Speakers

Ms. Elina Bardram was appointed Director for “Adaptation & Resilience, Communication, and Civil Society Relations” at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Climate Action in October 2022 and since June 2023 she’s the Manager for the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change. She joined DG CLIMA in 2010 and has held different senior and middle management functions in the area of international relations, including as Head of the EU Delegation to the UNFCCC negotiations between 2014-2018. Between 2003-2010, Ms. Bardram worked in the Strategy Directorate of the External Relations Directorate-General. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her academic work has focused on the impacts of globalisation.

Andrew Warren is a climate adaptation, resilience, and integrated planning expert at Deltares with over 15 years’ experience in the water sector. 

Andrew primarily develops and applies methodologies to incorporate both long-term uncertainties and stakeholders into strategic planning processes across diverse problem domains including water supply and sanitation, water resources management, flood risk management, and urban water management. He has worked in a variety of international settings in both developed and emerging economies. 

Andrew holds a MSc in Water Resources Management (cum laude) from TU Delft in the Netherlands, and both a BE and BA from the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Ryan Titley is the Director of Projects for ERRIN, the European Regions Research and Innovation Network.

Ryan has over 14 years’ of experience in the field of research and innovation funding and European projects, and he currently coordinates ERRIN’s work on several Mission-related projects. He oversees ERRIN’s financial management and the organisation’s project portfolio, to ensure the replication and upscaling of project results within the relevant Working Groups and regional partners within the network.  

Before joining ERRIN, Ryan worked as an Investment Manager for Northamptonshire County Council, where he worked on securing investment into the locality from a range of Europe funds.

Luise Heidenreich is an experienced and passionate innovator, leader and coach with more than 15 years’ experience in the international education and learning sector, designing and managing multistakeholder programmes and cutting-edge learning initiatives. 

She works as the Co-Head Education and Learning within EIT Climate-KIC, Europe’s climate innovation community with a mission to catalyse systemic change through innovation. As part of her role, she is currently leading on the capability building and learning activities within Pathways2Resilience. 

Luise has an academic background in European Studies and received a MSc in Culture & Society from the London School of Economics, she is also a trained professional coach from the Co-Active Coach Training Institute.

Tereza Fleková is a project manager in the Regional Development Department of the Regional Office of the South Moravian Region. Since 2023, she´s also been on the advisory board for the RESIST project. She studied regional development at Mendel University in Brno. 

Tereza is one of the administrators of the subsidy programme “Support of adaptation measures to climate change”, which the South Moravian Region announces each year and whose goal is to support the process of comprehensive planning of close-to-nature and interconnected adaptation measures in the territory and activities intended to mitigate the effects of climate change. 

Tereza is a team player, and her positive attitude motivates others to work hard and succeed. During her studies, she worked with municipalities, for whom she produced strategic documents, as well as consulting organisations that handled the administration of EU and national fund subsidies.

Dr. Fernando J. Diaz Lopez, PhD. is co-director of the cluster of resilient and climate neutral regions and scientific director of the Transitions Hub of EIT Climate KIC.

Fernando has more than 23 years of professional experience in the field of transformative climate resilience, circularity, and eco-innovation. He is currently the coordinator of the Pathways2Resilience project. 

Fernando holds a doctorate degree (PhD) in international economic development from the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom) and senior management training from INSEAD (France).

Kit is a Senior Climate Adaptation specialist with Paul Watkiss Associates, with over 15 years’ experience in national and local adaptation in the public, private and third sectors. He specialises in work on place-based adaptation planning, finance and climate justice, and is leading the development of Pathways2Resilience’s Adaptation Investment Cycle. 

In previous roles, he established Climate Ready Clyde, Scotland’s largest place-based partnership on adaptation, which produced Europe’s first transformational adaptation strategy and action plan, along with a resource mobilisation plan and bankable investment propositions. 

He has also worked in and supported local and national governments, the Covenant of Mayors, foundations and third sector organisations on development and implementation of adaptation programmes, and was involved in the development of the ISO standards on adaptation planning. 

Most recently, has also led work for the UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce to develop new private sector disclosure requirements on adaptation and resilience.

Luca Arbau is an architect and a sustainable urban development practitioner. He works as an expert in resilience and climate adaptation at ICLEI Europe. Previously, he was Research and Communication Officer at the World Association of Major Metropolises. Luca also worked in sustainability research and as an architect, focusing on co-design and co-creation of urban spaces.

He holds a master’s degree in international cooperation and emergency architecture from the International University of Catalonia (Barcelona) and a master degree in architecture from the University of Ferrara (Italy).

Luca speaks native Italian, is fluent in English and Spanish, and has good knowledge of Catalan

Dr Thomas Koetz is responsible for orchestrating the application of a systems innovation approach for transformations towards climate neutrality and resilience at regional scale, demonstrating that fast and system level change is possible.

Thomas has worked for over a decade as Programme and Policy Officer in environmental public policy for the European Commission and the United Nations, having been centrally involved in establishing the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which he served as Head of Work Programme.

He has worked on issues such as climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development, rural development, and multilevel governance, and has a PhD and background in science-policy interfaces, ecological economics, landscape ecology and environmental management.

Ricardo has over a decade of experience in coordinating projects related to climate transition and innovation. At EIT Climate-KIC, he is Programme Manager within the cluster for Resilience and Climate Neutral Regions. Within Pathways2Resilience, he leads the open call and subgrantee management processes.

Maaria Parry (M.Sc., M.A.) serves as the Chief Specialist within the national climate unit, where she is responsible for the regional implementation of Finland's national climate adaptation plan. Parry has previously worked on adaptation information and planning, particularly in the context of urban areas.

Dr. Fernando Pulido is Full Professor at the University of Extremadura (Spain) and researcher at the Institute for Silvopastoral Research (INDEHESA). Since 2015 he has coordinated the project MOSAICO, a long-term strategy for wildfire prevention through the engagement of local stakeholders and improved governance of fire prone Mediterranean regions. This project has supported around 300 initiatives to increase the resilience of vulnerable landscapes in Extremadura and it is being replicated in other regions. He also cooperates actively with wildfire policy makers to adapt existing regulations to current and future climate scenarios.

Efrén is Climate Change Adaptation Manager at the City Territory and Environment Area of Tecnalia, coordinating applied research projects for the development of Decision Support Systems in the fields of sustainable spatial development, nature-based solutions, regional-urban resilience and sectoral climate change adaptation. 

He worked in Central America for over 4 years and is involved in international and European initiatives for more than 20 years, including several Horizon Europe projects, contracts with ESPON and Copernicus Climate Change Service, standardisation activities at ISO and CEN, as well as the Spanish Mirror Group for the EU Mission Adaptation to Climate Change.

Efrén holds a Building Engineering degree as well as postgraduate degrees in spatial planning and territorial development. He has a professional background in consultancy and capacity building for public administrations and utilities.