Keynote speakers

Prof. Marina Andeva teaches several subjects related to European Union structure, cross-border cooperation, regional autonomy and local self-government and international organizations and institutions. Her other working engagements include the position of Research Fellow at the Institute of International Sociology in Gorizia (ISIG) since 2009. She finished her PhD in Transborder Policies for Daily life and MA in Methods in European Policy Making at the University of Trieste, Italy and her BA in Law at the Faculty of Law “Iustinianus”.

Departament of Business Administration and Tourism, Business School, Heraklion – Crete

Alexandros Apostolakis graduated with a bachelor's degree (BSc) in Economics with Politics from the University of Plymouth, UK in 1999. He carried on with a postgraduate degree (MSc) in Local and Regional Economic Analysis from the University of Portsmouth, UK in 2000 and a PhD degree from the same University in 2005. His thesis examined individual tourists' preferences for two cultural resources in the island of Crete, Greece. In parallel to his PhD work, Alexandros was working as a research assistant at the Centre for Local and Regional Analysis (CLREA) in the department of Economics, University of Portsmouth. After the completion of his PhD, Alexandros secured a tenured position as lecturer and then as senior lecturer at the department of Economics, at the University of Portsmouth, UK. In 2011 Alexandros joined the (then) Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Crete. Currently, Alexandros is an associate professor in Tourism Marketing at the Department of Business Administration and Tourism, Hellenic Mediterranean University. Dr Apostolakis is head of the Department of Business Administration and Tourism and director of the Tourism and Entrepreneurship Laboratory. Alexandros's research interests and publication activity mainly focuses on the tourism industry (the examination of individual preferences through stated preferences discrete choice modelling) and comprises of over 55 contributions to textbooks, peer – reviewed academic journals and peer reviewed academic conferences. In particular, Dr Apostolakis has been conducting research on the evaluation of individual preferences for future policy initiatives in hospitality, tourism and the cultural sector. Moreover, Alexandros acts as associate editor in the “Anatolia Journal”, and the “Regional Science Enquiry Journal”. He also sits at the international scientific committee of “Cultural Management: Science & Education” journal. At the same time, he acts as guest editor and reviewer for all mainstream high impact peer review journals in the tourism field (Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Tourism Economics, Journal of Travel Research and others). At the same time, Dr Apostolakis has been involved with the implementation of three EU funded projects (Holy Grail, European Islands Continue Education on Resources Efficiency Virtual Gateway –VIREG, and the Employer Programme for Hospitality and Tourism - EPHT). He is also an affiliate lecturer at the Hellenic Open University.

Jacinto Garrido Velarde - PhD. in Graphic Expression with European mention from the University of Extremadura. Assistant Professor at the University of Extremadura. Specialist in Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing, Urban Planning and Territorial Planning. Research on topics related to physical and human geography, cartographic representations using GIS and 3D modeling. Collaborates with University Research Institute for Sustainable Territorial Development (INTERRA), Extremadura, Spain and the CITUR - Madeira - Centre for Tourism Research, Development and Innovation, Madeira, Portugal”

Beate Grajnert has 15 years of experience in the European Union’s Regional Policy. She started her career as lecturer and researcher at the University of Regensburg (Germany). For the last 13 years, she has been working for the European Commission in the area of the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). On the operational side, she has been Programme Manager for the regional, sectoral and cross-border cooperation programmes (INTERREG). In her portfolio she followed as Policy Analyst i.a. the concept of Functional Areas and of Smart Specialisation strategies with a focus on synergies and complementarities with other EU Policies, in particular in the field of research. Beate Grajnert holds a degree in German Philology from the University of Wrocław (Poland) and in Political Science from the University of Regensburg (Germany).

Prof. Dangis Gudelis focuses his research and publications on various topics related to public management, including diaspora engagement, public service management, knowledge management, network governance, performance measurement, public-private partnerships. He has been involved in a number of research and consultancy projects funded by the EU as well as national and local governments.

Eduardo Medeiros is a Geography Professor and an Integrated Research Fellow in DINÂMIA'CET-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. He has a Ph.D. in Geography - Regional and Urban Planning, and around 200 publications, including more than 40 published papers in international journals, 10 books and 11 book chapters. His research interests are focused on Territorial Impact Assessment, Territorial Cohesion, Territorial Development, Territorial Cooperation and Spatial Planning. He is a DG REGIO (European Commission) and URBACT III expert, and a Horizon 2020 evaluator. He is also a Regional Studies Association Fellow. He has coordinated several international policy evaluation projects and was a member of DG REGIO and ESPON projects. He was invited as a project adviser and to write reports and position papers by DG REGIO. He was already invited to be a keynote speaker by several International Universities and EU institutions (European Commission and Committee of the Regions). He is a member of the scientific and editorial committee of several journals and a peer reviewer of more than 35 international journals.

James W Scott is Research Professor of Regional and Border Studies at the Karelian Institute of the University of Eastern Finland. Prof. Scott obtained his Habilitation (2006), PhD (1990) and MA (1986) at the Free University of Berlin and his B.Sc. at the University of California Berkeley (1979). His principal fields of research include: Urban and regional geography, borders, border regions, geopolitics. regional and urban governance, Cohesion Policy and Central European studies Professor Scott has participated in the establishment of the BRIT (Border Regions in Transition) network. Since 1999 he has coordinated several medium-size and large research consortia focusing on border studies and supported by the EU’s Framework Programmes, the European Science Foundation, the Finnish Academy and other sources. Presently he is coordinator of the GLASE project (Multilayered Borders of Global Security), funded by the Academy of Finland and is scientific coordinator of the Horizons 2020 project RELOCAL that investigates the role of the local level and local strategies in Cohesion and Territorial Development.