The EURA Governing Board has 19 members representing 15 countries: Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom. Here is a very brief profile of the members of the Governing Board.

Dubravka Jurlina Alibegovic
The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia
djurlina@eizg.hr

Dubravka Jurlina Alibegovic is a researcher and Head of Department for Public Sector at the Institute of Economics, Zagreb. She is co-coordinator, team leader and consultant in many projects and studies regarding budgeting and development at regional and local level, intergovernmental fiscal relations, local public finance, infrastructure financing, and financing of science and education. She is lecturer at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Sciences. Previously she worked as Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Science and Technology of Republic of Croatia

Rob Atkinson
University of the West of England, UK
rob.atkinson@uwe.ac.uk

Professor Rob Atkinson is based in the Cities Research Centre, School of the Built and Natural Environment, University of the West of England, Bristol. His research interests are primarily concerned with cross-national work on urban sustainability and regeneration, community participation in urban regeneration partnerships, urban social exclusion and European urban and spatial policy. He has presented papers and published on these issues throughout Europe.

Jens Dangschat
Vienna University of Technology, Austria
jens.dangschat@tuwien.ac.at

Prof Dr Jens Dangschat, Professor for Urban/Regional Sociology and Demography at the Vienna University of Technology in the Department of Spatial Development, Infrastructure and Environment Planning, since 2006 vice-director of the Department and head of the section of Sociology (ISRA). Research interests: social inequalities (new class structures, social milieux, lifestyles, scenes, networks), structural and cultural segregation patterns (poverty structures, gentification, creative industries), regulation forms (new public management, policy and discourse analysis, city management) and new roles of stakeholders in governance (of planners and social sciences, action research, new forms of communication), theory of space (social constructions and structural impacts, regulations), sustainable regional development (as a social discourse and guideline for spatial planning).

Bas Denters
University of Twente, The Netherlands
s.a.h.denters@utwente.nl

Bas Denters (1954) is full professor of Public Administration in the School for Management and Governance at the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands). He is Program Director for the master and bachelor programs in Public Administration. He is also extraordinary professor for Urban Policy and Urban Politics and scientific director of KISS (Expertise Centre for Urban Affairs). KISS is a joint initiative of the Province of Overijssel, the five major urban municipalities in this province, the University of Twente and other regional institutions of higher education, private organisations (from the business community and civil society). He is the convenor of the Standing Group on Local Politics and Government (LOGOPOL) of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). He has published on issues of urban governance, citizen involvement and local democracy.

Valeria Fedeli
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
vfedeli@polimi.it

Valeria Fedeli is Architect and is currently Researcher and Assistant professor at the Department of Architecture and Planning, Politecnico di Milano, since January 2007. PhD in Planning and Public policies, IUAV (2001; awarded with the ‘G. Ferraro’ prize for the best doctoral dissertation in Planning). She also holds an Advanced Master Degree in Planning at Politecnico di Milano (2001-2002). She has been Post-doc research fellow at Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris in 2003, exploring institutional innovation and decentralizing policies in France.Her research activities focus on governance, metropolitan and territorial planning, strategic planning. In particular her recent research focus has been on strategic approaches to urban planning; inter-municipal cooperation as a way to treat the weakness of territorial planning in Italy; a governance perspective, as a way to interact with the difficult but promising process of construction of EU spatial policies: processes of territorial transformation and challenges to the field of urban and territorial policies; governance forms and knowledge production in urban and environmental policies; the role of new emerging urban actors: universities.

Panos Getimis
Panteion University, Greece
pget@panteion.gr

Panagiotis Getimis is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the department of Economic and Regional Development at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Athens). He was Vice-Vector of Panteion University (1993-1998) and Director of Research Institute of Urban Environment and Human Resources at Panteion University (1996-2007). He was Visiting Professor at the universities of Oxford (2004), Manchester (2008) and Darmstadt (2009-2010). He has been actively researching on urban policy, planning systems, territorial governance and local government for over twenty years and has published widely on these topics.

Robin Hambleton
University of the West of England, UK
robin.hambleton@uwe.ac.uk

Robin Hambleton is: Professor of City Leadership in the Faculty of Environment and Technology at the University of the West of England, Bristol.  He was the founding President of EURA, serving as President from 1997-2002.  From 2002-2007 he was Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Robin has wide experience of city leadership and change management in local government in several countries. His most recent book, co-edited with Jill Simone Gross, is ‘Governing Cities in a Global Era.  Urban Innovation, Competition and Democratic Reform’ (Palgrave, 2007).   Robin also directs his own company: Urban Answers – www.urbananswers.co.uk

Hubert Heinelt (EURA President)
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
heinelt@pg.tu-darmstadt.de

Hubert Heinelt is a political scientist and is currently Professor of Public Administration, Public Policy and Urban Research at the Institute for Political Science, Darmstadt University of Technology. He was the dean of the School for History and Social Sciences between April 2005 and March 2009 and is now student dean of the faculty. He has been actively researching on public policy (especially labor market policy), the EU multi-level system and urban issues for over twenty years and has published widely on these topics.

Nikos Hlepas
University of Athens, Greece
nhlepas@gmail.com

Professor Dr. Nikolaos-Komninos Hlepas studied law at the National University of Athens. Post-graduate studies in Germany, Ph.D. Thesis on “Differential Legal Status of Large and Small Communities” at the University of Bremen. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Athens, School of Law, Economic and Political sciences, Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration. He has published several books and articles on local government, administrative reforms, public law, environmental law, city planning and aliens law. He participated in several national, European and international research projects.
He has been a member and, later, the director of the legal department of the Greek Council for Refugees, a partner of UNHCR in Greece. He has been a member of the National Committee for Human Rights and of the Scientific Board at the National School of Administration and Local Government. He is a member of the scientific board at the Institute for Local Government since 1996. Since May 2010, he is the Chairman of the National School of Administration and Local Government.

Mervi Ilmonen
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
mervi.ilmonen.hut.fi

Mervi, Ilmonen, Senior Research Fellow in Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, a multidisciplinary research institute which also provides postgraduate tuition and further education for planners.  She has a background in social policy, human geography and urban planning.  She is a long time editor of the Finnish Journal of Urban Studies, the main scientific urban research journal in Finland.  She has been co-ordinating the PhD program in Urban and Planning Studies, a joint program of HUT and Helsinki University and has therefore an interest in researchers training and mobility issues.  She has researched and written in the field of urban policy, housing policy, social exclusion, differentiation, urban culture and cultural planning. Lately she has been researching the new urban professionals and the impact of new technology in the differentiation between areas.  Other key research interests relate to urban theory. She is also interested in gender issues.

Jan Erling Klausen
Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Norway
jan.e.klausen@nibr.no

Jan Erling Klausen is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) in Oslo. A full-time researcher since 1994, he received his Dr. rer. pol. in political science in 2004. Jan Erling’s main research interests relate to the fields of local government studies, regional development and Climate Change governance. In recent years he has increasingly been involved in European comparative research, as a national team leader in two EU framework projects (PLUS and G-FORS) as well as in co-ordinating a bid for framework 7. He is Practice Editor for the journal “Urban Research and Practice”.

Christian Lefèvre
LATTS-Université Paris Est Marne, France
christian.lefevre@univ-mlv.fr

Christian Lefèvre is Director of the French Institute of Urban Studies (IFU) in the University of Paris-East and Professor of Urban Government and Policies. He has been working on issues of urban government and governance and strategies in France and in Europe for the French ministry of Public Works, the City of Paris, the Region Ile-de-France, the European Commission, the European Science Foundation (ESF) and many other international (OECD, United Nations, Inter-American Development Bank) and foreign organizations and local governments (Italy, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, etc). His major interests concern the issues of urban public policies and politics, development strategies and the
international relations of cities.

Jacob Norvig Larsen
Danish Building and Urban Research, Denmark
jnl@sbi.dk

Jacob Norvig Larsen is Senior Researcher at Danish Building and Urban Research. He has a background in human geography and business economics. He is specialised in the study of participation, organisational learning, innovation and production of knowledge in commercial organisations as well as public organisations and NGOs. Currently his main fields of research are urban industrial development, urban planning, and integrated approaches to urban regeneration.

Cristiana Rossignolo
Politecnico e Universita di Torino, Italy
cristiana.rossignolo@polito.it

Cristiana Rossignolo is Senior Researcher in Urban and Regional Geography at the 2nd Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Turin, where she teaches ‘Local development’ and ‘Geography of the territorial development’. She has a PhD in Spatial Planning and Real Estate Market at the Polytechnic of Turin. She works at the research centre EU-POLIS sistemi urbani europei. Her main research interests are European urban policies, networks of cities, problems connected with urban and spatial development, integrated approach to urban regeneration.

Paula Russell
University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland
paula.russell@ucd.ie

Paula Russell is a College Lecturer in the Department of Regional and Urban Planning, University College Dublin with a background in planning practice, geography and sociology. Her teaching responsibilities are focused on the social context of planning and I have responsibility for the co-ordination of a specialized study focusing on community planning. Her research interests lie in the area of urban regeneration including the community impacts of urban regeneration and the place of regeneration in the wider process of urban governance. Other key research interests relate to planning and social exclusion. Completed projects include: the Irish volume of the European Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems for the European Commission and an integrated study of Galway city as part of the European Foundation for Living and Working Condition’s work on medium sized cities. Current research projects include, a study of the provision of homeless services and their relationship with the Irish planning system and a study on residents’ associations, neighbourhood and community development.

Inés Sànchez de Madariaga
Universidad Politenica de Madrid, Spain
i.smadariaga@upm.es or ismadariaga@telefonica.net

Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, Architect, MSc. Columbia University, NY, PhD. Polytechnic University of Madrid Director, Women and Science Unit, Cabinet of the Minister, Ministry of Science and Innovation.Professor of Urban Planning at the Madrid School of Architecture.Ex Fulbright grantee.She has been Visiting Scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, at Columbia University in NY, and Jean Monnet Visiting Professor at the Weimar-Bauhaus School of ArchitectureShe has been Deputy General Director for Architecture and Executive Adviser to the Spanish Minister of Housing.Founder and Director of the first Spanish Research Group on Gender, Planning and Architecture, at the Madrid School of Architecture.

Pawel Swianiewicz
University of Warsaw, Poland
pswian@uw.edu.pl

Pawel Swianiewicz (PhD in economics, MA and PhD in economic geography) is currently a professor at University of Warsaw (Poland), Chair of Department of Local Development and Policy, where he teaches courses on comparative local government politics, local government finance and urban economics. He is also an advisor of Polish President, advising on local government issues. Between  2005 and 2010 he was the President of the European Urban Research Association (EURA). Since 2006 he has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Local Government and Public Service Initiative (LGI) programme of the Open Society Institute. His research focuses on decentralization, local politics and policy-making in local governments, with a special focus on comparative analysis of Central and East European countries. He has been extensively involved as a consultant of British DFID, Council of Europe, UNDP and Open Society Institute projects in several countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Iván Tosics
Metropolitan Research Institute, Hungary
tosics@mri.hu

Iván Tosics (1952) is one of the principals of Metropolitan Research Institute (MRI), Budapest. He is mathematician and sociologist (PhD) with long experience in urban sociology, strategic development, housing policy and EU regional policy issues. He has published widely on these subjects and participated in a wide range of national and international research projects. He is vice chair of the European Network of Housing Research (ENHR), executive committee member of the European Urban Research Association (EURA) and member of the HS-NET Advisory Board to UN-HABITAT. He is the Policy Editor of the journal ‘Urban Research and Practice’, member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the ‘Journal of Housing and the Built Environment’ and for ‘Housing Studies’. He represents the Municipality of Budapest in EUROCITIES, as chair of the Economic Development Forum in 2007 and 2008 and as member of the Executive Committee since 2009. He participated in the preparation of the Rehabilitation Strategy of Budapest, and he was the leader of a consortium working on the medium and long term Urban Development Strategy of Budapest.