Speakers – Baltic Science Network

Andris Andrusaitis

Andris Andrusaitis is Acting Executive Director of BONUS EEIG and coordinator of the BANOS CSA building a joint Baltic Sea and North Sea R&I programme. Before joining BONUS in 2008, he was director of the Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology and head of Dept. Hydrobiology, University of Latvia. He assisted coordinating of the ICES/HELCOM Baltic Sea Region Programme and coordinated Latvian national research programme on impact of climate change on aquatic systems (KALME). Mr. Andrusaitis received his degree in hydrobiology (1987) from Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow.

Peter Berkowitz

Peter Berkowitz is Head of the Competence Centre for Smart and Sustainable Growth in the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy in the European Commission. This unit is responsible for smart specialization, just transition and regional investment in the digital economy, the environment, transport and climate change. From 2008 to 2016, he was Head of Unit for Policy Development, including the preparation and negotiation of the Commission’s proposals for the reform of Cohesion Policy 2014-2020. He holds an MPhil from Oxford and a DEA from Sciences Po, Paris.

Tilmann Bünz

Born 1957 in Hamburg, Tilmann Bünz is a German journalist, documentary filmmaker and book author. He started his journalistic career at the German public broadcaster ARD in 1988 and worked for the German main television news shows Tagesschau and Tagesthemen. From 2002 to 2008 he was ARD foreign correspondent and head of the Stockholm studio for Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Since 2008 Mr. Bünz has mainly been active as an author and achieved great success with books dealing with the Nordic and Baltic states and the Netherlands. Tilmann Bünz is a graduate of the German School of Journalism in Munich. (Fotocredit: Sara Arnald)

Katharina Fegebank

Since 2015 Katharina Fegebank is the Second Mayor and Minister of Science, Research, Equalities and Districts of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. She was a member of the Hamburg Parliament from 2011 to 2015, spokeswoman for European and International Affairs and Social Affairs for the Green party parliamentary group and Chairwoman of the Parliament’s Committee on Social Affairs, Integration and Employment. Since 2008 she is chairwoman of the Alliance 90/The Greens in Hamburg. From 1997 to 2002 Ms. Fegebank studied Political Science, English Literature and Public Law and received a master degree at the University of Freiburg.

Marcus Flatten

Marcus Flatten is co-founder and one of two managing directors of Mann beißt Hund. For more than twenty years, he has been advising companies and public institutions in the fields of education, science and health on communication and marketing issues. His clients include universities and other institutions of higher education, as well as continuing education providers, science regions or manufacturers of products for the school market. Marcus Flatten studied biology in Freiburg and came to communications in the 1990s via science and environmental journalism.

Kajsa M Paulsson

Kajsa M Paulsson leads a research group at Experimental Medical Science, Lund University focusing on antigen presentation. She is a board member of several institutes, for example the Lund Institute of Advanced X-ray and Neutron Sciences (LINXS), the Lund Protein Production Platform (LP3) and a panel member and consultant for a number of educational and infrastructure initiatives. Ms Paulsson is the project manager of the Hanseatic League of Science (HALOS) bringing together MAX IV, ESS, DESY and European XFEL, to create a centre for integrated, world-leading Life Science innovation and research.

Grzegorz Poznański

Grzegorz Poznański has been Director General of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) Permanent International Secretariat in Stockholm since 2020. He began his professional career in 1997 at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked in the fields of multilateral diplomacy and international security, including in the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Poland to the United Nations Office in Geneva. In 2010, he was appointed as the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Estonia and from 2017 to 2020 he served as Deputy Ambassador at the Polish Embassy to Lithuania. Mr. Poznański holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Warsaw. He also studied in Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei.

Signe Ratso

Signe Ratso is deputy director general at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. She previously was a director in the Directorate-General for Trade, in charge of general trade strategy for multilateral trade and mutual free trade agreements, as well as trade analysis and various industrial sectors, including energy. From 2007 to 2010, Ratso led a directorate dealing with the WTO and OECD, and the legal aspects of trade policy including WTO trade disputes and agriculture and fisheries. Ratso previously worked as deputy secretary general at the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

Jurgita Šiugždinienė

From 2003 – 2007, Minister of Education, Science and Sport Jurgita Šiugždinienė held the position of the advisor on Local Self-Government and Decentralisation isssues at the Regional Centre for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States under the United Nations Development Programme. After returning to Lithuania, up till 2009, she headed the Department of Public Administration of Kaunas University of Technology. From 2009 – 2012, Ms Šiugždinienė was Head of the Strategic Management Department of the Prime Minister‘s Office and later became the first vice-chancellor and chancellor. In 2013 – 2015, she headed the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of Kaunas University of Technology and later became vice-rector for studies and acting rector.

Klaus von Lepel

Since 2001 Klaus von Lepel is employed at the government of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. In 2007 he joined the Hamburg Ministry for Science, Research and Equalities. In 2011/12 he was seconded to the Foreign Office in Berlin as deputy head of the task force “German Baltic Sea Council Presidency 2011/2012”. In 2012 Mr. von Lepel became head of the unit “Research policy, Research Funding, Innovation, Transfer, Europe and International Affairs” at the Hamburg Ministry of Science, Research and Equalities. Since March 2016 he is also Project Director of the Baltic Science Network (BSN). Klaus von Lepel studied Law, Politics, History and Finno-Ugric Studies at the Universities of Göttingen, Helsinki, Freiburg and London.

Victor M. Smirnov

Deputy Director of International Department at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation