The European Green Deall has set the ambitious goal of achieving climate neutrality by the year 2050. Among the many steps that the EU is taking towards achieving this goal, are the EU Missions of Horizon Europe. This framework involves a wide spectrum of stakeholders, among which are local authorities, citizens, business investors as well as regional and national authorities. Its primary objective are not only to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030, but also to ensure that these cities act as experimentation and innovation hubs to enable all European cities to follow suit by 2050. The mission takes a cross-sectoral and demand-led approach, creating synergies between existing initiatives and basing its activities on the actual needs of the cities.  

European University Alliances play a pivotal in achieving this kind of missions. Their ambition of developing and implementing systemic, structural and sustainable cooperation. These alliances act as incubators for robust knowledge-creating teams, working collaboratively to tackle multifaceted challenges through an interdisciplinary approach.

This is the case of the EELISA initiative, that aims at transforming higher education while strengthening the links between engineering and society. This is mainly done through the EELISA Communities, which are mission driven multidisciplinary platforms for collaboration that foster the knowledge, research and innovation needed to solve social, economic and environmental challenges in line with the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals. By fostering dialogue and collaboration between universities and city representatives, this plenary session provides a forum for sharing experiences, exploring opportunities, and shaping future perspectives. It will serve as an occasion to:

– Exchanging on the role of “universities-cities” pairs in contributing to solving complex challenges. 

– Identifying key aspects for solid strategic partnerships to achieve the net zero emission? 

– Showcasing how EELISA is a platform for education and innovation that facilitates dialogue and orchestration European level. 

FOR WHOM

Open to the public

WHEN

6 of October from 09:30 AM to 11:00 AM (CEST+1 / UTC+3)

WHERE

Onsite

National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest

Aula Conference Centre

Online

Via EELISA’s YouTube Channel

In order of appearance

Part 1

Razvan Nicolescu,

Razvan Nicolescu previously served as the Romanian Minister of Energy and the Chairman of the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators. He also used to be a partner of Deloitte responsible for energy and climate change practice in Central Europe and an associate professor of the Romanian Academy for the Economic Studies. He currently serves in several corporate boards. He began his professional career as an energy researcher with a strong academic background. He is a reputable European expert on energy and climate change issues, having significant experience in bringing innovation, the academic community and business leaders to effectively work together. In 2021 he funded an European energy and climate think tank. 

He has a bachelor’s degree in energy engineering from Polytechnical University of Bucharest and a MBA degree from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. In addition, he has graduated from executive programmes at Stanford Business School. He is member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

François Croquette,

François Croquette is a French career diplomat, currently seconded to City Hall in Paris as director for climate and ecology, in charge of promoting the Paris climate action plan. He has served in several postings abroad, including Moscow and London, and was the French Ambassador for Human Rights from 2017 to 2021. He has worked closely with civil society throughout his career, and he is a board member of several NGOs. 

Halil Hasar, the Director of Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change of Türkiye 

Ciprian Ciucu,

The District is situated in the West part of the city and has a population of approximatively 400.000 inhabitants. Ciprian is the only mayor of Bucharest, member of PNL, affiliated to EPP. He was elected in 2020. Prior to being elected as mayor, he was the head of the Civil Service Agency in Romania (2019 – 2020). His professional background includes civil society engagement, international public management consultancy as well as academic. Ciprian Ciucu co-founded and acted as the Programs Director for the Romanian Center for European Policies, one of the renowned think-tanks of Romania (2009 – 2015). He also established the Center for Urban and Territorial Development (2014 – 2019). As a consultant, he has over 10 years of experience working in different public administration reform projects funded by a wide range of donors including the European Commission, World Bank or UK Aid. He was active in several countries in Eastern Europe (Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine) and Western Balkans (Kosovo).  Between 2007 and 2013 he was an invited professor at the University of Bucharest, teaching project management. He also has extensive experience on training for public policy development, public services management and strategic planning. 

Ionuț Pucheanu,

Mayor of Galați. 

Tudor Prisecaru,

State Secretary of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization; 

He is the is the President of the Academic Senate of the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest. Since February 2017, Prof. Prisecaru has been member of the Board of Directors at the International Research Institute Theodore Von Karman.

Part 2

Sorin Costreie

Associate Professor at the Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bucharest. He holds a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest, (2007) with a thesis in the philosophy of mathematics, and has been also pursued doctoral studies between 2000 and 2008 at University of Western Ontario, Canada in philosophy of language and mathematics, and analytic philosophy.

He is currently Vice-Rector of the University of Bucharest and President of UNICA university network. He has been also a member of the University Senate since 2011, and he was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in 2016 and 2017. In 2016, he was Adviser to the Minister of Education and Research and State Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Research, and in 2020-2023 he was State Advisor for Education and Research to the Prime-Minister.  

Julio Lumbreras

Julio Lumbreras, PhD, Eng, MPA is Associate Professor at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and teaching at Harvard University, where he is the instructor of the course on “Sustainable Cities”. He was a member of the Board of the European Mission for “Climate-neutral and smart cities”. He is now part of the Net Zero Cities consortium, and he is coordinating the multi-stakeholder platform for the implementation of the mission in Spain (citiES 2030). He is founding associate editor in the Open Access Journal on Frontiers in Sustainable Cities. He is co-author of more than 80 papers and books on air quality, climate change, sustainable cities, and Higher Education. Julio is passionate about increasing sustainability in higher education, turning universities into key agents to systemically transform cities towards sustainability. 

Etienne Riot

Prof. Ahmet Duran Şahin finished undergraduate program at Meteorology Department of İstanbul Technical University (ITU) in 1994 and graduated to MSc. and PhD. at Atmospheric Science Program of Science and Technology Institute of ITU in 1996 and 2002 respectively. He also attended a post doctorial research program at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Canada between 2004 and 2005. Because of his high-impact scientific research, he was awarded by the Research and Technology Council of Turkey, TÜBİTAK in 2006. His main research areas could be divided into two parts, one of them atmospheric sciences-renewable energy sources that include wind energy, solar energy, wind-solar hybrid systems, exergy, climate, climate change and the other one is statistical-mathematical modelling that includes spatial models, temporal models, risk analysis, spatio-temporal models, geostatistic, fuzzy logic and neural networks. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Duran Şahin has been the Head of the Meteorological Engineering Department and the Board Member of the Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics since 2012. He served as a member of the Board of the Istanbul Technical University Institute of Science and Technology between 2014 and 2020 

Ahmet Duran Şahin

Prof. Ahmet Duran Şahin finished undergraduate program at Meteorology Department of İstanbul Technical University (ITU) in 1994 and graduated to MSc. and PhD. at Atmospheric Science Program of Science and Technology Institute of ITU in 1996 and 2002 respectively. He also attended a post doctorial research program at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Canada between 2004 and 2005. Because of his high-impact scientific research, he was awarded by the Research and Technology Council of Turkey, TÜBİTAK in 2006. His main research areas could be divided into two parts, one of them atmospheric sciences-renewable energy sources that include wind energy, solar energy, wind-solar hybrid systems, exergy, climate, climate change and the other one is statistical-mathematical modelling that includes spatial models, temporal models, risk analysis, spatio-temporal models, geostatistic, fuzzy logic and neural networks. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Duran Şahin has been the Head of the Meteorological Engineering Department and the Board Member of the Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics since 2012. He served as a member of the Board of the Istanbul Technical University Institute of Science and Technology between 2014 and 2020.

György Alföldi

Dr. György Alföldi (DLA and habil in architecture) is an urban planner, professor at Department of Urban Planning and Design at BME (http://urb.bme.hu), Dean of Faculty of Architecture, Chairman of the Standing Committee of Urban Sciences  of the Hungarian Academy of Science. Between 1999 and 2016 he was responsible for the urban development of District 8# of Budapest taking part in the urban regeneration projects, which became well-known across Europe. 

Florin Drăgan

He is the Rector of Politehnica University from Timișoara, E3UDRES2 Alliance member. He is associate professor at Politehnica University from Timișoara, Faculty of Automation and Computer Science. He received his bachelor’s degree in Automation from University Politehnica Timişoara in 1995 and master degree in 1996 in Process Control at the same faculty.  The Ph.D. degree was granted in 2007 by Politehnica University from Timișoara in the field of Chaos Control in Electrical Converters.

From 2000 until he became Vice Rector, Florin Drăgan has important cooperation with software companies from Timișoara, founded or managed projects for companies from UK, USA, Germany, Netherlands or Belgium.

EELISA has received funding from the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme under GA No. 101004081 / EELISA-InnoCORE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 R & I programme under GA No. 101035811