Key-note speakers
Katarína Mathernová was appointed as Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy (DG REGIO) at 18. July 2007. It is a first time that somebody from Slovakia or "new EU states" has been appointed to such position. Besides the Euro-Commissioner Ján Figeľ, who has a political function, Ms. Maternová has the highest position in EC.
Ms. Mathernová is responsible for the three policy directorates, and for coordinating relations with the Commission's other Directorates-General and with authorities in the Member States and regions. Her aim is the EU's Cohesion policy, which aims to improve infrastructure, encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, and create more and better jobs through investment in human capital. She will ensure policy develops on the basis of sound economic analysis and evaluation, addresses the challenges of the future and continues to be driven by the priorities identified in the Lisbon agenda. Her survey direction is primarily the European Funds.
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Peter
Wells is Professor of Public Policy Analysis and Evaluation at
Sheffield Hallam University and Coordinator of the Social and
Economic Regeneration Team in the Centre for Centre for Regional
Economic and Social Research. He is currently project director of the
UK Office of the Third Sector funded national
evaluation of Futurebuilders, this study runs from 2005-2010.
He is also directing two evaluations for Yorkshire Forward (the Regional Development Agency for Yorkshire and the Humber region) which examine the impact of funding of the sustainability of third sector organisations. He has wide ranging experience of Structural Funds evaluation: he led the 2003 Mid Term Evaluation of the South Yorkshire Objective 1 Programme, made wide ranging contributions to evaluations of the 1994-99 Structural Funds programmes in the United Kingdom, and been an invited speaker at European Commission seminars and conferences on Structural Funds evaluation. He has also undertaken research for the UK's Economic and Social Research Council into the role of third sector organisations in regional policy. He has published extensively on Structural Funds evaluation, including work which examines the impact of community-level interventions, the multi-level governance of Structural Funds programmes, and the role of the third sector in regional policy.
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Tony Gore is a
Principal Research Fellow in CRESR. He has extensive experience
of research and evaluation on urban and regional issues, and is an
acknowledged expert on labour market policy and coalfields
regeneration. Research projects include assessments of area-based
regeneration strategies and initiatives (e.g., South Yorkshire
Objective 1, Enterprise Zones), evaluation of a range of labour
market pilot programmes such as the New Deal Innovation Fund, Working
Neighbourhoods and Jobseekers' Mandatory Activity, estimates of real
unemployment in former industrial areas, and an examination of
linkages between coalfields and adjacent growth areas. This is part
of a long-standing interest in the co-ordination of actions (or lack
of it) across boundaries, both geographical and institutional. Tony
has also helped to develop the Centre's capacity in utilising a wide
range of official data sources and GIS techniques.
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Ken
Davey was a civil servant for 15 years dealing in local
government finance and management, then worked at the University of
Birmingham where he headed the School of Public Policy, UK's largest
public administration school. From 1990 he managed British programmes
of technical assistance to local government reform in Czech Republic,
Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine. He is a member of the LGI Steering
Committee which he chaired for three years to 2007.
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Ctibor Košťál has been working for SGI since 2007 with main activities focusing on research of EU Structural Funds transparency and effectiveness and reform of the primary and secondary education system. He graduated from Comenius University in Bratislava in 2001 with the degree in Psychology and has currently finished Political Science studies with final thesis on the EU Structural Funds. He has conducted research on the corruption threats in Structural Funds in Slovakia in 2007 to 2013.
During his work at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family he negotiated the position of the Ministry on national and European level on EU Financial Perspective for years 2007 - 2013. He was also responsible for preparation of the operational program Employment and Social Inclusion financed by the ESF.
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Renáta Králiková works as a consultant and partner at the Slovak Governance Institute (SGI). Most of her assignments cover the area of higher education and knowledge economy. She is also a member of the Education Committee for the strongest opposition party in Slovakia, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union-Democratic Party. She regularly comments on issues related to higher education in Slovak media. Before working for the SGI, Renata worked at the Slovak Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family. Her initial work there was that of an analyst, but later on she became a negotiator of European Union Financial Perspective for 2007-2013.
During the last 18 months of her tenure at the Ministry, she managed a project financed by a World Bank loan whose goal was to improve efficiency and organization of the education and social affairs sectors. Renata holds two Masters Degrees. Before starting the professional career Renata did a lot of unpaid work as student activist in the area of higher education policy. She received her first MA in Psychology from the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. She earned her second MA in International Relations and European Studies from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.
