Konrad Czapiewski

Konrad Czapiewski is Associate Professor at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences. He deals with local and regional development, knowledge transfer, digital technologies and social perspective on spatial phenomena. Author of over 120 publications and participant of over 60 application and research projects (including Horizon, ESPON, Erasmus and Interreg). Passionate about travelling.

Luis Falcón Martínez de Marañón

Luis is Chief of Business Development & Data Strategy at inAtlas, a company specialized in geospatial technology, Big Data and Location Analytics; he has been its CEO until February 2022. In December 2021, inAtlas has been integrated into the InformaD&B Group, the largest business data company in Spain.

Luis has a Master's degree in Strategic Planning from the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam / TU Delf University of Technology (2001-2002). Architect and Urban Planner from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – ULPGC (1997), he has 24 years of professional experience; he was for 13 years director of the company Intelligent Coast (2005-2018), specialized in strategic planning of tourist destinations, currently integrated in inAtlas; he is currently president of the Geospatial Sectoral Commission of the ASEDIE Infomediary Association; and has been a member of the Sectoral Commission for Knowledge and Strategy of the Tourism Board of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2015-2018).

He shares his passion for urban policies and data in the Master's Degree 'City & Technology', at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia / Polytechnic University of Catalonia (School of Professional & Executive Development) (2002-2022); for tourism and data he turned it over as visiting professor of Advanced Tourist Information Systems, of the Master's Degree in 'Marketing & Social Media', at the University of Lleida (2018-2021); as well as being a member of the Advisory Council of the University of Girona Campus (UdG-Tourism) (2015-2018).

Marco Kellenberger

Geographer at the Swiss Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE).  Responsible for Territorial Observation / statistical information and analyses on spatial development.

ESPON Contact Point for Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Carlos Llano-Verduras

Carlos Llano-Verduras, holds a Doctorate and a Degree in Economics. Since 2005 he works as a professor at the Department of Economic Analysis from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), where he is is now an associate professor, with teaching in Macroeconomics, International Trade and Economic Geography. He has taught as visiting professor at New York University. Since 1996, he also works as a researcher at the L.R. Klein Institute and CEPREDE. His research activity has focused on interregional and international trade, input-output analysis, regional and urban economics, tourism and commuting. He belongs to the Editorial Board of different indexed journals in the field of spatial economics, and he collaborates as evaluator in a long list of journals. He has more than 25 academic articles in international indexed journals as well as a long list of research projects with european, national and regional institutions. He has also a long experience working in the Public Administration at the National and Regional level in Spain, as well as different collaborations with the main international organizations (UN, OECD, European Commission, Eurpean Parliament).

Eugenia Maruniak

D.Sc. Eugenia Maruniak is Director of the Institute of Geography, NAS of Ukraine, Head of Sustainable Development and Environmental Assessment Section of the Institute of Geography,  NAS of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine. Leader and participant of numerous national and international projects, in particular on sustainable spatial development. Member of working group for drafting Sustainable Development Strategy for Ukraine. Her research interests include spatial planning, sustainable regional development, environmental impact assessment, globalization and international integration processes, geopolitics.

Travis O'Doherty

Travis O’Doherty is the Research & Policy Officer at the Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly (EMRA) in Ireland, which is part of regional governance In Ireland. Travis has a PhD in Sustainability Policy, during his Doctoral thesis Travis published methods for urban sustainability appraisal and sustainable development policy evaluation. Travis has worked for over nine years at different levels of local government in Ireland as a project manager, team leader and a National Contact Point for the URBACT programme.

Research and teaching interests include Climate change, Green Infrastructure, Urban Planning, Resilience, Sustainability Analysis, Stakeholder Engagement and Environmental Policy.

The EMRA is the lead stakeholder in ESPON QGasSP, EMRA play an important co-ordinating role. The development of a robust, simple and proportionate method for quantifying and forecasting the relative greenhouse gas impacts of alternative spatial planning policies is of great significance for EMRA.

Luisa Pedrazzini

Director Office -  EuropeanTerritorial and Environmental Cooperation DG Environment and Climate Regione Lombardia

Luisa Pedrazzini is a territorial and landscape planner. Currently she works at the Regione Lombardia as responsible of the European Territorial Cooperation Programs (ETC). She is Italian and transnational coordinator of the Programs Interreg Alpine Space and ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observatory Network), as well as regional representative in all Italian ETC Programs. She is also RL representative in the EUSALP Action Group 7 Green Infrastructures and coordinator of the Strategic Initiative “Spatial Planning”. She is coordinator of the Regional territorial and landscape Plans of Lombardy (2010-2019). She is member of the ARL Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanungwas, was Jean Monnet professor as well as teacher at the Politecnico di Milano (DASTU). LP does researches and publications in Urban Politics, territorial and spatial planning, landscape planning and EU spatial planning and Politics.

Daniel Rauhut

Daniel Rauhut holds a PhD in Economic History (Lund University, Sweden), is associate professor in regional planning (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) and works as a senior researcher at the University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu, Finland). He has previously worked at the Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research (NIBR), Nordregio, University West and Malmö University (Sweden). Rauhut’s research areas focus on e.g. the EU Cohesion Policy, institutions, regional welfare, quantitative analysis and methodological issues.

Jorge L. Vega Valle

Experience

  • 2020-now: Ministery for Ecologic Transition and Demographic Challenge. Head of Analysis Unit in General Secretariat for Demograhic Challenge 
  • 2020-now: ESPON MC representative of Spain 
  • 2006-2020: National Statistics Institute (INE), from 2006 until 2020. Involved in sociodemographic operations like Census, Projections, Migrations, Fertility survey or mobile-phone studies. 

Education 

  • 2006: Civil Servant as Statistician 
  • 2003: Degree in Computer Engineering

Xabier Velasco Echeverría

Xabier Velasco Echeverría (Engineer, MBA, GIS Specialist) is Head of the Territorial Observatory of Navarre (NASUVINSA-Lursarea). He is an experienced project and team leader, engaged in evaluating sectoral strategies and their territorial impact. He has a passion for innovation and deploying complex data through simple to use GIS&BI visualization tools. The implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals in Navarre received the ESRI award "Digital Transformation" in 2019.