Ms. Claire NAUWELAERS was Senior Researcher at UNU-MERIT since 1996. Before this, she had a similar position in an interdisciplinary research centre on regional development, RIDER at the University of Louvain in Belgium. She has over 20 years of experience in managing and running research projects in fields linked to research, technology and innovation policies. She holds not only traditional academic research skills but also policy-advising capacities, management competencies and developed a wide network of partners in Europe. Her area of expertise revolves around research and innovation policies, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. This also encompasses information society policies, and she pays particular interest in the regional dimension of policies. She often takes a leading position in international, policy-oriented studies, which are in their majority funded by the European Commission (DG Research, DG Enterprise and DG Regio). She is also a frequent member of expert groups established by the Commission and of evaluation panels. She was a WBC-INCO.NET team member and now works as a policy analyst at the OECD in Paris, in the innovation unit within the Regional Competitiveness and Governance division of the Public Governance and Territorial Development (GOV) Directorate.