Advisory board is a structured, collaborative method for the UPSURGE partners to engage the stakeholders and value the results from different relevant perspectives.
Advisory board members:
- Partners representatives
- Experienced relevant European stakeholders not directly involved in UPSURGE project
The members of the advisory board help provide objective advice and mentoring to the partners. The scope of this is generally to foster potential future exploitations of UPSURGE results, technologies and services and to further disseminate and promote its outcome.
Current Advisory Board members
Francesco Molinari
Francesco Molinari is an international research and innovation policy expert, with over 25 years of experience managing and advising R&D and innovation projects and programmes at European, national, and regional levels. His expertise includes Digital Government, Living Labs, Smart Cities, Culture and Creativity, and Artificial Intelligence.
He has provided strategic guidance to numerous governments—both within and outside the EU—on designing, implementing, and evaluating innovation policies, focusing on Smart Specialisation Strategies and Innovative Public Procurement.
Francesco’s background is in public management – both on the theoretical and the practical side, including serving for 5 years as director of a mid-sized Municipality and for 7 years as Chief Financial Officer of a local business development agency.
Professor Yvonne Buckley
Professor Yvonne Buckley is one of Ireland’s leading scientists working at the intersection of climate, biodiversity, and sustainability. She holds the prestigious position of Chair of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin and leads major national and international initiatives, including the Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water and the AIB Trinity Climate Hub. She is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Professor Buckley studies how and why plant and animal populations change in today’s fast-moving world. Her team uses science to find real-world solutions for challenges like protecting nature, restoring habitats, managing invasive species, and supporting climate action through nature-based approaches.
She has received numerous honours for her work, including the Trinity Exceptional Achievement Award, the British Ecological Society Award, and the Irish Research Council’s Researcher of the Year. She is a member of both the Royal Irish Academy and Academia Europaea, and her research is among the most cited in her field globally.
With over 140 scientific papers published in leading journals like Science, Nature, and PNAS, her work has helped shape how science supports global sustainability goals. She has also led or contributed to research projects worth over €120 million in funding.
Beyond research, Professor Buckley is deeply involved in public and policy discussions. She advises government bodies, writes a regular science column for The Irish Times, and appears on radio, TV, and in the arts to help make science more accessible. She is passionate about mentoring the next generation of scientists and has supervised dozens of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.development agency.
Professor Maroš Finka
Professor Maroš Finka is a leading expert in spatial planning, urban development, and sustainability. He is Professor at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He served as President of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) from 2020 to 2022 and is an expert advisor to UN Habitat III.
He is Director of the SPECTRA Centre of Excellence of the EU at STU Bratislava and the Institute of Management at STU. He was previously Director of the Institute of Spatial Planning at STU and Vice-Chancellor of the university. In addition, he is President of the Slovak Smart City Cluster, a guest professor at East China Normal University, and Co-Establisher of SPECTRA CE CHINA. He also served as Lead Expert at the Office of the Vice Prime Minister for Investment.
Professor Finka has participated in over 80 national and international research projects, including over 50 as project or team leader. His work covers a wide range of topics, including European spatial planning, urban regeneration, and environmental development.
He has held advisory roles with multiple ministries and government offices, including the Slovak Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry for Investment, Regional Development and Innovations. He has also served on the advisory board of the Ministry of Inner Affairs of the Federal State Rheinland-Pfalz (Germany).
He is an active member of scientific and academic communities, including the German Academy for Spatial Research and Planning. He has published extensively, authoring or co-authoring 41 books and over 100 academic papers, and has presented more than 120 papers at international scientific conferences.
Professor Finka is Co-Chair of SPA-CE.NET, the Network of Spatial Research and Planning Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Alliance of EU and Chinese Universities for Smart Sustainable Development and Innovations. He is widely recognised as one of Central and Eastern Europe’s most influential academics in the field of spatial planning. His work has been honoured with the Scientist of the Year award in Slovakia and the International Danubius Award (2017) for research excellence.
Federico Carotenuto, PhD
Federico Carotenuto is a full-term Research Technologist at the Italian National Research Council (CNR), working at the Institute for BioEconomy (IBE). He serves as the contact person for the ANAEE – IRISCC “AEROLAB” installation and is an expert in micrometeorology, IoT sensors, and remote sensing technologies.
He earned his PhD from the University of Innsbruck (2012–2017), with a dissertation titled “New Insights into Microbial Surface-Atmosphere Exchange and their Simulation.” His doctoral work was conducted at the Research and Innovation Centre, Foxlab Unit, under the supervision of Dr. Franco Miglietta.
Federico was awarded Best Presentation Chosen by Young Aerobiologists at the 11th International Congress of Aerobiology in 2018.
