Mr. Simonas Šatūnas was appointed as the Deputy Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the European Union in May 2019. During the period 2018-2019, he was the Ambassador at Large, Special Envoy/Coordinator for Eastern Partnership. In 2017-2018, he was the Deputy Minister for Energy and his area of activities included Nuclear Safety and EU affairs. He served as the Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Lithuania in 2004-2009.

Mr. Šatūnas started his career as a manager/diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuanian in 1999. Until 2016, his responsibilities included managing the economic activities of Lithuanian diplomatic service (supervision of Lithuanian embassies' activities overseas), coordination of embassies support for Lithuanian business abroad, coordination of Lithuanian trade policy, relations with media on trade, economic diplomacy related issues, coordination of Lithuania's activities towards joining OECD.

He was working in the Lithuanian Embassy in the United States of America and in the Embassy of Lithuania in Latvia.

Tine Delva works in the higher education department of the Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC). As policy advisor, Tine is fully involved in the European Universities initiative and works on learning and teaching developments in the higher education sector. Before, Tine worked in the economic department of the Secretariat-General of the European Commission, where she was contributing to the work of the European Commission in areas such as economic governance and the EU follow-up to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Before Tine entered the European Commission, she was a cabinet member of two Members of the European Parliament. Tine has an academic background in economics, complemented with European affairs.

She is co-author of the book "The functioning of Europe, after Lisbon" (2010, 2015, in Dutch).

Marcos António Nogueira is Managing Partner at IrRADIARE, Science for Evolution. He holds master of Mechanical Engineering, Energy.

As a researcher in the field of mathematical modeling, he has authored numerous publications. As consultant, he was responsible for the design and development of systems used by international industrial groups and public authorities.

Marcos Nogueira has led the development of a significant number of projects and programs for public entities, with special emphasis on cities and regions in Portugal and in other member states of the European Union.

Asta Radzevičienė Currently a Vice-Rector for Strategic partnership at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University responsible for cooperation with business and academic organisations, international development strategy and university outreach.

Practitioner and researcher in higher education management and internationalisation, an author of 20 scientific publications in this field. Her research interests range from strategic management and internationalisation of HEIs to human resource management, networking in business and HE, internationalisation of SMEs.

Elisabetta Marafioti is a Professor of Management at University of Milano–Bicocca. Elisabetta holds a Ph.D. in Management from Bocconi University. She has a long experience in executive education at SDA Bocconi School of Management.

Elisabetta teaches Strategic Management, International Management and Management and Social Entrepreneurship.Elisabetta is the Director of MADIM – Master in Management and Digital Transformation at University of Milano-Bicocca. She is also project coordinator of “SMARTUP – Startup Master and Advanced Reflective Tools by Universities & Partners” financed under the ErasmusPlus - Knowledge Alliance program and Director of SMARTUP – International Master in Entrepreneurship.

Her research focuses on entrepreneurship, CSR, sustainability and business model innovation, strategic alliances, networks, complex and co-opetitive systems, international management, and system dynamics application in strategy implementation.

Dr Anne Vuorema currently works as a Team leader in the Research Services in the Excellent Science Funding team at the LUT University. She helps LUT researchers with their ERC, MSCA and Academy of Finland proposals. LUT University is a pioneering science university in Finland, bringing together the fields of science and business since 1969. LUT has an outstanding feature of successfully integrating expertise in technology and economics. Our international community is composed of approximately 6,500 students and experts (of over 80 different nationalities) engaged in scientific research and academic education in our three schools: School of Energy Systems, School of Engineering Science and School of Business and Management. LUT produces problem solvers and provides solutions to global environmental and economic challenges and focuses on demanding topical issues, such as the mitigation of climate change and look for scientific solutions for Clean Energy and Water, a Circular Economy and Sustainable Business.

Dr Vuorema has a researcher background herself and she got her PhD from the University of Turku in 2009. Since then she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at LUT Laboratory of Green Chemistry with for example Academy of Finland post-doctoral researcher funding. In 2014 she started in LUT Research Services and has since helped researchers with their funding applications. She is interested in developing the career paths of researchers from the doctoral studies to established researchers and feels motivated in helping the researchers to find and gain suitable funding.

LUT has strengthened its presence in Brussels by establishing an office there. The aim is to improve LUT's already existing networks and find new ones, increase the visibility of LUT in international level and along those, increase the external funding of LUT. Dr Vuorema also acts as a LUT Brussels Representative and she is in Brussels during the theme weeks and other events that are important for LUT's strategic areas.

Paula Peiró holds a Master Degree in Business and Management Administration by the University of Valencia, Spain. She is member of IrRADIARE ́s team and ISG University as project developer.

Paula has been in charge of cooperation with universities in areas as innovation, sustainability, start-up development, internationalization, working in European funded projects in programs like H2020, Interreg, LIFE and Erasmus + among others.

Brigita Serafinavičiūtė is the Head of the Lithuanian RDI Liaison Office in Brussels (LINO) which is part of the Research Council of Lithuania. She holds a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Science. Between 2016 and 2017, she was the Head of the Research Management Office at Vilnius University. Brigita is Lithuanian ́s delegate at the Horizon 2020 Programme Committee for ‘Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials’.

Before this appointment Brigita was a member of FP7 committee for specific programme ‘People’. Between 2008-2015 she was a Board Member of the Research Council of Lithuania acting as Scientific Secretary. She was also involved in the FP7 project PASTEUR4OA (Open Access Policy Alignment Strategies for European Union Research).