Nizar Abdelkafi
Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal
Sarine Barsoumian
Reinhard Büscher
Wolfgang Crasemann
Eva Diedrichs
Hagen Habicht
Wil Janssen
Gareth Jones
Panagiotis Ketikidis
Alexander Knobloch
Gertraud Leimüller
Hans-Günter Lind
Angelos Manglis
Allan Mayo
Raquel Ortega-Argilés
Thorsten Posselt
Lisbeth Bahl-Poulsen
Andrea Romagnoli
John Rundle
Søren Graakjær Smed
Cathy Smith
Mats Williams
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Dr. Nizar Abdelkafi
Service Innovation senior researcher, Fraunhofer MOEZ (DE)
Dr. Nizar Abdelkafi is a senior researcher at Fraunhofer Center for Central and Eastern Europe (MOEZ) and at the department of innovation management and innovation economics at the University of Leipzig. After his industrial engineering studies, he got in 2002 his Master in Business Administration from the Technische Universität München (TUM). From 2002 to 2004, he worked as a research assistant at the University Klagenfurt in Austria on a project on mass customisation. In 2005, he moved to Hamburg University of Technology where he received in 2008 his doctoral degree. From 2008 to 2010, he had a postdoctoral position in Hamburg and made research in diverse topics such as open source innovation, supply chain management, open innovation, etc. So far, he has published his research in two monographs, several journals, conference proceedings, and edited books. His current Research interests are service science, service management, and innovation management, in particular open innovation and business models.
Dr. Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal (Ph.D.)
Executive Director, CICtourGUNE, Cooperative Research Centre in Tourism (ES)
Dr. Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal received her Ph.D. in Outdoor Recreation and International Tourism from Purdue University, U.S.A (1999). Dr. Alzua is currently the Executive Director of the Basque Competence Research Centre in Tourism, CICtourGUNE, and Professor at the University of Deusto. She has collaborated with different organisations and governments. Presently serves as a Board Member for several organisations including, IFITT, TTRA Europe Chapter, EUREKA TOURISME, the European network for technological innovations in the tourism sector, the Basque Innovation Agency and member of the Editorial Board of JITT, Journal of Information Technology & Tourism.
Her works have focused on the application of social theory and methods in the area of natural and cultural heritage and has led significant research programs in the scientific field of Tourism. Dr. Alzua-Sorzabal’s research revolves around three main interests, the measurement and modelling of the tourism phenomenon, the implementation and measurement of technology in tourism; and the development and incorporation of research and innovation policy in tourism. Her works continue to be published in several academic journals and international conferences.
Sarine Barsoumian
Greenovate! Europe EEIG & GreenConServe member (BE)
Sarine joined the Executive team of Greenovate! Europe in October 2009 as a Project Manager. She has previous working experience conducting research in the fields of offshore renewable energy, product policy, sustainable production and consumption and sustainable tourism. Sarine holds a BS in Environmental and Public Health from the American University of Beirut, as well as an MS in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management from IIIEE (Lund University) in collaboration with the Central European University, the University of Manchester and the University of the Aegean (an Erasmus Mundus Masters Course).
Reinhard Büscher
Head of Support for Industrial innovation Unit, DG Enterprise & Industry, European Commission
Dr. Reinhard Büscher is a Head of Unit at the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a PhD, in Economics. Before joining the European Commission in 1989, he worked for nine years at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Germany. In the European Commission, he has worked in a number of different areas – as a Member of Commissioner Bangemann’s Cabinet, as special Adviser for Industrial Aspects of the Information Society, as Head of Unit for Standardisation, Head of Unit for Industrial Aspects of Electronic Commerce and Head of Unit for E-Business, ICT industries and services. Since January 2008, he has been Head of Unit ‘Support for Industrial innovation.’
Wolfgang Crasemann
Head of Unit “Technology and Innovation Policy, Federal Ministry of Economics & Technology (DE)
Wolfgang Crasemann studied economics at Kalamazoo College and at the University of Bonn. After graduation (master of economics) he worked as credit analyst for Dresdner Bank in Düsseldorf and Luxembourg. He specialised in German and European subsidy programmes. Since 1992 he worked for the Federal Ministry of Economics. In his first post, he was a senior officer responsible for the privatisation institute of the East German economy. His team supervised the decision making process in privatisation of East German companies and solved financial problems of individual businesses. From 1999 on, he was Senior officer in the technology department, drafting policy concepts, speeches and articles for the Minister and State secretaries. Since July 2003 he became head of unit, responsible for the technology concept of the Ministry. Besides he represented the Ministerial policy in different committees of the European Commission. Also his unit is responsible for bilateral policy cooperation with European countries and other countries, such as U.S.A. and China.
Eva Diedrichs
A.T. Kearney & IMP3rove Core Team (DE)
Eva Diedrichs is senior consultant at A.T. Kearney, Top Management Consulting, based in Düsseldorf, Germany, and there Core Team member of the European Innovation and R&D Management Practice. She is project manager of “IMP³rove” - the European Commission’s flagship project on innovation management. Within this project the award winning innovation management assessment tool as widely acknowledged standard has been established. IMP³rove has developed the largest and most up-to-date innovation management benchmarking database on innovation management, the IMP³rove – European Innovation Management Academy has been created and an international network of more than 400 trained IMP³rove partners was established.
Eva Diedrichs has also successfully supported international corporations in their endeavour to drive innovation for winning competitive edge. She gained experience in various industries such as chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, medical device sector, service industries and in the aero space and defence sector. She published several articles and monographs on innovation management, benchmarking, change management and strategic topics. She co-authored a book on core competencies and gave numerous speeches on success factors of innovation management at international conferences. She holds a PhD from the University of Bamberg, Germany and was a lecturer at St. Thomas College, St. Paul MN, USA.
Hagen Habicht
Assistant Professor, CLIC - Center for Leading Innovation & Cooperation, HHL - Leipzig Graduate School of Management (DE)
Dr. Hagen Habicht is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Leading Innovation and Cooperation (CLIC) at HHL – Leipzig Graduate School of Management. He received his Diplomkaufmann at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena and Université Paris XII Val de Marne and his PhD at TUM Business School in Munich in the field of stakeholder-based perception of organisations. His current research interests are in the field of organisational competences for interactive value creation with a focus on design-oriented analysis of organisational transformation processes and the opening of corporate innovation systems.
He has been a lecturer at various universities, such as TUM Business School (TUM, Munich), HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, University of Erfurt, faculty of psychology at LMU Munich, and Bled School of Management.
Wil Janssen
Expert Panel member & Manager Networked, Novay (NL)
Wil Janssen is responsible for the networked enterprises group at Novay (formerly known as Telematica Instituut), a public-private partnership aiming at supporting enterprises in ICT driven innovation. Wil combines research and new business development in the field of open service innovation, e-business, e-government and Internet development. He was responsible for the development of the largest service innovation research programme in the Netherlands, Service innovation – people driven, ICT empowered. In 2010 and 2011 he was a member of the expert panel on Services Innovation in the EU, reporting to DG Enterprise and Industry.
He studied computing science and a minor in social sciences at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Wil graduated cum laude in 1990. In 1994 he obtained his PhD from the University of Twente. After a short stay at the University of Oldenburg he joined Novay in 1996.
Gareth Jones
UK Centre for Economic & Environmental Development (UK CEED) Eco Innovation Centre & EcoClup coordinator (UK)
Gareth Jones MGeol MSc has a background in geology and environmental impact assessment, management systems and auditing. Working for the UK Centre for Economic & Environmental Development (UK CEED) since 2006, Gareth works on a number of initiatives in and around the city of Peterborough in the UK that aim to support eco-innovation and the growth of the environmental industries. These include the EnviroCluster - an eco-innovation cluster of 350 SMEs; the Water Innovation Network - a regional industry-led cluster of water sector supply chain companies based on open-innovation concepts; and the Peterborough Eco Innovation Centre which incubates and supports innovative eco-innovative start-up businesses. Gareth also co-ordinates the European Commission’s Eco-Innovation Cluster Partnership (EcoCluP) - a growing partnership of environmentally-focused clusters in Europe working together to promote growth, innovation and internationalisation. Gareth also supports UK CEED’s input to the INNOWATER project which supports innovators in the water/wastewater sector as well as industrial end-users of these innovations.
Professor Ketikidis has over 25 years of experience in management, education, research, and competitive research funding with various networks established as a result of this experience. He was for many years an Expert (reviewer) of DG XIII (Telecommunications, Information Industries and Innovation) of the European Commission, and has also been involved in many European Information Technology projects funded by the European Commission (1992-current). Professor Ketikidis research interests are in the areas of cross supply chain, health informatics, innovation and regional development, and science disciplines in an effort to understand todays and future complex supply chain problems. He has over eighty publications in the forms of journal papers, books, edited books, edited proceedings, edited special issues, book chapters, conference papers, technical papers and reports.
He is Chief Editor of the International Journal of Innovation & Regional Development (IJIRD), Associate Editor of the International Journal of Logistics Economics and Globalisation (IJLEG), Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Operational Research (IJOR), European Editor of the International Journal of Enterprise Network Management (IJENM), and a member of organizing and scientific committees in various national /international conferences and workshops. Professor Ketikidis has been listed in the Marquis´s Who´s Who, Publications Board in Science and Engineering Eleventh Edition 2011-2012.
Alexander Knobloch
Corporate Research & Innovation Management, Wincor Nixdorf AG (DE)
Dr. Alexander Knobloch is responsible for the Research and Innovation Management of Wincor Nixdorf. As part of this function, he coordinates strategic co-operation with universities and research institutions in order to strengthen the technology leadership of Wincor Nixdorf. Before joining Wincor Nixdorf, Mr. Knobloch worked in the field of printed polymer circuits and RFID systems. He started his research at Siemens “Corporate Technology” in Erlangen and continued it at PolyIC GmbH after the conferral of his doctorate in physics in 2003. At PolyIC, Knobloch served as Group Leader Product & Process.
Gertraud Leimüller is founder and managing director of winnovation (www.winnovation.at), an international research and consultancy firm specialized on leading-edge methods of open and distributed innovation. She leads innovation projects in various high-tech as well as service industries and works in close collaboration with international universities.
Gertraud is president of the Austrian creative industries platform creativ wirtschaft austria (www.creativwirtschaft.at) at the Federal Chamber of Commerce since 2006 and closely connected to creative industries actors across Europe. From 2010 to 2011, she was one of 20 members of the EU Expert Panel on Services Innovation, which consulted the European Commission on innovation in the service sector and issued a report on “The Transformative Power of Service Innovation” in early 2011. Gertraud studied at Harvard University, where she earned a Master Degree in Public Administration (MPA), at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and at the University of Vienna, where she got a Ph.D. in Science.
Hans-Günter Lind
Head of Marketing & communication, Fraunhofer MOEZ (DE)
Hans-Günter Lind is Head of Business Areas “Markets and Enterprises” and “Marketing and Communication of the Fraunhofer MOEZ in Leipzig. He is an expert in political and crisis communications and can draw on a long list of top-level contacts in German political institutions on the federal and the state level. He advises clients on approaching the political sector focussing on establishing communication processes between clients and decision-makers.
Before founding his own agency SMYLE CCC, Hans-Günter Lind worked several years as head of the political communication department of the German Trust Agency, in charge of the privatisation of former state-owned companies in eastern Germany. Hans-Günter Lind started his carer as an assistant manager at the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, a so called “think-tank” for the conservative party in Germany. After that, he managed all public relations and press activities for the foundation. Hans-Günter Lind studied Economics, Political Sciences and Mathematics at the universities of Bonn and Münster. He has a Master’s of the university of Münster.
Angelos Manglis
Atlantis Consulting & MOBIP Coordinator (GR)
Angelos Manglis is the President and Managing Director of Atlantis Consulting S.A and represents Atlantis in several organisations, such as TII -Technology, Innovation, and Information and ETEPS - European Techno-Economic Policy Support Network. He is also the General Secretary of HELETAS - the Hellenic Society for Technology Assessment and Evaluation. His main interests are innovation management, science and technology policy evaluation and impact assessment, RTDI project management, industrial policy, and strategic management. He is the Coordinator of the 'Mobile Services Innovation Platform' -MOBIP. The aim of MOBIP is to promote innovation within European SMEs in the mobile services sector through creating a consortium of strong players in a public-private partnership and by developing and testing integrated and tailored support packages building upon existing initiatives and good practice. Angelos was the Project Manager and Coordinator of the 'Gate2Start' project, which aimed to develop a ground-breaking model for the successful exploitation of research-based innovation. He was also the Project Manager of the 'Tech-SME Partnering' project that enabled the participating Regions to cluster technology transfer projects around SMEs leading to value and job creation.
Allan is Head of the UK’s Dept for Business Services Policy Unit. His team was responsible for the publication of the Government report on “Supporting Innovation in Services” in 2008, for an interim report on “Professional and Business Services: A 2020 Vision for Growth” in March 2010 and, most recently, in the Government’s Growth Review of Professional and Business Services. He is actively engaged in European policy networks: he Chaired the EU Panel of Experts on Service Innovation, which examined how services and service innovation can contribute to fulfilling the Barroso 2020 Vision for the EU of smarter, sustainable and inclusive growth; it presented its report to VP Tajani in February. He leads for the UK in the EPISIS project.
He spent the first part of his civil service career as an economist working in competition policy agencies, but the latter part of his career has been focussed on Innovation Policy. He spent five years co-ordinating UK policy on European research and participating in the CREST senior officials committee in Brussels, negotiating Framework Programmes 3 and 4. He ran the Government’s International Technology Service, opening technology collaboration with China and Russia and then advised on the establishment of the UK’s Technology Strategy Board. He has been at the forefront of thinking on how Government and its agencies can engage with the business constituency through the adoption of Web 2.0 techniques and roadmapping, and is currently focussed on how Government can work with business on the move to the Semantic Web.
Raquel Ortega-Argilés
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) (PT)
Raquel Ortega-Argilés is currently a researcher at IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon, Portugal where she holds a post-doctoral grant by the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology. Before joining the IST, Raquel was a postdoctoral researcher at the IPTS, a joint research centre of the European Commission (Seville, Spain), a senior research fellow in the Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy group at the Max-Planck Institute of Economics (Jena, Germany) and a junior researcher at the Regional Quantitative Analysis (AQR) group at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain).
She holds a PhD in Economics and an advanced studies diplome on Applied Economics from the department of Econometrics and Statistics of the University of Barcelona. Her main research interest is innovation at firm and regional levels, focusing on Innovation and R&D, European Innovation Policy, productivity, SME and entrepreneurship, regional smart specialisation and transatlantic gaps on R&D and productivity. Her work has been published in international journals such as Research Policy, Annals of Regional Science, Investigaciones Regionales, Small Business Economics, Science and Public Policy, Empirical Economics, Journal of Productivity Analysis and Contemporary Economic Policy and in refereed books on innovation, entrepreneurship and corporate governance topics.
Thorsten Posselt,
Head of the Fraunhofer MOEZ and Professor of Innovation Management and Innovation Economics at the University of Leipzig (DE)
Dr. Thorsten Posselt is head of the Fraunhofer MOEZ and Professor of Innovation Management and Innovation Economics at the University of Leipzig. He studied Political Economics at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and Economic Science at Stanford University, USA. Likewise at the J. W. Goethe University he habilitated on the subject of “The formation of distribution systems”, having already gained a doctorate there with a thesis on the mobility behaviour of companies. From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Thorsten Posselt was Professor of Business Administration, specializing in Services Management, at the University of Leipzig. Following this, he was Professor of Business Administration, with a focus on Trade, Service Management and E-Commerce, at the University of Wuppertal for six years before returning to Leipzig in 2008 in order to take on management of the Fraunhofer MOEZ there. Dr. Thorsten Posselt has been on several research visits to the University of California in Berkeley and the University of California in Davis. His academic specialisations and fields of interest are the management, economics and politics of innovation, along with services management and economics. He is a member of various institutions, including the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, is on the academic board of trustees of the magazine “Innovationsmanager” (F.A.Z.-Institut), and is head of the “Marketing” research group of the Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft e.V.
Lisbeth Bahl-Poulsen
Support for Industrial Innovation Unit, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
Lisbeth has worked in the Support for Industrial Innovation Unit of the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry since 2006 with responsibility for communication, public relations and planning. In 2010, she also joined the service innovation team coordinating the work of the Expert Panel on Service Innovation in the EU and acting as project officer for a number of Europe INNOVA and PRO INNO Europe® service innovation projects. Previously, Lisbeth worked with the innovative actions and community initiatives under the European Social Fund. Lisbeth is a linguist and has a background in international cooperation and intercultural learning.
Born in 1974, Andrea Romagnoli graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza.’ His research thesis was on ‘The Use of EU Structural Funds in the German new Länder and evaluation of the macroeconomic impact through an econometric model.’
Andrea worked for the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs within the Economic Unit for the Internationalisation of the Italian Mezzogiorno. Since 2004, he has worked for Filas (Financial Development Agency of Lazio Region) as a Project Manager in different areas. He is now directly involved in the KIS-IP project ‘ImMediaTe,’ overseeing the digital media cluster of the Lazio Region.
John Rundle
Director, Newcastle Science City (UK)
John Rundle is the director of Newcastle Science City, a partnership set up to help the North East of England realise the full economic potential of its science based-based industries. In 2005 Newcastle was designated as one of six UK science cities in recognition of the world-class research being undertaken by its universities and the potential of its science industry base – particularly in the growth sectors of ageing & health, stem cell & regenerative medicine and sustainability. Newcastle Science City delivers a range of activities including: promoting and supporting inward investment for science sites across the city; promoting Newcastle’s science expertise to the world; supporting business growth and engaging with the community on the promotion of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and skills.
John has a strong track record of leading partnerships at the interface of the public and private sectors, and was director of The Northern Way before his current appointment. In earlier roles he managed the establishment of 1NG, the NewcastleGateshead City Development Company, and at Government Office North East he headed a range of economic development, policy and European funding projects. He also played a key role in establishing the Regional Development Agency One North East.
Søren Graakjær Smed
Aalborg University and InViO - Innovation Network for Knowledge based Experience Economy
Søren Smed is currently a Ph.d. Scholar at Aalborg University with a special focus targeting experience based innovation and business development. He is also project coordinator and head of secretary in the Danish national innovation network InViO - Innovation Network for Knowledge based Experience Economy.
He was Project manager at ApEx - Center for Applied Experience Economy for 6 years and Project coordinator at Municipality of Aalborg for 2 years focusing on strategies and projects within the experience economy. In addition he was part-time lecturer at Aalborg University for 4 years.
Cathy Smith
Broadcast Journalist
Cathy Smith is a former Brussels-based correspondent for both the BBC and GMTV and was a main presenter of Channel Four News in the UK. She is a founding partner of the communications company SpeakEasy, which is located in Brussels. Cathy specialises in media training, presentation training and conference moderating for a wide range of international clients.
She also produces video news releases for the European Commission and presents European Journal, a weekly magazine programme for Deutsche Welle TV.
Mats Williams
Assistant Director, Centre for Strategy and Competitiveness, Stockholm School of Economics & European Cluster Observatory (SE)
Mats Williams is Assistant Director at the Centre for Strategy and Competitiveness (CSC) at Stockholm School of Economics. CSC focuses on five research tracks: Strategy, International Business, Knowledge in Networks, Clusters and Competitiveness, and Policy. CSC works in a trans-disciplinary tradition involving theories from Strategy, Management, International Business, Economic Geography, Economic Sociology and Economic History. The research on strategies and competitiveness are linked to clusters, networks and the broader microeconomic business environment. Mr Mats Williams is focusing his work in the Observatory team as a link between the Observatory and other actors in the world of European clusters and cluster policy.
Mr Williams has 11 years experience as Cluster Manager at The Paper Province (there he stills holds a position as member of the Boards of Directors as well as in the Research Institute, The Packaging Greenhouse) from start up to one of Europe’s 100 World Class Clusters. He was also responsible for the start up process of The Packaging Arena cluster initiative and involved in cluster policy strategies development and framework both national and international.
