Dr. Bernardita Cárdenas, Director

Dr. Bernardita Cárdenas has more than 21 years of experience in evaluation consulting, technology, research and business development. She also has experience across a wide number of policy areas, including research and innovation, information society, RTD commercialisation, education, general economic development, civil society, human rights and democracy.

She is member of the core team of the frontierCities Accelerator, a project financed by the FP7 programme in the frame of the FIWARE Programme of the EU. She is regularly invited to be part of the reviewing experts for the different programmes of DG CONNECT, as well as part of the evaluators of the LIFE programme. Bernardita was a member of the core team that undertook the mid-term evaluation of the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN2), one of the EU's most strategic initiatives in the Asian region and was involved in undertaking a series of monitoring reviews for NGOs across Europe. She has particular experience in working with RTD projects on their commercialisation approach, and in organising focussed investment and partnering match-making between venture capital investors and high-tech companies as part of pan-European investment programmes. Recent experience also includes development of a sales database for a mid-size European professional services firm and working as an expert assessor for the EU on evaluation NGO proposals in the context of civil society. Dr. Cárdenas has undertaken baseline analysis and expenditure review as part of a monitoring review of the FP6 Research and Innovation Work Programme of the FP6 and FP7 programmes. Dr. Cárdenas played a key role in the team undertaking the Energy2B project and equally in an ILO-IPEC project.