Els
VAN DE VELDE

Dr. Els Van de Velde is Senior Expert in the field of 'Competitiveness and Innovation'. She has extensive experience in the deployment of green and digital technologies, smart specialisation strategies, and value chain analyses. As a project manager she has led and participated in various European and regional projects. She has advanced skills in qualitative and quantitative analysis, evaluation of European policies, survey set-up and implementation, and workshop moderation. Els has a PhD in Applied Economics, at the Ghent University. She holds a master’s degree in civil engineering.

She has extensive experience with innovation policies on national and European level, and with funding opportunities for R&D and innovation. She is leading the Mutual Learning Exercise on R&I Foresight as part of the PSF Challenge. She acts as expert in an ongoing study on “Support to Assessment and Monitoring of Industrial Research, Innovation and Technologies in the field of energy intensive industries, circular economy, and clean and renewable energy in relation to the European Green Deal and the green transition” and the study ““Monitoring the performance of EU industry and industrial ecosystems”. She offered expert support to various S3 thematic partnerships, targeted at supporting the development of a cross-regional partnership for co-investment. As part of this support, she organised a series of workshops with the aim to bring together relevant stakeholders along specific topical focus areas.