Speakers

Paulo Roberto de Medeiros do Nascimento Cabral (born 20 August 1981) is a Portuguese politician of the Aliança Democrática, who was elected member of the European Parliament in 2024. He served as chief of staff to the President of the Government of the Azores from 2020 to 2022, and was advisor for Azorean affairs and Energy at the Permanent Representation of Portugal to the European Union from 2022 to 2024.

Joanna Drake has been the Deputy Director-General (DDG) for Research and Innovation at the European Commission since 2021. In this role, she provides overall assistance to the Director-General as well as coordination and implementation of strategy and policy orientation. She is also the Mission Manager for the EU Mission on Cancer and currently the European Commission’s co-chair for the Group on Earth Observation (GEO), an intergovernmental partnership that improves the availability, access and use of Earth observations for a sustainable planet.

Marc Angel is a Luxembourgish Member and Quaestor of the European Parliament, previously also serving as Vice-President. He joined the EP after decades of public service, first as Member of the Luxembourg City Council (1994 – 2020), then as Member of the Luxembourgish Parliament (2004 – 2019). As an S&D MEP, he focuses on key issues such as social justice and labour rights, while he is also a highly recognized advocate of LGBTIQ+ rights. With a strong commitment to ensuring equitable opportunities for all, Mr Angel promotes fair wages, gender equality and works towards a Europe that is socially inclusive and economically resilient.

Eleonora Meleti, Member of the European Parliament since 2024, is the EPP coordinator for the FEMM Committee, advocating gender equality, women’s empowerment and the fight against discrimination and stereotypes. She also serves on the CULT and EMPL Committees, contributing to legislation on education, media policies and social affairs. With a background in journalism and media, she has authored two bestselling books and promotes mental health awareness. Fluent in six languages and currently studying Psychology, Meleti brings a dynamic, inclusive perspective to her work in the European Parliament

After having worked in Brussels as consultant on EU funds for almost 10 years, in 2009, she established Consulta Europa to act as intermediary organization to connect Canary Islands and Europe and as private territorial development agency. Her objective is to promote a sustainable and responsible growth of remote territories leveraging on EU funded projects.

Ana Kaminska is an Assistant Professor at Jan Kochanowski University of Kielce, at the Department of Economics and Finance of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences. She is an experienced, certified (IPMA) project contributor and evaluator of several national and international R&D projects funded through EU Funds, e.g. Erasmus Plus, Horizon 2020. In Athena Project https://www.athenaequality.eu. she was responsible for design and implementation of GEPs monitoring and evaluation system.

Maura Farrell is an Associate Professor at the University of Galway, specialising in Rural and Agricultural Geography. Her research focuses on social, cultural, and economic transformations in rural communities, with an emphasis on sustainability and innovation. She currently leads the Horizon Europe FLIARA (Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas) project and is Principal Investigator for the PREMIERE project.

Dag Rune Olsen is a cancer researcher and professor of Medical Physics, specialising in cancer treatment and radiation therapy. Since 2021, he is rector of the UiT. He was previously head of Research at the Norwegian Radium Hospital and professor of medical physics at the University of Oslo. He is chair of the board of NIFU Nordic Institute for Studies of innovation, research and education, and on the board of cultural institutions in Norway.

Gabriel Bianchi is a social psychologist affiliated to the Slovak Academy of Sciences and has taught at various faculties of several universities. He has long been involved in non-medical research on sexuality, including gender and values, as well as research methodology in social sciences. His representative publications include Bianchi, G.: Sexuality: From Intimacy to Politics: With Focus on Slovakia in the Globalized World. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, Berlin-Bern-Brussels-Oxford-New York, 2020; and Figurations of Human Subjectivity: Contribution to Second-Order Psychology. Basingstoke, UK and New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

Laura de Dominicis is an economic analyst at the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission, where she is responsible for carrying out quantitative analyses on various aspects linked to the economic development of EU regions and cities. Among others, she leads the work on the measurement of regional competitiveness, territorial well-being and gender balance across EU regions. Previously, she has worked as an economic analyst in the European Commission at the Directorate General for Employment and Social Affair and at the Joint Research Centre in Seville, and as a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Regional Economics of the VU University Amsterdam. She holds a PhD in Economics and has published several papers in academic journals, mainly on regional and urban economic development.

Katharina Buse is Project Advisor within the unit ‘Reforming European Research & Innovation and Research Infrastructure’ of the European Research Executive Agency (REA). She is one REA’s internal Gender Focal Points and her portfolio includes a wide range of gender equality projects funded under H2020 and Horizon Europe. She holds a Master in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin and a Master in Public Administration from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in Strasbourg/France.

Laura Grünberg is Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, University of Bucharest, Romania, and the coordinator of the Gender Equality Plan at this university. She is also editor in chief of the Romanian Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies (www.analize-journal.ro) and writer (Member of National Writer Union). She has worked in the past as project coordinator and gender focal point for the UNESCO European Center for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) and has long term experience in initiating, coordinating, offering consultancy, implementing or evaluating national, regional and European research projects in the area of education, health, media, politics, urban space, civil society. She has published books and academic articles in international peer-reviewed journals. She coordinated the most recent Gender Barometer in Romania (2018).

Daniel Pavlov currently works at the Faculty of Business and Management, University of Ruse Angel Kanchev. Daniel does research in Business Administration, Entrepreneurial Economics and Risk Management. Their current project is ‘INTERGEN – “The intergenerational family businesses as a stress management instrument for entrepreneurs”‘.

Romana Jordan, PhD, serves as Assistant Director for EU Affairs at Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI). She has led important efforts to promote gender equality at the JSI. Before this, she spent 14 years working as a researcher in nuclear safety. Additionally, she spent 10 years as a Member of the European Parliament, where she took on various important roles and responsibilities.

Patrizia Grifoni is Director of research working at the National Research Council since 1990 and she is professor of “Software Engineering and Object Oriented Programming” at the Uninettuno International Telematic University. She has been principal investigator for CNR in numerous European and national projects.

Lydia holds a PhD in Social Sciences and an Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree in Women and Gender Studies. Since 2013 she has collaborated in gender and science projects at different institutions of the Spanish R&D&I system, including universities and public research organizations, where she has also provided training on Gender Equality Plans. Since 2018 she has worked as a manager of gender and science projects for H2020 and Horizon Europe -including GENDERACTION, GENDERNET Plus, SUPERA and GENDERACTION+ – at the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT). She also advises on gender equality initiatives in STEM, such as the ERANET Cofund QUANTERA and acts as NCP (National Contact Point) in the WIDERA part of the Horizon Europe programme for the transversal objective “Gender Equality”.