Peter has been working in the European Commission for more than 20 years with positions in environment, enlargement negotiations, industry policy, innovation and research. He was a Cabinet member of Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen and Head of Cabinet of the Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik.
Since 2010 he is at Directorate-General Research and Innovation where he was first responsible for Innovation then for Industrial Technologies. Following the re-orientation of DG Research and Innovation towards sustainability, his competences have been enlarged to include industrial R&I agendas and business intelligence as well as knowledge valorisation policies.
Before joining the European Commission in 1991, Peter worked as a lawyer in a German law firm. Peter is a lawyer by training with a doctorate degree in German constitutional law and European law.
Kirsten’s career spans academia, consulting, banking, insurance, strategy, design, innovation and leadership.
Kirsten joined EIT Climate-KIC in January 2017. She is committed to developing and implementing innovation to catalyse profound systemic change and is honoured to work with Climate-KIC’s world-class network of partners to support climate innovation across Europe and beyond.
Prior to roles in Second Road, KPMG and Suncorp in Australia, Kirsten worked in the UK and Italy for 15 years. In Italy, she led the Generali Group Innovation Academy for Assicurazioni Generali, pioneering proprietary thinking in the areas of Strategic Risk management, strategic innovation, strategic leadership development and cultural change. Her publications include a case study in The Routledge Companion to Strategic Risk Management, Routledge 2016.
Kirsten is a member of the EJP Soil Advisory Board, EAT Foundation Advisory Board, High Level Missions Advisory Board for the Innovation Fund Denmark, UK Government EEIST Senior Oversight Group and is a Director of Responsible.us. She is one of 16 experts at the Economic and Societal Impact of Research and Innovation (ESIR) expert group, providing independent advice on how future EU research and innovation policy can best support sustainable development and the European Commission’s priorities.
Javier Lafuente is University Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He graduated in Chemical Sciences, specialising in Technical Chemistry, in 1982, and obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering with cum laude in 1988.
Dr Lafuente is the author of 141 publications in indexed journals with over 3,500 citations and an h- index of 35. He has directed most of the more than 60 national and European research projects with companies in which he has participated. He has supervised 12 doctoral theses and numerous end-of- degree projects. He has also created two environmental spin-off companies for the application of cutting-edge technologies in the treatment of effluents.
Dr Lafuente has been director of the Department of Chemical Engineering (2004-2010) and Vice-Rector of Innovation and Strategic Projects (from 2016 to 2020). He has also been coordinator of the degree in Chemical Engineering and Rector’s Delegate at the Polytechnic University School of the Environment (EUPMA) in Mollet del Vallés. He has also been a president of the Transference and Strategic Projects Committee, and member of the Research Committee, Lecturers and International Relations Committee and Doctorial Committee on the UAB Governing Council. He is a member of various teaching-staff and research-project assessment committees.
He was born on 1960 in Mollet del Vallès. He graduated in psychology at UAB and, after that, he pursued a postgraduate degree in local development. He has been the Mayor of Mollet since 2004, and he is also the President of the B30 Association,
He has been Sports Councillor since 1991 and occupied other public offices related to the world of sports. He has also been responsible for other areas such as Economic Promotion, Trade, Occupation, Taxes and Personal Service.
On July 19th, 2007, he was appointed Provincial Deputy and responsible for the sports area of the Barcelona Diputació.
Anne Snick (Fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science, member of the Club of Rome) is an independent researcher. Throughout her career she combined academic research with transdisciplinary field work (including women in poverty as research experts). Recent projects concern sustainable Higher Education and RRI (including as co-coordinator of FoTRRIS).
Johan Stierna is team leader and scientific advisor on EU policy in JRC-Seville. He is specialised in R&I policy development and university policy at EU, national and regional level, currently leading the team on smart specialisation and place-based innovation for sustainability. Before joining the Joint Research Centre in 2019, he worked for 15 years with R&I policy development at DG Research and Innovation in Brussels, in particular on the co-design of a mission-oriented EU R&I policy and a policy for transformative innovation. 2015-2019, Dr Stierna was responsible for the Sherpa support to the RISE high-level advisory group to EU Commissioner for Science, Research and Innovation. Previously headed the EU economic analysis and the use of indicators in R&I policy making, editing the Innovation Union Competitiveness report 2011 and 2013. He joined the European Commission in 1998 for DG Education and Culture, where he contributed to European higher education policy in the Erasmus action, eLearning and the preparation of the Bologna process. Dr Stierna worked for four years on EU development aid focusing on education and human development in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific in DG Development.
Johan Stierna holds a PhD from the University of Lund, Sweden. Previous to joining the Commission, he was researcher at the University of Lund and at the Universidad Autónoma, Madrid. His research focused on entrepreneurial networks, cultural change, bilateral trade and migration between Sweden, Spain and cross-EU.
Dr.Phil. RENE VON SCHOMBERG is a science and technologies studies specialist and a philosopher. He is an author/(co-editor) of 14 books. He holds Ph.D’s from the University of Twente, the Netherlands (Science and Technology Studies) and J.W.Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Philosophy). He has been a European Union Fellow at George Mason University, USA in 2007 and has been with the European Commission since 1998. His most recent co-edited book publication is the International Handbook on Responsible Innovation. A Global Resource. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019.
He is also a Guest Professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.