Dr Jelena Angelis has nearly 20 years of experience in R&I policy formation, implementation and monitoring with such clients as the International Finance Corporation, OECD, European Commission, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Nordic Council of Ministers, national and regional ministries, agencies as well as universities and businesses. Through her work at SQW and Oxford Innovation (both in the UK), Technopolis Group (Estonia) and now EFIS Centre (Belgium) she has been involved in programme design using national and EU Structural Funds, evaluation and impact assessment of such programmes and policies, monitoring of projects as well as hands-on work with universities, start-ups and early-stage companies and incubators. In addition to her policy advisory work Jelena works with the House of Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden) and teaches at the Industrial Technology Management Programme at the ISM University of Economics and Management (Lithuania). Jelena holds a PhD and an MPhil from Cambridge Judge Business School (University of Cambridge, UK), certificate in medical innovation from the Saïd Business School (University of Oxford, UK), and master’s and BA (Honours) from Vilnius University (Lithuania).
An enthusiast of innovation, a researcher and innovation policy advisor and an educator, Jelena is driven by impact, distilling ‘the essential’ and bringing change to the status quo. She believes that publicly funded research and innovation ecosystems should deliver value and impact to our society, which sometimes means (re)learning how we learn and think. To be able to embrace all this, Jelena gets her energy from innovation – innovation in how we work and interact, and in how open we are to various new solutions and opportunities. Perhaps that was one element that made her change countries, experience new things, and learn languages. Originally from Lithuania, Jelena lived and worked for 13 years in the UK and, since 2013, has been residing in Sweden. She is fluent in English, Lithuanian, and Russian, is comfortable in Swedish and discovering the beauty of Greek.
