Susana Elena-Pérez has more than 15 years of experience in the field of research and innovation policies, regional development, and the management of intangibles and intellectual capital.
She holds a PhD from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and was a visiting PhD student at SPRU, a research centre at Sussex University on science, technology and innovation policy and management, as part of the PRIME Network of Excellence. Before that she received her bachelor’s degree in business administration from UAM.
She has worked for more than eight years at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre focusing on building bridges between science and policy. She worked in project management, data collection and analysis for different projects and was also involved in content-creation and design aspects.
For the EFIS Centre, she mostly works on the Policy Support Facility projects concerning Moldova and Greece. In addition to her policy and consultancy work, Susana maintains strong ties with academia and is currently associate professor at Loyola Andalucia University and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) teaching business innovation and strategic management. She is deeply committed to inspiring and cultivating her students’ curiosity and interest in learning and innovating.
Susana has wide experience and capabilities in governance issues, complex problem-solving, stakeholder consultation and engagement, and project management. A target-oriented multiculturalist by nature, she is a consensus-maker and passionate about design thinking and innovation policies. She now lives in Seville (Spain).