Director for Prosperity, Directorate-General Research and Innovation

Peter has been working in the European Commission for more than 20 years with positions in the 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 and then for Industrial Technologies. Following the re-orientation of DG Research and Innovation towards sustainability, his competencies 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.

Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education. Holds a degree in Physics and Materials Engineering (1987, FCT/ Nova University of Lisbon); a PhD in Materials Engineering: Microelectronics and Optoelectronics (1995, FCT/ Nova University of Lisbon

Chair Professor at the Materials Science Department at the Faculty of Science and Technology at NOVA University of Lisbon and currently Vice-Dean of this university, where she has coordinated the research area since 2017. She is also Director of the Associated Laboratory of the Institute of Nanomaterials, Nanofabrication and Nanomodelling. From 2015 to 2020 she was part of a group of seven researchers in the European Commission Scientific Advice Mechanism based on scientific evidence.

Since 2010 she has been in the Chancellery of the Honorific Orders of Portugal, at the Presidency of the Republic.

She is a pioneer in European research on transparent electronics using sustainable materials and environmentally friendly technologies. In 2008, at the 1st edition of the European Research Council ERC grants, she was awarded an Advanced Grant for the project INVISIBLE, considered by the European Commission to be a success story. In the same year, she showed with her group the possibility of manufacturing the first paper transistor, starting a new field in the area of paper electronics. In 2018 she was awarded a second Advanced Grant for the project DIGISMART. Recently, and following on from the exploratory results of the DIGISMART, she obtained Proof of Concept with the e-GREEN project: From forests to Green Electronics, focusing on exploring environmentally friendly and low-cost materials and technology exploration.

In 2022, she was part of the group of 27 inspiring European Women, elected by the current French Presidency of the European Union.

With over 800 scientific papers published, in the last few years she has been awarded more than 50 prizes and international distinctions for her work, of which we note the title of Grand Officer of the Order of Infante D. Henrique, bestowed by the President of the Republic in 2010, the Blaise Pascal Medal in 2016, the Czochralski prize in 2017, the Pessoa prize in 2020, the Horizon Impact prize by the European Commission in 2020 with the project INVISIBLE, the prize of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations: WFOE GREE AWARD Women in 2020, The Strait of Magellan Prize by the Chilean Government in 2020, the Innovation in Materials prize in 2021 granted by the FEMS and the Human Rights Prize granted by Parliament in 2021.

She is an elected member of the Engineering Academy, the European Science Academy, the Lisbon Science Academy, and the Europaea Academy. She has been on the Luso-American Foundation for Development Board of Trustees since 2014.

She has coordinated several national and international projects, of which we note her pioneering activity at Nova University of Lisbon in the field of equal opportunities through the SPEAR project, a European platform to support and implement plans for gender equality in higher education institutions.

Ricardo Rio is the Mayor of Braga since 2013. President of the Euro-region “Eixo Atlântico” who brings together 38 of the biggest cities from the North of Portugal and Galicia, Spain, he is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Parliament of Mayors since November 2019.

During his years as Mayor of Braga, was invited to be a part of the Champion Mayors initiative from OECD, which brings together mayors of the five continents, who are committed to sustainable and inclusive growth. He was one of the Portuguese representatives at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and he is a member of the Portuguese delegation of the Committee of the Regions since 2018.

In his professional life, he was the Secretary-General of the Portuguese Association of Financial Analysts and the Director of the Capital Markets Institute of Euronext Lisbon. At the same time, he kept working as a public and business consultant for several years, having participated in several Programmes of the Porto Business School. Ricardo was also a lecturer in several universities in Portugal.

António M. Cunha, CCDR-NORTE President and Full Professor of the Polymer Engineering Department of the University of Minho, with research activity at IPC (Institute for Polymers and Composites). Author of 120 refereed ISI-WoS papers, 3 books (editor) and 4 patents.

Dean of the School of Engineering of UMinho, 2005-09, Rector of University of Minho, 2009-17, and Chairman of the Portuguese Rectors Council, 2014-17.

President of the Collaborative Laboratory on Digital Transformation, since 2108.Board member of CEIIA (Centre for Engineering and Product Development), since 2018, INL- International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, since 2012, MIT-Portugal Program, since 2013, Bosch-UMinho Partnership, since 2014, MACC (Minho Advanced Computing Centre), since 2018, and High-Level Scientific Committee of the Atlantic International Satellite Launch Programme, since 2019.

Member of the Portuguese Engineering Academy, Golden Insignia of the University of Santiago de Compostela, 2013, Medal of Scientific Merit of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, 2018, and Grã-Cruz (Great Cross) of the Portuguese Order of Merit of Public Education, 2018.ext goes here

Senior Expert and Deputy Head of Unit at the JRC Unit for Scientific Development.

He is responsible for the coordination of JRC research infrastructures and for the implementation of the open access strategy to JRC experimental facilities.

He also coordinates all standardisation related activities at the JRC, in particular for linking research and innovation with standardisation and providing technical support and scientific advice in the preparation of the European Commission's Annual Union Work Programme on Standardisation.

Started his polymer interest at UAntwerp, promoting the topic of electrically conductive polymers in the group of Prof Geise. He continued in the field in the private sector leading R&D teams developing a variety of pressure-sensitive adhesives based on innovative polymer synthesis work.

Since 2013 R&D director at VITO the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, dedicated to sustainability in general. Personally again also in the field of biobased polymer developments and since 2016 teaching polymer chemistry and applied polymer chemistry at UAntwerp.

Luuk Ament has built a career at the intersection of science, technology, and business. He has a PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics from Leiden University, the Netherlands.

Luuk has worked for ASML’s research department, where he has played an important role in setting up the ARCNL research institute, a public-private partnership. At IBM, Luuk has advised IBM’s global executive leadership in New York while in the corporate strategy group.

Since 2017, he has been focusing on quantum computing, where he currently is responsible for the success of IBM Quantum’s strategic alliances in Europe and Africa.

Researcher at Thales, within the Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales (France).

Works on developing novel hardware for artificial neural networks using nanotechnology. The goal of her research is to bring artificial intelligence into embedded systems with strong size and energy consumption constraints.

Alice completed her PhD in Physics at the Université Paris Saclay and worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA) before joining Thales in 2018. She currently coordinates the SPINAR project funded by the EC defence program.

Seren Kell, Science and Technology Manager at GFI Europe. Seren’s background is originally in biochemistry, with a focus on cellular senescence and the fundamental processes underlying human ageing.

Over the last few years she has been involved in both the cultivated meat space (focusing on cell culture media and then co-founding Cellular Agriculture UK), and external innovation more generally – previously working at IN-PART, a startup that connects R&D-focused companies with academia to encourage greater collaboration.

Now at the Good Food Institute Europe, Seren works to build a strong, well-funded scientific community in the sustainable proteins space across Europe

Full Professor in the area of ​​Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at CITIC-University of A Coruña (UDC), where she coordinates the LIDIA group (Artificial Intelligence R&D Laboratory). Her research lines are the development of Scalable Machine Learning models, and Reliable and Explainable Artificial Intelligence, among others. 

She has a degree in Chemistry, specializing in Chemical Engineering (1984) and a PhD in Physics (1988) from the University of Santiago de Compostela. She has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Medical College of Georgia, USA (1988-90), where she worked on the development of Expert Systems for medical applications. She has published more than 250 articles in journals and international conferences, and books and book chapters, participating in more than 40 knowledge-transfer projects as well as competitive European, national and local research projects.

She has been President of the Spanish Association of Artificial Intelligence (2013-2021), and a member of the “Reserve List” of the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLG), of the European Commission since 2018. She has participated as a member of the GTIA, Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MINCIU), which collaborated in the drafting of the Spanish R&D&I Strategy in Artificial Intelligence in 2018, and is currently a member of the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence of the Government of Spain, since 2020. She is also a member of the Working Group on the role of Official Statistics in Data Management and Administration (Data Stewardship), as well as a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM. 

Jürgen Brugger is a Professor of Microengineering and co-affiliated with Materials Science. Before joining EPFL he was at the MESA Research Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, and at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Master's in Physical Electronics and a PhD degree from Neuchâtel University, Switzerland.

Research in his laboratory focuses on various aspects of MEMS and Nanotechnology. His group contributes to the field at the fundamental level as well as in technological development, as demonstrated by the start-ups that spun off from the lab. In his lab's research, key competencies are in micro/nanofabrication, additive micro-manufacturing, new materials for MEMS, and increasingly for wearable and biomedical applications. Together with his students and colleagues he published over 200 peer-refereed papers and supervised over 25 PhD students. Former students and postdocs have been successful in receiving awards and starting their own scientific careers.

Jürgen Brugger was appointed in 2016 as a Fellow of the IEEE “For contributions to micro and nanomanufacturing technology”. In 2017 he was awarded an ERC AdvG in the field of advanced micro-manufacturing.

Ronan Le Goff is currently responsible for research programmes in IPC, the French Plastic and Composites Institute. He defines, organizes and follows the IPC projects portfolio related to digital manufacturing. Ronan also leads the R&D activities for polymers modelling.

Ronan completed a Phd in engineering science at Nantes university on polymer modelling and processing. He has worked in numerous roles of increasing responsibility in EU Research and Innovation Partnerships. Since 2017, he has been focusing on digital transformation of plastic and composite industry with a focus on SMEs’ tensions.

Paulo Ferreira is currently the Head of the Advanced Electron Microscopy, Imaging and Spectroscopy Center and the Group Leader of the Atomic Structure-Composition of Materials Group at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), Portugal.

He is also a Full Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IST, University of Lisbon, Portugal and an Adjunct Professor, Robert & Jane Mitchell Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Engineering in the Materials Science and Engineering Program at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.

Before joining INL and IST in Portugal, he was Robert & Jane Mitchell Endowed Faculty in Engineering and Full Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, USA and the Director of Electron Microscopy at the Texas Materials Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

He has a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois, USA and has done his Post-doctoral work at MIT in Materials Science and Engineering. He concentrates his scientific research in the areas of Materials Science, Nanomaterials and Electron Microscopy applied to alternative energy materials and 2D materials.

At the educational level, he teaches graduate courses in Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Structure and Electron Microscopy. In parallel, he has been involved in initiatives with various American and Portuguese institutions in the areas of Education and Higher Education, Systems of Innovation, and Science and Technology. He is co-author of three books, namely “Materials 2000”, IST Press, 2003, “Investing in the Future: University-Industry Collaborations in USA and Portugal”; and “Nanotechnology for Architects, Designers and Engineers” with co-authors D. Schodek (Harvard University) and Michael Ashby (University of Cambridge, UK). He is also the author of 205 scientific articles published in international journals, conference proceedings and book chapters.

Prof. Ferreira has also acted as a special advisor to the Minister of Economics and Innovation, Portugal, on Government Strategy for Science & Technology, and he is part of the Selection Nomination Committee of the Japan Prize. He is also the Vice-President of the Portuguese Society for Microscopy.

Lydia S. Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia is the Programme Director of Watershare. She has an engineering background, with expertise and research interests focused mainly on computational modelling and hydroinformatics across a wide range of subjects: Water Supply and Distribution Systems, Smart Meters, System Dynamics Modelling, the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, Serious Gaming, the Circular Economy and Artificial Intelligence techniques for Water Systems.

Before joining KWR Lydia was, since 2003, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Water Systems, University of Exeter, UK, and still maintains a part-time position there, working on EU funded projects. Prior to that, she was a Lecturer at the Technical University of Athens (1990-2003). Over the course of many years, Lydia has also developed an extensive track record and expertise in international and EU-funded grants and projects: organising and winning bids, managing, advising, guiding and supervising teams of researchers, evaluating proposals and projects, and being involved as a stakeholder in EC consultation groups. Since 2013, she has been in the leading group of the ICT4WATER cluster coordinating the Action Groups, and has been playing an active role in Water Europe, initially leading the Water & Energy Working Group and currently as a member of the Vision Leadership Team for digital water.

Her vision for Watershare is to establish it as a global network of excellence, bringing together researchers, practitioners and water utility operators to collaborate, communicate and exchange knowledge on water technologies and innovation, benefiting from our potential and expertise.

Margaret Costa is currently Chief Officer for INL Research Core Facilities and Head of the Micro and Nanofabrication Facility. Margaret is also responsible for the design, implementation and continuous improvement of the Quality Management System of INL and provides support to the Management Board through the coordination of INL operations securing proper planning and follow-up and agile decision-making processes.

Prior to joining INL, Margaret worked in a large semiconductor manufacturing plant as a process engineer for the Wafer Level Package Area. Margaret received both a Degree and a Master in Chemical Engineering from the University of Porto and has an Advanced Studies Diploma in Technological Physics Engineering from IST, Lisbon.

Dr. Giorgos Fagas, MBA, leads the activities of the EU Programmes Office at Tyndall National Institute. He engages with external collaborators, Tyndall researchers and policy stakeholders to establish strategic partnerships through EU Programmes.

Giorgos has been an active promoter of European research with his contributions to strategic research agendas, technology roadmaps, EU project coordination/participation and networking events. Previously, he has been leading activities in nanoelectronics and energy-efficient electronics as a Senior Researcher at Tyndall.

Giorgos has also been a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Regensburg and a research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut-PKS in Dresden. His research has been published in over 60 peer-reviewed articles. He is the editor of three reference books on Molecular Electronics and Concepts for ICT-Energy.

Izabel Alfany, Operations and Business Development Lead at EIT Health Spain.

Izabel Alfany is Biologist, holds a PhD in Physiology from the University of Barcelona and a master’s degree in Business Innovation from Polytechnic University of Catalonia. She has more than 16 years of experience in life sciences and healthcare and has dedicated the last 10 years to innovation and international collaboration in the health sector. Prior to joining EIT Health, she was the Head of Health Division at Leitat Technological Center, top ranked Spanish Research and Technology Organisation (RTO). Izabel acted as co-chair of EARTO’s working group of medical technologies, defending the interests of RTOs in the upcoming funding schemes in Europe and reinforcing their position as key players. Currently, she is Deputy Managing Director at EIT Health Spain.

Raymond Schiffelers obtained his PhD in 2001 from Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on the Liposomal targeting of antimicrobial agents in bacterial infections. In 2002-2003, he moved to Intradigm Co. (Washington DC) to work on siRNA delivery with nanoparticles. Here he developed the first intravenously administered siRNA nanoparticle for use in pre-clinical experiments.

After he returned, he built his own nanomedicine research group at Utrecht University. He received an NWO Vidi grant in 2007 for targeting inflammation to fight cancer and received an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2010 to explore extracellular vesicles as drug delivery systems. As a result of his ERC Proof of Concept grant in 2011, he founded Excytex bv, a company combining his liposome and extracellular vesicle expertise. He moved to the University Medical Center in Utrecht in 2012 and became a professor of nanomedicine in 2015. Since 2016 he is the coordinator of B-SMART and EXPERT, two H2020 RIA projects. In addition, he currently coordinates five projects through national grants.

Currently, his group at UMC Utrecht focuses on natural and synthetic nanomedicines and all projects that are currently running are public-private partnerships.

He serves on the Executive Board of the European Technology Platform Nanomedicine as Vice-Chair.

He has (co-)authored >200 publications which have been cited >14,000 times. His h-index is 62. (Data from Google scholar, full list. He is (co-) inventor of 6 patents and editor of the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Journal of Controlled Release and Associate editor of the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles and Drug Delivery & Translational Research.

Giacomo Damilano is an Innovation Strategy Manager at RINA Consulting S.p.A., currently working in the lead of several projects within scientific development and technology innovation.

He has a PhD in Chemical sciences awarded from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium under an MSCA ITN fellowship and has formerly carried out his research at the Imperial College of London, United Kingdom. He investigated throughout his career the cutting-edge advancements and the unparalleled opportunities offered by neoteric solvents and their technological applications.

At RINA Consulting S.p.A., He is currently coordinating several research projects and representing RINA in several industrial engagements (e.g., Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking, regional projects partnerships, and strategic road-mapping activities).

Associate of the Quantum and Linear-Optical Computation research group at INL - International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, Full professor of Computer Science at the University of Minho. He is also affiliated with the HASLab research unit of INESC TEC.

His main research focuses on program semantics, logic and calculi applied to rigorous software analysis, design, and construction. In particular, he is interested in the architectural dimension (interaction, composition, and reconfiguration) of different sorts of software components, namely probabilistic, quantum, continuous, or hybrid. More recently, he became interested in exploring connections between Physics and Computation at two levels: the discrete-continuous frontier and the classic-quantum interaction. Most of his work is framed on Coalgebra and Modal Logic.

Luís is currently chairing the IFIP Technical Committee TC1, on Foundations of Computer Science, and has a second academic affiliation with the United Nations University.

Bachelor of Agricultural Chemistry and specialist in Environmental Engineering and Technology, and currently doing her PhD in Economic evaluation of the use of reclaimed water in agriculture at the University of Córdoba, Spain. Antonia is the founder, CEO and R&D director at BIOAZUL. She has worked for 20 years in the management and implementation of more than 60 national and international projects, mainly related to blue infrastructures for sustainable water management - treatment, water reuse, ecological sanitation, nature-based solutions – as well as circular economy and resources sustainability. She works for the European Commission as an expert and evaluator in several of its programs and has specialized in aspects related to intellectual protection and exploitation. Since 2018 Antonia leads the Working Group of Water Europe on Water and Sustainable Agrifood systems. Antonia is a member of the Spanish Management Committee of the Circular City COST Action and also an active member of the Spanish “Nature-based solution Cluster” established in the city of Málaga in 2018.

She is also a mentor for the EIT Food Accelerator Network, and has recently been selected as a mentor in the European Commission's “EIC Women Leadership Program”. EIC beneficiaries, specifically: businesswomen in managerial positions, who wish to strengthen their skills and expand their network; Female researchers involved in research projects that aspire to lead the transition from their research to companies).

Marta Prado is the group leader of the Food Quality and Safety Research Group (FQ&S) at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL).

Her research interests are the development of new, fast and reliable detection methodologies combining molecular biology and nano- and microfabrication technologies for different applications particularly in the field of food safety and quality, but also for other biological samples. The research of the FQ&S research group deals with both targeted (using specific DNA amplification approaches and aptamer-based detection) and non-targeted (mainly through Next Generation Sequencing, NGS) and the methodology is based on working on very specific analytical needs and on using a modular approach for each of the steps of the analytical process. This approach, help us to evaluate and to choose the best method in each case, to have a sound integrated final product, and at the same time a wide range of intermediate products that can be used by themselves to solve specific analytical challenges. From sample preparation to nanoparticle–aided detection. Our topics of interest involve the detection of microorganisms, the detection of allergenic ingredients in food products and food authenticity, but also the detection of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) in the environment and microorganisms and viruses (e.g.: SARS-CoV-2) of interest in both environmental and clinical samples.

Marta has a PhD in Food Science and Technology from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and she has worked at the Joint Research Center from the European Commission (JRC-EC) in Geel (Belgium) as Scientific Officer between 2005 and 2010. In 2010, she moved to INL where she currently leads a team of 10 researchers including master's and PhD students, technicians, postdocs and staff researchers. She has recently launched the spin-off neoxenica. Marta actively collaborates with international institutions such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) or AOAC among others as an external expert.

José Mendes is currently the Executive President of Fundação Mestre Casais and a Full Professor at the University of Minho. He is a civil engineer with a PhD in Regional and Urban Systems from the University of Minho and holds postgraduate degrees from the Universities of Oxford, Harvard and ISCTE.

In the past, José Mendes acted as: Member of the Portuguese Parliament. (2020-22), Member of the Portuguese Government, serving as Deputy Minister and Secretary of State for Environment, Secretary of State for Mobility and Secretary of State for Planning. (2015-2020), Chairman of the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance, a global alliance of Countries, Cities and Companies that aims at carbon neutrality in transport before 2050. (2017-2019), Consultant and evaluator of the following European agencies: European Commission (DG Research, Brussels); Education, Audiovisual and Cultural Executive Agency (EACEA, Brussels); European Training Foundation (ETF, Torino); Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, UK). (2000-2015), Vice-Rector of the University of Minho, in charge of the university innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. (2009-2015)

Professor Eva Tornberg is the founder of ‘Veg of Lund’ which is rooted in scientific food innovation research. She is also Professor in Food Engineering at the Food Engineering Department, Technical University, Lund, since 2001.

For 14 years, she served as R&D Director at the Swedish Meat Research Institute.

She found in her research a potato protein to be an excellent emulsifier with no taint. Potatoes are an underexploited source of protein with high availability in the local area.

The new smoothie is based on vegetable oil that - on the contrary to milk or oat oil - is high in healthy Omega 3 fatty acids.

Holds a PhD in Economics from Birkbeck College, University of London and is an Associate Professor with Habilitation at the University of Minho.

Currently, he is also Vice-President of Conselho Económico e Social, an economics consultant at Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos and a Member of the Advisory Board of the National Productivity Board. He was Pro-Rector, Head of the School of Business and Economics, Director of the Department of Economics, and Secretary of State in the Portuguese Government.

He authored or co-authored eight books, several book chapters and papers in journals such as Labour Economics, Journal of Technology Transfer, Regional Studies, The World Economy, Open Economies Review, Economics Letters, CESifo Economic Studies or Higher Education. He has acted as a consultant for private and public institutions, including the European Commission and the Portuguese Government. In 2022, he was awarded the University of Minho Scientific Merit Prize.

Nuno Freitas is the Managing Director at Prozis.com USA. He joins the company in 2018 to develop its frozen food operation, now established in several European countries, being the first high-volume B2C cross-borders frozen product operation.

Throughout his career, he has started multiple projects, in areas that include food retail, textiles, financial services, event production, software, 3d animation, amongst other. He got his degree in Management from U.Minho, Master’s degree from U.Porto and MBA from Porto Business School, where he has been an invited lecturer.

He is also an investor and advisor in multiple startups.

With a degree in International Trade from the University of Birmingham,

António Amorim has been President and CEO of Corticeira Amorim since 2001. Having completed executive management studies at INSEAD, Stanford and Columbia University, António Amorim was President of the European Cork Confederation between 2003 and 2010 and, in 2012, ended his third consecutive term at the helm of APCOR - the Portuguese Cork Association. Under his leadership the cork industry experienced a recognised renaissance, consolidating Portugal as the undisputed world leader in the sector.