Speakers

Veiko Lember is Senior Research Fellow in Public Management and Policy at Tallinn University of Technology, and Visiting Professor at KU Leuven. His main research interests are in public administration and policy, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of technology, innovation and the state. His most recent book with Tiina Randma-Liiv is Engaging Citizens in Policy Making: e-Participation Practices in Europe (Edward Elgar, 2022). He currently leads a project on Public Administration Capabilities for Digital and Sustainable Transitions (www.padst.eu).

Elvira Uyarra is Professor of Innovation Studies at Alliance Manchester Business School (University of Manchester) where she is also director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Her research sits at the intersection between innovation studies, policy studies and regional studies and has in the last few years focused on topics such as the role of universities in regional development, the role of regions in new generation innovation policies and the innovation impacts of public procurement, and the role of agency and policy in regional sustainability transitions. She has authored more than 40 scholarly and practitioner articles in leading journals in geography, innovation studies and management, including Research Policy, Technovation, Regional Studies and Technological Forecasting and Social Change and has led research and consultancy projects funded by UKRI, the European Commission, IADB, OECD and NESTA. She is a Fellow of the Regional Studies Association (RSA), editor of the journal Regional Studies, and sits on the editorial board of several other academic journals. Currently she is one of the experts of the European Commission’s Mutual Learning Exercise on EU Missions.