Board of
the Party. A member of Espoo City Council since 1980, he
held its presidency in 1990-92 and 2010. He is currently
a member of the Board of Helsinki Regional Council and
Chairman of Espoo City Planning Board.
President Markkula is a former member of the Finnish Parliament (1995-2003). During this time he served
as a member of two permanent parliamentary committees: the Committee for Science, Education and Culture,
and the Committee for the Future. As a MP his international role included the Presidency of EPTA Council, European Parliamentary Technology Assessment Network.
Markku Markkula works at Aalto University as the Advisor
to Aalto Presidents, where his focus is on European Union research, innovation and education policy affairs. He has previously worked as the Director of the Lifelong Learning Institute
Dipoli and the Secretary-General of the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE).
In Finland his roles have included memberships of
the boards of several companies and organisations
such as Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innova-
tion and Technology. He has served as the chairman of
the Board of the Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers TEK (1993-2005) and of the Finnish Information
Society Development Centre TIEKE (2000-2011).
As a tribute to his achievements he was elected to
the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of
Fame in 2008.
Michel Servoz
Director-General,
Directorate‑General Employment,
Social Affairs and Inclusion,
European Commission
Director-General of DG Employment, Social Affairs and
Inclusion, European Commission, was previously Deputy
Secretary General of the Commission, involved in the
coordination of the EU semester, including the Annual
Growth Survey and of the proposals for the next multiannual financial framework. From 2005‑2010 he was
the director of policy coordination for the Secretariat
General where he worked on the elaboration of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs and on the preparation of the European Economic recovery plan.
Marc Lemaître
Director-General,
Directorate‑General Regional and
Urban Policy, European Commission
He studied at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and
Bruges (College of Europe) and holds a Master in European Economics. He brings 20 years of profound experience in European Affairs, both in the European Commission and in the diplomatic service of Luxembourg.
Between 1996 and 2006, he worked in the Permanent
Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union,
dealing with budgetary, trade and general affairs issues.
He joined the Commission in 2007 as Head of the private
office of Regional Policy Commissioner, Danuta Hübner,
and then her successor, Paweł Samecki.
Between 2010 and 2013, he led the private office of
Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski. Since 2013,
he has managed, as Director, the Office for Administration and Payment of individual entitlements (PMO). Since
1 September 2016 he is Director-General for Regional
and Urban Policy.
Martine Reicherts
Director-General, DirectorateGeneral for Education and Culture,
European Commission
Martine Reicherts began her career as a lawyer in
Luxembourg. In 1984, she joined the European institutions. Between 1995 and 1998, she was deputy
head of European Commission President Jacques
Santer’s cabinet before becoming E. C.’s spokesperson until 1999. In 2000, she joined the General Directorate of Administration and Personnel as head
of unit and became director of “Administration and
personnel management” (Luxembourg & Ispra) until
December 2002.
From 2003 to 2007, Martine Reicherts was in
charge of the Commission’s Office of Infrastructures
and Logistics in Luxembourg after which she was appointed Director-General of the Office of Publications
until 2015. In September 2015, Martine Reicherts became Director‑General of the department of education and culture of the European Commission.
Enrico Giovannini
University of “Rome Tor Vergata”
and European Commission’s Political
Strategy Centre visting fellow
He is an Italian economist and statistician, member
of the Club of Rome. Since 2002 he is full professor
at the Rome University “Tor Vergata”. He was Minister
of Labour and Social Policies in the Letta Government
(2013-2014), President of the Italian Statistical Institute (2009-2013), Director of Statistics and Chief
Statistician of the OECD (2001-2009).
He is Senior Fellow of the LUISS School of European Political Economy, Visiting Fellow at the EPSC,
Vice-president of the High Level Group on Competitiveness and Growth of the European Council, Co-Chair
of the “Independent Experts Advisory Board on Data
Revolution for Sustainable Development” established
by the UN Secretary-General, member of the European
Statistical Governance Advisory Board responsible for
supervising the functioning of the European Statistical
System and of boards of several Italian and international institutions.
He is Director of the Italian Alliance for Sustainable
Development.
In October 2014, the President of the Italian Republic
made him “Cavaliere di Gran Croce al Merito della Repubblica”, the highest ranking honour of the Italian Republic.
He is author of more than ninety articles and four
books on economic and statistical topics.
Alvaro Pereira
Director, Country Studies Branch in
the Economics Department, OECD
Álvaro Santos Pereira is Director of
the Country Studies Branch at the Economics Department of the OECD since 1st April 2014 where he
oversees the peer review process for the Economic
Surveys. He provides leadership in the co-ordination
and management of the activities of the Directorate
and ensures that it is at the forefront of the international political economy agenda. He identifies challenges and develops ways in which the OECD can
promote policies to improve member and partner
countries long-term Economic performance.
Prior to joining the OECD, between June 2011 and
July 2013, Mr Pereira was Minister for Economy &
Employment in Portugal, responsible for the areas of
Industry, Commerce and Services, Tourism, Energy
and Public Works, Transportation, and Employment.
As one of the largest ministries of the Portuguese
government, Mr Pereira was in charge of a major
programme of economic and labour reforms. Prior to
this, he was a professor of Economic Development
and Economic Policy at Simon Fraser University in
Canada, and a lecturer at the University of British
Columbia in Canada and the University of York in the
United Kingdom.
Mr. Pereira published a number of academic
books and papers among which “Portugal’s Moment
of Truth: New Economic Policy for Portugal (2011),
The Fear of Failure: History and Economic Policy in
Portugal (2009), and The Myths of the Portuguese
Economy (2007), and was a columnist in various Portuguese Newspapers, such as the “Diário Económico”.
Mr. Pereira is a citizen of Portugal and Canada, holds
a BA in Economics from the University of Coimbra, an
MSc Economics from the University of Exeter and a PhD
in Economics from Simon Fraser University.
John Bensted-Smith
Director, Directorate‑General
Joint Research Centre, European
Commission
Mr. Bensted-Smith has been working within the European Commission since 1983. He started in the Directorate General for Agriculture followed by a short period
in the Directorate General for Development. In 1989-92
he worked for the Commissioner responsible for the EU
budget. In 1993-94 he was in the Enlargement Task
Force which negotiated the Accession Treaty for Austria,
Finland and Sweden. From 1995-2000 he was in the
Cabinet of Franz Fischler, the Commissioner responsible
for Agricultural Policy. From 2000 to 2004 he was Head
of the Cereals, Oilseeds and Proteins Unit in the Directorate General for Agriculture. From 2004 to 2009 he was
the Director responsible for Economic Analysis, Perspectives and Evaluation. For a year he was then Director
responsible for Bilateral International Trade relations in
agriculture. Since May 2010 he has been Director for
the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre Directorate B “Growth and Innovation”.
Before working in the Commission he was a business consultant.
Rudolf Niessler
Director, Directorate‑General
Regional and Urban Policy,
European Commission
Rudolf Niessler was born in Austria. He studied economics and informatics at the Vienna University and holds
a PhD in economics. After qualifying he worked in economic research in Vienna. In 1991 he moved to the Federal Chancellery and then to the OECD in Paris where he
was councillor for trade and environment. In 1997 he
joined the European Commission. He served in several
functions covering responsibilities such as impact assessment and urban affairs. In 2007 he was appointed
Director for Policy Coordination. Since 2012 he is responsible for the overall policy strategy for Cohesion
Policy. This covers impact assessment in relation to the
EU economic governance and the relationship with the
EIB group and other international financial institutions.
Sven Langedijk
Head of Modelling, Indicators
and Impact Evaluation Unit,
Directorate‑General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
He is Head of the Modelling, Indicators and Impact
Evaluation Unit of the European Commission at the
Joint Research Centre in Ispra (IT). The unit’s research
and analytical activities cover the full range of EU’s
policy areas, including competitiveness, employment,
innovation, the internal market, judiciary, health, poverty, migration, cohesion, and other social dimensions.
Previously, he headed the European Commission team
responsible for developing, negotiating and monitoring
the EU-IMF financial support and economic adjustment
programme for Ireland. Until 2010, he contributed to
the development of the EU fiscal governance framework and the Stability and Growth Pact and was editor
of the Commission’s annual flagship report on Public
Finances in EMU.
His research interests and publications cover competitiveness and financial stability in EMU, fiscal policy
and macro-financial linkages.
Federico Biagi
Directorate‑General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
Federico Biagi is currently Contractual
Agent at JRC Unit B.4 Human Capital and Employment,
Seville, while on leave from the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Padova,
Italy. He has experience and skills in general micro‑economic theory, public finance, economics of education,
labour economics, applied economics, industrial organization, growth theory, econometrics and impact assessment. He has state of the art experience in working with
large datasets (households and enterprise panels, labour force surveys, longitudinal aggregate and industry databases).
In the last three years Federico Biagi has led two
Work-Packages in the research project “European Innovation Policies for the Digital Shift” (EURIPIDIS), with
special attention to demand side policies and impacts
of public support to innovation, and is currently participating in various research projects on the role of
digitalization in education. In 2017 Federico Biagi will
be in charge of a Work‑Package in the context of the
research project Competence Framework 2, focused
on “Digitalization, New Skills and the Labour Market”
(in collaboration with DG EMPL). The emphasis of this
Work Package is on analysing the impacts of the digital revolution on the changing nature of tasks and skill
requirements (with particular attention to job polarization, e-skills and digital competences). He will also lead
a research project on the labour market implications of
the Collaborative economy.
Giorgio Di Pietro
Professor Education of Economics,
University of Westminster
He is a Reader in the Economics of Education at the University of Westminster. He was Director of the PhD programme at the Westminster Business School between 2010 and 2011. In the past, he
worked at the University “La Sapienza” of Rome and at
the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of
the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. He
has been an IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor) Research Fellow since 2009 and a member of the Economics of Higher Education Network, London School of Economics, since 2013. His research is on a wide range of
labour and education economics issues from over‑education to university drop‑out. His work has been published in numerous academic journals including Economics of Education Review, Journal of Population Economics,
Economics Letters and Education, Finance & Policy. His
name is on the list of European researchers in education
economics. This list is maintained by the European Expert
Network on Economics of Education (EENEE), which is
sponsored by the European Commission.
Olga Strietska-Ilina
Skills and Employability Branch ILO
She works in the ILO’s Skills and Employability Branch of Employment Policy Department. Her focus is on research, tools and technical guidance to ILO constituents on skills anticipation
and matching linked to national and sectoral policies
and strategies. She has been a lead person in the preparation of the compendium of tools for anticipating and
matching skills and jobs. She coordinates work on skills
for trade and economic diversification, skills for greening
economies and new technologies, and skills recognition.
Before joining the ILO, she was an expert in skills forecasting at the European Centre for the Development of
Vocational Training (Cedefop), and earlier on, Head of the
Czech National Observatory of Employment and Training
and tutor at the Central European University. She holds
Master degrees in Economic and Political Sciences from
the University of Manchester and Sociology from the
Central European University.
and consulting in the areas of accounting, finance, innovation, entrepreneurship and education. Part of Imperial
College since 1992, Ebrahim was formerly the Director of the MBA programmes and has been involved in
graduate programmes that led to significant innovation
initiatives in education. He has held visiting lectureships
for the London School of Economics, City University,
London Business School and Queen Mary University of
London. He is an accredited examiner of the University of London external programme and a fellow of the
Higher Education Academy (HEA).
Andrea Bonaccorsi
Ralph Hippe
Department of Enginnering,
University of Pisa
Dr. Andrea Bonaccorsi is Full Professor
of Economics and Management at the School of Engineering of the University of Pisa. He has widely published in journals in economics of science and technology,
innovation policy, and research evaluation and metrics.
He is a member of RISE, the group of experts supporting the Commissioner for Research and Innovation,
Carlos Moedas.
Dr Bonaccorsi has pioneered the field of microdata
on higher education institutions, and has published two
books on these issues (2007 and 2014) and many articles. This effort, started with Aquameth in 2004, continued with the feasibility study Eumida and was completed with ETER I and II. Today comparative microdata
on European higher education institutions are available
in open format and are widely used in research and
policy making.
In the field of economics of innovation, he has recently developed new methodologies in technology
foresight and is working on theoretical issues in engineering design.
Directorate‑General Joint
Research Centre, European
Commission
Dr. Ralph Hippe is a Research Fellow in the Human Capital and Employment Unit of the European Commission’s
Joint Research Centre (JRC).
He previously worked as a Post-Doc at the London
School of Economics (LSE) on the development of the
knowledge economy within a green growth framework.
He was also a consultant in a World Bank project and a
Visiting Researcher at IDDRI/Sciences Po Paris.
Hippe holds a PhD in Economics from University of
Strasbourg, BETA/CNRS (France) and University of Tuebingen (Germany) (summa cum laude). His thesis was
awarded four dissertation prizes and focused on human
capital formation and economic growth in the European
regions. During his PhD, he worked as a Research Assistant at Sciences Po Strasbourg and the University of
Tuebingen. Hippe also holds Master’s degrees in business administration and management from Ecole de
Management Strasbourg (Very good) and University of
Tuebingen (Very good). He wrote his Master’s thesis at
Banque de France on regional economic integration.
Ebrahim Mohamed
Francesco Di Comite
Director of Education, EIT Climate-KIC
He is currently Director of Education at
Climate‑KIC. He is a specialist educator in the field of entrepreneurship education and helps
spearhead Climate-KIC’s reputation in technology and
innovation in Europe. Ebrahim works for Climate-KIC,
previously employed by core partner Imperial College,
London and is a graduate of the London School of Economics. Ebrahim’s expertise lies in teaching, research
Directorate-General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
He is currently leading the Regional
Economic Modelling (REMO) team of the European
Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Seville, Spain.
He was awarded his undergraduate degree from
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, and his Master and
PhD in Economics from the Université Catholique de
Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
He started his career as a UCLouvain researcher
specialised in international trade, industrial
organisation, location theory, publishing papers on
non-homothetic demand preferences to explain
firm-level export patterns, which granted him the
inclusion in the RePEc list of the 100 top global young
economists in the category “5 years or less since the
first publication”. After short research stays in the
Statistics Division of the United Nations Economic and
Social Committee for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP),
Bangkok, Thailand, and the Research Department
of the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB),
Washington D.C., USA, Francesco joined the European
Commission in 2011 as a country desk officer for
Latvia in DG ECFIN, where he worked on the analysis
of the Balance-of-Payment crisis of the country,
collecting inputs from colleagues from the IMF, World
Bank, central banks and national institutions. In 2013
Francesco moved to the DG JRC to work on modelbased impact assessment of European Cohesion
Policy and investments in EU regions, supporting the
developments of the Spatial Computable General
Equilibrium (SCGE) model RHOMOLO maintained by
the REMO team. Francesco’s current main research
interests include regional development, external
competitiveness measurement, urban economics,
impact assessment techniques
Vassilis Monastiriotis
Associate Professor of Political
Economy, European Institute, LSE
Dr Monastiriotis is Associate Professor
of Political Economy at the European Institute,
London School of Economics (UK). He is Director of
the LSE Research Unit on Southeast Europe and holds
affiliations with LSE’s Department of Geography and
Environment, the Hellenic Observatory and the ESRC
Spatial Economics Research Centre. His research
focuses on economic policy and performance at the
regional, national and supra-national levels, with
emphasis on labour markets, economic growth and the
macro-economy. He has published numerous articles in
economics and regional science journals and received
various distinctions including the Moss Madden
Medal in Regional Science (2008). He has a PhD in
Economic Geography (LSE), an MSc in Economics
(University of Macedonia) and a BSc in Economics
(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). He is Co-editor
of Spatial Economic Analysis (Taylor & Francis),
Committee Member of the British and Irish Section
of the Regional science Association International and
member of various professional associations and
editorial boards.
Peer Ederer
Director of the HUGIN Centre – Human
Capital, Growth & Innovation,
Zeppelin University, Germany
He is a scientific entrepreneur and an entrepreneurial
scientist. As scientist, he researches, publishes and
teaches on the link between human capital formation, learning, economic growth and innovation. As
entrepreneur in his company Africa Enablers, his
commercial focus is on creating sustainable and cost
effective energy solutions for countries across the African continent.
In science, Prof Ederer has demonstrated the link
between human capital, economic growth and innovation with business case studies and empirical analyses for individuals, business and regions. At Zeppelin
University he is director of the HUGIN Center, and has
conducted research projects and executive teaching
assignments on innovation and growth since 2004.
Since 2012 he is project director of the EU-funded
LLLight’in’Europe research project, leading a consortium of eight globally leading research universities on
Lifelong Learning, Innovation, Growth and Human Capital Tracks. (more at lllightineurope.com) This project
follows four widely disseminated policy briefs on human capital and university systems for the Brusselsbased think tank Lisbon Council, while he was director
for its Human Capital Centre there. Until 2013 he held
the post of scientific director for EFAS at Dutch Wageningen University. His analyses are frequently consulted by business leaders and senior policy makers at all
levels of government.
Prof Ederer studied business administration at
Sophia University in Tokyo and at Harvard Business
School in Boston. He completed his PhD at the University of Witten Herdecke in Germany. He began his career
as financial trader at Deutsche Bank, followed by four
years at McKinsey & Company.
Christian Bodewig
Program Leader for Inclusive Growth
in European Union Member States,
Europe and Central Asia, Worldbank
Christian Bodewig is the World Bank’s Program Leader
for Inclusive Growth, European Union, based in Brussels. As Program Leader, he coordinates the World
Bank’s program in social protection, labour, education,
health and poverty and equity in European Union Member States. Prior to his current assignment he worked
in the East Asia and Pacific department where he led
the Bank’s human development program in Vietnam,
including analytical and lending activities in early childhood development, skills and social assistance. Mr. Bodewig is the lead author of “Skilling Up Vietnam: Preparing the workforce for a modern market economy” and
a co-author of the World Bank regional study “Skills,
not just Diplomas– Managing Education for Results in
Eastern Europe and Central Asia”. Between 2003 and
2009 he worked in the Europe and Central Asia region’s
human development department, based in Washington
DC, Sarajevo and Sofia, where he focused on lending and
analytical programs in education and social protection in
South-Eastern Europe. He also served as the Bank’s focal
point on the social inclusion of the Roma minority in Europe from 2006 until 2009. Mr. Bodewig holds degrees
in economics and political economy from University College London and the London School of Economics.
assist in the delivery of training programmes on SME
development. She has a Master in Politology from the
Moscow Institute of International Relations, and a Masters in Applied Economics from Sciences Po Paris.
John Edwards
Directorate-General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
He works for the Smart Specialisation
Platform at the European Commission’s Joint Research
Centre in Seville. He currently leads a project on the
role of higher education in smart specialisation, in cooperation with DG Education and Culture. This project
includes action research in selected European regions
and monitoring of how European Structural and Investment Funds are spent on higher education. His geographical responsibility is to follow implementation of
smart specialisation in Portugal and the UK. John has
an academic background in regional development, having completed his PhD at Newcastle University’s Centre
for Urban and Regional Development Studies. He also
holds degrees in Geography and International Relations
from St Andrews University and European Politics from
the College of Europe in Bruges. At home he is kept
busy by his four children and also enjoys hill walking
and the outdoors.
John Goddard
Ekaterina Travkina
Forum on partnership and local
governance, OECD
She manages the OECD Forum on Partnerships and Local Development, the OECD’s network
of practitioners in the fields of economic development,
employment, skills and social inclusion. As a Senior
Policy Analyst, Ekaterina contributes to policy reviews
related to employment and skills, particularly in relation
to local strategies to support youth employment, and
more recently she started to work on culture and local development and on local integration of vulnerable
migrants. Ekaterina joined the OECD in 1997 to work
on entrepreneurship and SME development policy assessment in Central and Eastern Europe. Before joining
the OECD, Ekaterina worked at the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation to
OBE - Emeritus Professor of Regional Development Studies - Newcastle University
John founded and led the University’s Centre for Urban
and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) from 1977
to 1998. It was recognised as a ‘centre of excellence’
by the UK Economic and Social Science Research Council. He translated his academic insights into the role of
universities in city and regional development into practise when appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor with special responsibility for the University’s city and regional
engagement and in his role as chair of the Executive
Committee of Universities for the North East and the
group of six English Science Cities.
He has subsequently captured his experience in institutional management into academic outputs, policy
guidance for individual universities, local and national
governments and international bodies. As a NESTA Fellow he wrote a ‘provocation’ entitled ‘Re-inventing the
Civic University’ and as Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship
co-authored a book on The University and the City. This
looks into the university from outside. An international
comparative study The Civic University: the Policy and
Leadership Challenges taking an inside out view will be
published shortly.
John was academic leader of the OECD programme
summarised as Higher Education and Regions: Globally
Competitive, Locally Engaged. This was the foundation
for a Guide for the European Commission on Connecting
Universities to Regional Growth.
John is a member of the Mirror Group advising the
Commission’s Smart Specialisation Platform, of two Horizon 2020 Advisory Groups - on Spreading Excellence
and Widening Participation and on Science With and For
Society and been a co-investigator in an FP7 Research
Programme on Smart Specialisation led by Professor
Kevin Morgan at Cardiff University. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Academia Europaea.
Hans Werner Franz
Managing Director, European
School of Social Innovation
Born 1947, Ph.D. in Social Sciences
(Sociology, Political Sciences, Hispanistics), translator, interpreter, journalist. Consultant for Quality Organisations and Social Innovation. Till 2012 senior
researcher and consultant at Sozialforschungsstelle
Dortmund (sfs), social research unit of the Dortmund
University of Technology; Member of Executive Board
and Treasurer of the Professional Association of German Social Scientists; Managing Director of ESSI (European School of Social Innovation); EFQM Excellence
Award Assessor.
Major expertise in European projects on: Development of systems and organisations of vocational
training and education (Europe, national, regional,
in-company); Human Resources Development Organisation development (enterprises and work), cooperative work systems, (EFQM-based) total quality
management, social crisis management labour market and regional development, particularly in old industrial regions.
Kristiina Jokelainen
Senior Adviser, Regional Council
of Lapland
She is working in the Regional Council
of Lapland, Finland. Since 2012 she has been involved
in the creation and the implementation of Lapland’s
Smart Specialisation strategy and in particular leading
the regional clusters development as part of the ‘Arctic
Smartness’ Smart specialisation strategy implementation. In her current position she is applying her experiences and knowledge to support Lapland to become
a strong and the most innovative sparsely populated
region in the EU. Previously Kristiina has been working
in the Higher Education sector. She has over 20 years
of experience working on economic, research and innovation development projects and multi-sector cooperation activities in Finland, Eastern European, Central
Asian and EU Countries. During her working career, she
has been involved in over a hundred national and international development projects, acquired expertise in
the following areas; the development of strategic management, monitoring and the evaluation of development processes, integrating multidisciplinary approaches in practice, seeking new arenas and interfaces for
the innovation development.
Artur Serra
Deputy Director of i2cat Foundation,
Innovation Director of Citilab and
founding member of the European
Network of Living Labs
He is deputy director of i2cat Foundation in Barcelona.
Starting with a PH.D in technoantropology at Carnegie Mellon, he has developed a long experience as
designer of digital innovation labs, starting with i2cat
in 1999, Citilab in 2002, ending with the creation of
the European Network of Living Labs in 2006. He has
published chapter books and articles related with technoanthropology, open living labs and new models of
universal innovation systems.
He is working now on the new citizen-driven innovation ecosystems in the Mediterranean region,
taking advantatge of the new regional policy of the
European Union.
Cécile Riallant
Head of the Joint Migration
& Development Initiative (JMDI),
United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP)
She is a migration and development expert with 19
years of experience in this line of work. She is currently
managing the Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI), a global UN inter-agency programme led
by UNDP focused on reinforcing the role and positioning of local authorities and cities in linking migration
and development.
She joined the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in 2000, after three years of working as a
researcher. She has managed for IOM numerous programmes and projects in the field of migration with
geographical scope in the Great Lakes (Africa), Afghanistan, the Balkans and Europe. From 2005 to 2008, she
was Deputy Chief of Mission of the IOM Mission in Indonesia, working to support populations internally displaced by the 2004 tsunami in North Sumatra.
She is a member of the Editorial Board of Migration
Policy Practice, of the International Steering Committee
of Metropolis, of the International Steering Committee
of the civil society component of the Global Forum on
Migration and Development and a contributor to the
2015 World Migration Report on Migrants and Cities.
She holds a Bachelor degree in Political Science from
the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Science Po), a Master
of Science in European Studies from the University of
Strasbourg and a Master of Science in Social Policies
from the London School of Economics.
interest is focused on understanding and enabling the
conditions in which ICT can accelerate or catalyse social
and economic changes in a globalized society.
Alice Szczepanikova
Directorate-General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
Policy Analyst, Foresight, Behavioural
Insights and Design for Policy, Directorate-General Joint
Research Centre, European Commission.
Alice’s current work in the EU Policy Lab of the JRC
is centred on projects related to the future of work and
migration and asylum policies. She is particularly interested in experimenting with new ways of engaging
with diverse stakeholders and in devising innovative approaches to make research relevant for policy-making.
Alice holds a PhD in Sociology (University of Warwick)
and an MPhil in Gender Studies (Central European University). Prior to joining the JRC in 2015, her research
and academic publications focused on forced and family migration and immigrant integration in Europe. She
was an FNRS post-doctoral fellow at the Université libre
de Bruxelles and an Alexander von Humboldt research
fellow at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.
Besides carrying out extensive fieldwork in a number of
European countries, Alice also worked closely with nongovernmental organisations in Central and Eastern Europe in areas of gender equality, social inclusion, youth
and migrant rights.
Nick Dunn
Gabriel Rissola
Directorate‑General Joint
Research Centre, European
Commission
He is Senior Scientist at the EC DG JRC, Territorial Development unit, Smart Specialisation Strategies Platform. Former Managing Director of Telecentre-Europe, a
Brussels-based pan-European network of digital learning grassroots centres, and Managing Partner at D-O-T
Research & Consulting (Barcelona). EC Evaluator and
UN Senior Consultant for many years, he was an Internet pioneer in the ‘90s and a dotcom & electronic media
entrepreneur in the entry to the new millennium. His
Executive Director of
ImaginationLancaster, Professor of
Urban Design, Lancaster University
Nick Dunn is Executive Director of ImaginationLancaster
where he is also Professor of Urban Design. He is Associate Director of the Institute for Social Futures, where
he leads research in the Future of Cities and Urbanism.
His commissioned work for the UK Government Office
for Science and various projects such as the EPSRCfunded Liveable Cities substantially contributes to the
wider discourse surrounding the current characteristics
and potential future scenarios of the urban landscape
in a range of contexts. In the UK he is an active member
of various research councils with regard cities-related
research portfolios and has successfully completed
consultancy work for the Green Building Council. Internationally, he has advised the World Health Organisation and Alliance for Healthy Cities as well as sitting on
various scientific committees. He has published numerous books related to architecture and urbanism and his
papers have been published and presented around the
world and has had work exhibited across the UK, China
and the Ukraine.
Medal from the Hesselbein Global Academy at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States for his achievements in youth engagement and education. Recently, he
was selected as a change-maker for the ChangeMakersxChange summit in Lisbon by Ashoka Foundation.
Currently, Abbas is involved in training youth on the
sustainable development goals, participatory design
and research, and leadership. He is also the project
manager for Teens Who Code, a coding school for kids
and teenagers in Lebanon.
Pieter van de Glind
Sanja Sontor
Co-founder, ShareNL, Netherlands
He is a co-founder of shareNL, the European agency for the sharing and collaborative economy. Together with co-founder Harmen
van Sprang and his team, he works with startups, corporations, cities, governments and knowledge institutions
from around the world. They are the developers of the
Collaborative (and sharing) Economy Ecosystem, the
authors of SHARE, the initiators of Amsterdam Sharing City, official advisors of Seoul Sharing City and cocreators of the collaborative economy research library.
All with the objective to further develop the collaborative economy.
Abbas Sbeity
Founder & Director, Lebanese Architecture Club, Lebanon
He is a Lebanese architect and social
entrepreneur. He studied Architecture at
the Lebanese University in Beirut. In 2014, he founded
the Lebanese Architecture Club; a youth organization
that provides a platform for architecture students and
young professionals to expand their learning experience
by getting engaged in projects that focus on the role of
architecture and design in social impact and sustainable development. Abbas led his team in various projects
with leading local and international organizations such
as UN Habitat, Beirut Design Week, and Goethe Institute. He has been practicing the participatory design approach, which he believes is an essential tool for community building.
In 2016, Abbas was selected as a Young Leader by
the European Commission for European Development
Days where he represented the voice of the youth on
the topic of “Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Cities”.
He also received the Leadership and Civic Engagement
Head of International Academics,
Kiron Open Higher Education,
Germany
Sanja joined Kiron Open Higher Education in December 2015 as the Head of International Academic
Partnerships. Prior to joining Kiron, Sanja founded
Edu:Manufaktura, a social start-up with an aim to bring
higher education opportunities closer to the Western
Balkan students. Sanja has an extensive experience
as an analyst and consultant for international organizations and government agencies in the U.S., Belgium,
and Portugal. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree
from the Hertie School of Governance and a Master’s
degree in Economics and Business from the University
of Zagreb, where she was also awarded a degree in Portuguese language and literature.
Anne-Katrin Bock
Directorate-General Joint Research
Centre, European Commission
She is a policy analyst at the European
Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the in-house science service of the Commission. In the recently established unit Foresight, Behavioural Insights & Design for
Policy at the JRC in Brussels, she focusses on foresight
as a tool to support strategic policy making, currently
in the field of food safety and nutrition, and the collaborative economy. From 2000 to 2009 Anne-Katrin
worked at the JRC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Sevilla, Spain, analysing techno-economic
and policy implications of emerging biotechnological
developments in agriculture and health. Before joining
the European Commission she worked in the area of
research funding in support of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research as well as the German
Federal Environmental Foundation in the fields of agriculture and applied biotechnology for environmental
sustainability. Anne-Katrin is a biologist by training and
holds a PhD in microbiology from the Freie Universität
Berlin, Germany.
Luc Soete
Rector, University of Maastricht
He is the former Rector Magnificus of
Maastricht University (until 1 September 2016). Professor Soete is also the Chairman of
the Research, Innovation, and Science Policy Expert
(RISE) High Level Group, and a member of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Formerly,
he was a member of the Dutch Advisory Council for
Science, Technology and Innovation (AWTI) – until end
of 2015.
Professor Soete has been widely published in theoretical, empirical and policy analysis of innovation. In
1988, he founded the Maastricht Economic Research
centre on Innovation and Technology (MERIT), which became integrated in 2005 into UNU-MERIT. He has an
honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent, the
University of Liege and the University of Sussex.
Klaus F. Zimmermann
IZA’s Founding Director and Centre
for Population, Development and
Labour Economics (POP) at UNU-MERIT
He is Visiting Professor at the Economics Department
of Princeton University; Co-Director of the Center for
Population, Development and Labour Economics at
UNU‑MERIT, Maastricht; Editor-in-Chief of the Journal
of Population Economics; Honorary Professor at the
Free University of Berlin and at the Renmin University of China, Beijing; Full Professor of Economics at
Bonn University (on leave); Member of the Leopoldina,
the German National Academy of Sciences, and of the
Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences, and Chair of its Section for Economics, Business
and Management Sciences; Research Fellow of the
Centre for Economic Policy Research; and Fellow of the
European Economic Association.
Among his previous positions have been: Visiting Professor and John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at the
Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Founding
Director of the Institute for the Study of Labor; President
of the German Institute for Economic Research; Professorships at University of Pennsylvania, Munich University,
Kyoto University and Dartmouth College, among others.
He has received the Distinguished John G. Diefenbaker
Award 1998 of the Canada Council for the Arts and the
Outstanding Contribution Award 2013 of the European
Investment Bank.
His research covers applied economics, in particular the areas of labor, migration and development. He
has written or edited 55 books, 160 papers in peer
reviewed journals and 150 articles in collected volumes. He is committed to the diffusion of research to
policy and society and evidence‑based policymaking.
He writes regularly in leading international media and
advises governments and institutions.
Anna Terrón Cusí
President of InStrategies and Special
Advisor to Commissioner Cecilia
Malmstrom on migration issues
Has been Special Representative of the Union for the
Mediterranean Secretariat from 2013 until October
2015. Her career in the public sector has primarily
focused on the European Union and international affairs. Internationally, she has developed much of her
activity in the Middle East and Maghreb, and in the
Atlantic Africa and Latin American regions. She has
worked in the field of international migration and human mobility.
Former Secretary of State for Immigration and
Emigration of the Government of Spain (20102011) and former Secretary for the European Union of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Catalan
Government Delegate to the European Union (20042010). She has been a member of the Committee
of the Regions (spokesperson at the Commission on
Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External
Affairs) and member of the European Parliament
(1994-2004).
She is also a professor on migration policies at Blanquerna University (Barcelona) She holds a BA in Political
Science and Public Administration
André Sobczak
Vice-President Instrategies Nantes
Métropole & Eurocities Presidency
He is Vice-president of Nantes
Metropole in charge of European affairs and corporate
social responsibility. He notably represents the Mayor of
Nantes and current President of EUROCITIES in the EUROCITIES Executive Committee as well as on the board
of the French Association of the Council of European
Municipalities and Regions. After having grown up in
Germany, André studied labour and employment law in
France and at the European University Institute in Florence. He is a leading academic in the field of corporate
social responsibility and has published multiple articles and textbooks about responsible business strategies, promoting a European model based on social
dialogue. Passionate about disseminating his research
to have an impact on business and society, André has
launched a metropolitan stakeholders platform for
CSR bringing together representatives from business,
unions, civil society, academia and public authorities
to launch common activities to encourage and support SMEs to integrate social and environmental challenges at the heart of their business model. In 2014,
he was elected council member of the City of Nantes
and Nantes Metropole.
Joseph Cacciottolo
Pro-Rector for Academic Affairs,
University of Malta
Professor Joseph Cacciottolo is ProRector for Academic affairs at the University of Malta.
His professional background is respiratory medicine and
he taught clinical medicine at the University of Malta
between 1984 and 2014. He was appointed Associate
Professor in 1998 and Professor in 2004.
Professor Cacciottolo qualified in London and holds
the MD degree from the University of Malta. He underwent postgraduate training in medicine in England,
and trained in cardiovascular epidemiology in Scotland
and in Finland. He holds the DSc degree from the University of Eastern Finland. He was elected Fellow of
the Royal College of Physicians of London and was a
World Health Organisation Fellow and an International
Fellow of the American Association for Respiratory
Care. He was involved in the formulation of national
clinical practice guidelines for the management of
several respiratory disorders, supplementary oxygen
therapy and hypertension.
He now coordinates the Humanities, Medicine and
Science Programme at the University of Malta and is
also associated with the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of
Social Wellbeing, the Institute of Earth Systems, and the
Centre for the Liberal Arts and Sciences. He is involved
in various aspects of higher education, addressing programme construction, assessment processes and quality assurance issues in European universities. Since
2007 he has been International Adviser to the Royal
College of Physicians of London. Professor Cacciottolo
is a member of the Malta Guardianship Board and a
Forum Chair on the President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society.
Notes
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